Weekly Pursuit – Week 5 of December
Verses:
John 21:16 “He said to him again a second time, Simon, son of John, do you love Me? He said to Him, Yes, Lord, You know that I love You. He said to him, Shepherd My sheep.
Excerpts:
In Ephesians 4:12 “the perfecting of the saints” is primarily a matter of feeding. Only with the proper feeding can there be the proper perfecting, and only then can the saints be equipped and perfected. As soon as we hear of anyone sick or of anyone encountering problems, we must be concerned for him, pray for him, and go to visit him. The impact that this little bit of concern, prayer, and visiting affords is far more powerful than ten messages. Care can touch people’s feeling in a far deeper way than messages can.
If you have a heart for the Lord, from now on you should strive to redeem every bit of time to contact people. Care for the saints one by one. Do not hope to contact too many people all at once. The most effective way is the slow and sure way. If we only have preaching and do not have this care and concern, the words preached will have only a limited effect upon people. But after we care for people in this way, when they come to listen to us, the words they hear will have twice as much effect on them. Another important thing to do is to contact people before and after the meetings. If we would go and talk to the people after a message, the results would be twice as great as our present results. But if we merely preach without contacting people, the results will be half as great, and our words are liable to be empty and impractical. Only when we contact others do we know where they are.
[We] must learn how to care for people, how to contact people, how to visit and shepherd people, and even how to teach people face to face. This will produce great and lasting effects. Outwardly, we will not have the façade of a big meeting to show off, but actually, hundreds and thousands will be cared for. (A Timely Trumpeting and the Present Need, ch. 4)
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