Serving

The opposite of genuine is false. He who pretends is not genuine. Genuineness forms one’s foundation and base. A person who is not genuine is baseless and cannot be entrusted with great responsibilities. Genuineness in character is the ability to sacrifice for others. Merely to be an honest person is not sufficient; one must be genuine. One who is not genuine may be welcomed by others initially, but the welcome will not last.

Whereas our words represent our person, our character is our very person. A person’s usefulness, the things that can be entrusted to him, the responsibilities he can bear, and the things he is able to accomplish altogether depend on his character. A carpenter determines the use of a piece of wood based on its quality. Laziness ruins one’s usefulness. Accordingly, character has very much to do with the Lord’s service.

The personal life of a worker of the Lord is intimately related to his work. Therefore, we have to consider matters of character, habit, and conduct when considering the qualifications necessary to be in God's employment. This relates to the constitution of character and the formation of habits.

The daily life of a Christian worker often determines whether he is qualified for the Lord's work. Some young people manifest qualities that give you the confident expectation that they will develop into useful servants of Christ. From the very beginning, they give others the impression that they are good seeds and that they will blossom and bring forth fruit.

Prayer: Lord Jesus, we love You, and we treasure Your word. Lead us into Your word. Let us meet, touch, enjoy, and gain You in it. Be with us again this morning in this meeting. We pray that You will open Yourself to us so that every day we can pick up what You want us to learn here. We want to be like Paul who said that he had learned the secret.

“God said, Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of heaven and over the cattle and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth. And God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.

“You shall take fine flour and bake twelve cakes with it; two-tenths of an ephah shall be in each cake. And you shall set them in two rows, six in a row, on the table of pure gold before Jehovah” (Lev. 24:5-6). We know that this table is the table of the bread of the Presence. This part of the Word tells us that on the table there were twelve cakes in two rows and that every cake was of two-tenths of an ephah.

“Moreover if your brother sins against you, go, reprove him between you and him alone. If he hears you, you have gained your brother. But if he does not hear you, take with you one or two more, that by the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established. And if he refuses to hear them, tell it to the church; and if he refuses to hear the church also, let him be to you just like the Gentile and the tax collector.

The Bible contains a most lofty and spiritual prayer. But few people pray this prayer, and few pay attention to it. What is this prayer? It is the “prayer of authority.” We know that there are prayers of praise, prayers of thanksgiving,