FROM THE CHURCH

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 15, Issue 91, 4 September 1950, Page 6

FROM THE CHURCH

Saved To Serve! KNOX CHURCH, WHAKATANE Had David had the opportunity—through living in a later age—he doubtless would have become a Rotarian whose motto, "Service before self" would greatly have appealed to him. For him faith in God meant something active and the gifts with which he was endowed were directed in their use to the help of others.

He could use a sling while only a youth. Others were happy enough to make this exercise recreation only. David, with his accuracy dedicated, defeated Goliath who had defied the armies of God's people and made his skill of the greatest posible service to King Saul and -to the Kingdom. David could/ play the harp and the Bible shows how the ministry of this music brought calm to the disordered mind of the King. His music was of the most real music. Then what of the Psalms he wrote? What -myriads of people since his day have been helped in life's gladdest, deepest, sadder moments by David's expression in song! Last week or thereby there lay in hospital an aged patient whose powers of life were all but spent. There was not much awareness of present happiness for weakness can be an exhausting burden. As there was spoken to him the undying message of the Twenty-, third Psalm he most obviously found strengthening and peace in those words that have comforted numberless believers at life's passing. "Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil for Thou art with me." What service to mankind is in David's Psalms! We find this man David later come to his Kingdom and safe from the enmity that had hunted him through Judea hills as though he were a dog, looking round him to see if there were no left someone of soul's house to whom he could show kindness for the sake of Jonathan, son of the King who hunted him, but his covenanted friend. In the second book of Samuel at chapter 9 we read this story. David is secure and may rejoice in his condition but he will not use it selfishly and so he brings under his protection the crippled son of his friend Jonathan. And all this to bring out the point that if we are saved in the Christian sense we must serve. Our belief in Christ cannot rightly be the clutching of our passport for Heaven. Our coming to the House of God for worship must not be a matter of keeping our own petty souls safe and comfortable. < We have been saved through the sacrifice of Christ's Cross and we are brought into a service in which we must "work out our salvation." It is more that "■service before self." As sacred people we are humbly grateful for our salvation, and in thankfulness for it must serve. Let us first be sure that He is our Saviour and that He has freed us from the bondage of sin, then let us serve Him with gratitude and devotion actively to the end, for we are saved to serve.