"18 As you sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. 19 And for their sake I consecrate myself, that they also may be sanctified in truth."
John 17:18-19
We can usefully pause at these verses for another day to consider some of the things that are said elsewhere about the service we are to render Christ. We have seen that discipleship means embracing the cross as the principle of our lives, and this is borne out in the way in which Christian service is described in other parts of Scripture. Jesus once said, for example, to the disciples: 'Come ye after Me, and I will make you to become fishers of men'. The basis of service here is the personal relationship we are called into with Christ. It is not a question of possessing natural, or even spiritual gifts, but of submitting ourselves to the iron discipline of the cross, letting its heart-bruising message plough deep furrows in our hearts and lives, allowing Him to shape and fashion us and mould us into usefulness. Elsewhere, He speaks of our being labourers in the harvest fields (Matthew 9:38). The terms of reference here are very significant. Jesus was moved with compassion, seeing the multitudes as sheep without a shepherd, and it was on the basis of this that He said, 'Pray ye the Lord of the harvest'. Compassion, prayer - these are the needs, seeing humanity with the eyes of Christ. But we cannot do this unless we are where He is, unless we are in fundamental harmony with His heart and spirit. Only thus can we labour in His harvest fields. To stand among men in their needs, and to close one's heart of compassion against them, is not to be in the world as Christ was in the world. Then, again, in 2 Corinthians 5, Paul speaks of our being 'ambassadors for Christ'. Here, the great constraint and the great controlling power is the love of Christ. We are to go as ambassadors of a great reconciliation, beseeching men to be reconciled to God on the basis of His costly atonement for our sins. This is how Christ sends us - under the constraint of His love, living no longer unto ourselves but unto Him. In all these the one common factor is: 'bearing in the body the marks of the Lord Jesus'. This is the condition of service, and unless it is fulfilled, service will be in vain.