hat Christian people on the earth
represent Christ's spiritual body. As the natural body possesses many
members--hands, feet, eyes, ears, nose, etc.--each having its own
special work, just so the spiritual body of which He (Christ) is the
head has many members to carry on the Lord's work on the earth. And, as
in the human body, each member has its own work to do; similarly, in the
spiritual body, each member has his own work to perform. Some preach,
some teach, some perform miracles, some (perhaps all) pray for the sick,
and some do various other things, each as he is directed; but all work
in harmony. The members are all assigned their work and places in the
body by the directions of the heavenly Father.
From reading the second chapter of Acts, John found that soon after
Christ ascended to heaven God sent His Holy Spirit to the earth to
superintend the work of the members of His Son's spiritual body, or
saved people, and that this same Holy Spirit is still guiding and
helping them. He also read in I John 2:15--"Love not the world, neither
the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love
of the Father is not in him."
By reading further in the apostle John's epistle, John discovered that
there are many false spirits in the world that are trying to deceive
God's people and that it is often necessary to try the spirits to know
which is right. He saw that the test is love. If anyone loves God and
His Son, Jesus, more than anything else in the world, and feels as much
interest in his neighbor's welfare as in his own, that one can be sure
that he is God's own child. And Paul's letter to the Ephesians tells of
an armor that God has prepared for His people to wear that will enable
them to overcome all false spirits.
A Sunday-school was soon started in the neighborhood and John was
chosen to be the teacher of the infant class. At first he tried to plead
his inability, but no one would listen to his excuses. He was glad
afterward; for he learned to love the little ones very dearly. While he
was meeting with the children Sunday after Sunday, he often thought of
many of the hard places through which he had passed when he was a child
and remembered that it was because he had not been warned that he had,
one step at a time, gone down until he was in misery and on the verge of
despair. So John sought to throw light on each one of these dangerous
places and to point out the dangers so clearly that the children
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