The suggestion is this: all ministry for the Master must be possessed of the sacrificial spirit of the Master. If Paul is to help in the redemption of Rome, he must himself incarnate the death of Calvary. If he is to be a minister of Life, he must “die daily” (1 Corinthians 15:31 KJV). The spirit of Calvary is to be reincarnate in Ephesus, in Athens, in Rome . . . the sacrificial succession is to be maintained through the ages, and we are to “fill up in [our] flesh what is still lacking in regard to Christ’s afflictions.”

Here, then, is a principle: the gospel of a broken heart demands the ministry of bleeding hearts. As soon as we cease to bleed, we cease to bless. When our sympathy loses its pangs, we can no longer be the servants of the Passion. I do not know how any Christian service is to be fruitful if the servant is not primarily baptized in the spirit of a suffering compassion. We can never heal the needs we do not feel. Tearless hearts can never be the heralds of the Passion. We must bleed if we would be the ministers of the saving blood. We must, by our own suffering sympathies, “fill up in [our] flesh what is still lacking in regard to Christ’s afflictions.”

Are we in the succession? J. H. JOWETT

Ignatius said, when facing the lions in the arena, “I am a grain of God. Let me be ground between the teeth of lions if I may thus become bread to feed God’s people.” Were such martyred lives wasted? Thrown away? Is any life wasted that becomes seed-corn to produce bread for the world?

The way to make nothing of our lives is to be very careful of them. The way to make our lives an eternal success is to do with them just what Christ did with His.

Watch the opportunities to “fill up . . . what is still lacking in regard to Christ’s afflictions.” How many of us can show Him wounds that worship Him? SEED THOUGHTS CALENDAR