Holiness And Service

"Sanctified, and meet for the Master's use" (II Tim. 2:21).

God's method for producing the state of Christian holiness is, to sanctify his believing children wholly. This grace is obtained by faith; and by faith alone. The believer's preparation for the exercise of the faith by which God sanctifies wholly is our entire consecration. When our all is on the altar, we look up in humble trust and God sanctifies truly, or wholly.

Our consecration to God for Christian holiness is not primarily unto service. Holiness is a great love-covenant between the individual and the Lord which centers in a supreme loyalty, not to a cause or a work primarily, but to a person. The personal element in our relation to Christ in full salvation is one of the most beautiful and challenging facts involved in it. It is complete devotion to, and perfect love for Christ himself. The result of this personal covenant and relationship however, is complete devotion to his service.

Holiness furnishes the believer the motive power for sustained Christian activity. When our entire living is in the spirit of dedication and devotion to Christ, it becomes our delight to do always the things that please him. Service to the point of sacrifice is sweet when motivated by perfect love. It is very often true that experience of holiness brings to the front in human personalities gifts and possibilities in the realm of service which were unrecognized before. It also brings the individual a freedom and power in service which can be obtained from no other source and in no other way.

Mrs. C. H. Morris, the writer of so many of our best modern songs in the Holiness Movement, discovered her gift and responded in this realm of service after she obtained the gracious grace of holiness of heart. The latent powers are often brought to the front and the individual puts in his or her best in the exercise for the glory of God. Let no one who is in possession of this gracious grace refuse to enter any providentially opened door for service. It does not become one who is wholly the Lord's, ever to say when duty calls, "I cannot do it." It becomes us rather to say, "I will do the very best that I can, trusting in God as my strength." "I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me" (Phil. 4:13).

This blessing in its illuminating effect upon mind and heart envisions its possessors with regard to human needs and divine provisions, until a holy urge possesses all who are enjoying the blessing to accomplish real things for God. Not only is the vision clarified, but the heart is fired with holy passion so that a wholly sanctified individual will see, in some measure, depending possibly upon his natural gifts, the world's need as Jesus sees it and will feel toward that need something like God felt when John 3:16 was born in his infinite nature.

We will share the sufferings of Jesus and be moved to holy activity by the passion of love that fills every part of our being when our cleansed temple is filled with divine love. How we need holy passion in Christian activity. The absence of this means coldness and death in the service of God. Its presence means fervency and aggressive action. It is one of the glories of Christian holiness that it carries in its own content experientially the elements which serve to propagate it.

It is unthinkable that any one should possess this grace and have the divine love shed abroad in his heart by the Holy Spirit and fail to have deep concern for the welfare of others, both in the salvation of sinners and ill the spreading of the truth and experience of entire sanctification. It is not uncommon in the early stages of this experience for its possessors to start out with an idea that they are just about going to change the whole situation in their church or community as Soon as they can reach individuals to tell them what has happened to them. Alas, all such are soon disillusioned and have to recognize that God has a great many others working at the task for a long time and that they will have to learn to pull steadily and take their place as abiding witnesses and at best only win trophies from the masses rather than stirring to action the multitudes.

When I first received this grace, I felt as though I could go out and right every wrong, turn the world upside-down and get rid of all its dirt and turn it right side up and have it as it ought to be in about thirty days. This is a fair expression of the zeal that possessed me. I thought surely every one in the church would quickly want what I possessed when I witnessed to them. I shared of course with all others who have started out in the white heat of passion with the expectation that multitudes would immediately seek and enter, the experience that some failed to understand, others turned a cold shoulder, while still others took a pitying attitude and some openly criticized. Thank God there were those who were glad to hear the good news and expressed hunger for the blessing.

In spite of the facts just named, it is nevertheless true that the vision and passion given one in the blessing of entire sanctification is essential to furnish us with motives and power for sustained Christian activity, and after one is disillusioned regarding rapid successes and large immediate results, he nevertheless is possessed of the passion which makes him alive to the embrace of every opportunity to help men to God, and he undertakes things he never would undertake without the holy urge that this experience gives.