Filled Even When Feel Empty

MINISTRY

By the Editor: Carrie F. Judd (Montgomery)

Triumphs of Faith 2:11 (Nov. 1882)

To obtain great spiritual blessings for ourselves we must pour out our souls for others. There is a form of spiritual selfishness which keeps us so conscious of our own needs that, in seeking spiritual supplies for ourselves, we become almost oblivious of the needs of others, and forget the apostle’s injunction, “Let no man seek his own, but every man another’s wealth.”- (1 Cor.10:24).

            We often feel justified in this selfishness by the argument that we cannot help others without first being filled ourselves. While in one sense this is true, yet as those who walk by faith and not by sight, we must take by faith our position in Christ, claiming that He is to us each moment all we need, for in Him are “hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge,” and then out of His abundant wealth which we thus claim because He has given Himself to us, we must by faith dispense to others. God tells us in His Word that if we draw out our soul to the hungry, and satisfy the afflicted soul, then shall our light rise in obscurity and our darkness be a the noon-day. - (Isa. 58:10).

            Human wisdom would tell us first to fill ourselves before we try to fill others; Divine wisdom takes her stand as already filled, by faith in Christ’s fullness, and realizes that as she gives to others of this hidden wealth it shall be made manifest. The promise goes on, “And the Lord shall guide thee continually, and satisfy thy soul in drought and make fat thy bones and thou shalt be like a watered garden and like a spring of waters, whose waters fail not.”- (Isa. 58:11). Guided, as, by faith in our Guide, we guide others; satisfied, as, by faith, we satisfy the afflicted souls around us; made fat, as we give of Christ’s overflowing fullness to those who seem even less needy than ourselves, until at last we are no longer conscious of receiving the former, and latter rains moderately, but our souls become like watered gardens and like springs of never-failing water. Filled continually, as by faith we pour out continually. Beloved, let us in all our service, in the ministry of prayer as well as in work or exhortation, be like the Son of Man Who came not to be ministered unto, but to minister and to give His life a ransom for many. Then shall we stand with Him, our great High Priest, in our office of royal Priesthood, “consecrated for evermore.”

To read how this article inspired my own contemplations surrounding Isaiah 58 and breakthrough living see Needing a Breakthrough? 

Article transcribed by Jennifer Miskov and kept in its original form. ©Jennifer Miskov

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