Parables of the Christ-life | Page 8

the plant, before the inwrought life is free for
use. There is a breaking-up and a breaking-down such as it never had
before. Such brittleness comes as the seed ripens that it is almost
impossible to pick some of the stems without cracking them in two or
three places. The ripened seed-vessels share the same brittleness: you
can hardly touch them without the whole crown falling to pieces in
your hand.
Conscious weakness, as a preparation for service, is one thing:
brokenness is another. We may know that we are but earthen pitchers,
like Gideon's, with nothing of our own but the light within, and yet we
may not have passed through the shattering that sheds the light forth.
This does not mean something vague or imaginary, but intensely
practical. Read the description that Paul gives of the life of

ministry--the apostolic life--and see what it is to be a shattered
seed-vessel; it is no dreamy experience in the clouds!
"Let a man so account of us, as of the ministers of Christ, and stewards
of the mysteries of God... . We are made a spectacle to the world, and
to angels, and to men. We are fools for Christ's sake, but ye are wise in
Christ; we are weak, but ye are strong; ye are honourable, but we are
despised. Even unto this present hour we both hunger and thirst and are
naked and have no certain dwelling-place. And labour, working with
our own hands: being reviled, we bless; being persecuted, we suffer it,
being defamed, we intreat; we are made as the filth of the world, and
are the offscouring of all things unto this day."
"Seeing we have this ministry, as we have received mercy, we faint
not... . But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency
of the power may be of God, and not of us. We are troubled on every
side, yet not distressed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted,
but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed; always bearing about in
the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be
made manifest in our body. For we which live are alway delivered unto
death for Jesus' sake, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest
in our mortal flesh."
"In all things approving ourselves as the ministers of God, in much
patience, in afflictions, in necessities, in distresses, in stripes, in
imprisonments, in tumults, in labours, in watchings, in fastings. ... By
honour and dishonour, by evil report and good report: as deceivers and
yet true; as unknown and yet well known; as dying, and behold we live;
as chastened and not killed; as sorrowful, yet alway rejoicing; as poor,
yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing all
things."
"Are they ministers of Christ? (I speak as a fool) I am more; in labours
more abundant, in stripes above measure, in prisons more frequent, in
deaths oft. Of the Jews five times received I forty stripes save one.
Thrice was I beaten with rods, once was I stoned, thrice I suffered
shipwreck, a night and a day I have been in the deep; in journeyings
often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils by mine own

countrymen, in perils by the heathen, in perils in the city, in perils in
the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren; in
weariness and painfulness, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in
fastings often, in cold and nakedness. Besides those things that are
without, that which cometh upon me daily, the care of all the
churches... . I take pleasure in infirmities, in necessities, in persecutions,
in distresses for Christ's sake: for when I am weak, then am I strong."
Do you notice that in each passage these are given as the marks of
"ministry"? Such were what Paul found to be the conditions of spiritual
power. Their absence among us may account for its absence too! Oh!
how little we know of them in the midst of the spirit of luxury that is
around us in the world and of the easy-going Christianity of the Church!
We cannot all be honoured by our service finding the same outward
expression as his, in its bodily stress and suffering, but is there among
us even a seeking after its spirit?
"This is sacrifice, 'death in us, life in you.'--In us, emptiness, weakness,
suffering, pressure, perplexity. In you life--life--life! As if Paul would
say, 'the more I am pressed above measure, the more the life of Jesus is
abundant in its outflow, and in its quickening of other lives.' This is the
apostolic life. Through the Eternal Spirit, Christ offered Himself to God.
Through the