Working Together With Christ

Working Together With Christ

The ministry begins immediately after we have been born again, but we can only be said to be fellow workers together with Christ after a while. As far as the work of ministry is concerned, we only need to hear His command. Of course we obey it gladly without understanding it. On the other hand, it is our understanding of it that makes us into fellow workers who stand in His secret counsels. In other words, it is our personal, conscious knowledge of His laws, the laws by which He Himself works that is important in this context.

One of these fundamental laws is this: the precondition for our work of intervention in an individual’s life must exist in the person himself and not just in the fellow worker’s personal light and zeal. It is good that the fellow worker sees that the person needs something or other in a given area. However, this is only the least of reasons for intervening.

The crucial question is whether the person himself has the desire to have something done about it, whether this particular moment is the fullness of time for it. Otherwise the fellow worker attends to God’s work by simply suffering patiently in all quietness, acting as if nothing happened.

It could have been an advantage for many if it depended only on the fellow worker. It would turn out to be for everyone’s best if all you needed was a zealous fellow worker—even for those whom the Maser could not form into a vessel of honor. In this way all those would be saved who otherwise, according to Jesus’ word, would be lost.

When the work is not in agreement with the individual’s free will and conscience, then such a person has been taken advantage of and the work is in vain (2 Cor. 7:2), reaping cursing instead of blessings. He is being deprived of his liberty, which is unjust, even though you can see that he is using his liberty poorly.

Therefore: it is necessary to see what the individual is lacking; but the most important thing is to be able to decide whether the person concerned is open to receiving instruction, and if so, when.

It can be said that on average this does not happen often.