◄ Personal Influence ►

  I proclaim not myself, but Christ Jesus as Lord and Master, and myself your bondsman for the sake of Jesus " (2 Cor. 4:5, Cony.).

All Christians are fit for heaven, but all too few are fit for earth. One of the true tests of one's spiritual growth is in one's influence: affecting others that they not only begin the Christian life but "grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ" (2 Peter 3:18).

"We may be separated and yet not Christ-like; we may be orthodox and yet not spiritual; we may be dead unto sin' and yet not alive unto God.' We may have cut ourselves loose from every form of worldliness but in so doing we have become critical and self-righteous. We may be loyal defenders of the faith, yea, ready even to lay down our lives for it and in so doing become bitter and unloving."

"We may often have a measure of the power of the Spirit, but if there is not a large measure of the Spirit as the Spirit of grace and love, the defect will be manifest  in our work. We may be made the means of conversion, but we will never help people on to a higher standard of spiritual life, and when we pass away a great deal of our work will pass away too." -A.M.

"One may have a great zeal in God's service, and may be used to influence many for good, and yet, when weighed in the balance of love, be found sadly wanting. In the heat of controversy or under unjust criticism, haste of temper, slowness to forgive and forget, quick words and sharp judgments, often reveal an easily wounded sensitiveness, which proves how little the Spirit of the Lord Jesus has full possession or real mastery of the life." -A.M.

"We have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us" (2 Cor. 4:7).