gain. And as he greeted her he said quietly, "My dear,
you did as I said, didn't you? The fever's gone."

Gideon's Band: Sifted for Service.

God Wants the Best.
God's Use of Weak Things.
Call for Volunteers.
A Willing People.
Courageous Volunteers.
Irresistible Logic.
Hot Hearts.
God Still Sifting.

Gideon's Band: Sifted for Service.

(1 Corinthians i:18-31; Judges vi and vii.)

God Wants the Best.

Salvation is for all. Service is for those chosen for it. All _may_ serve.
That all do not is simply because service requires qualities which all do
not have. Yet, again, all may have them who will, for the required
qualities are _heart qualities_. And every one of us can cultivate the
heart qualities. There is special service, chiefly of leadership,
requiring brain qualities as well as heart. But the Master attends to the
choosing of men for such service.

And where His spirit has touched human hearts there will be a glad doing
of just what service He appoints. It will be an honor to do just what He
asks because He asks. What it may happen to be will be a small matter in
itself. It is for Him, at His desire, and that is full enough to bring out
the best we have.

Our old Tarsus and Antioch friend and leader has written a special word
about this matter of being chosen for service. It is in his first letter
to the recently organized church at Corinth. It is really his second
letter, for he seems to have written one before it that has not been
preserved.[23] There were some very serious matters in this new church
requiring strong treatment by its much-loved founder. Among them was one
about service.

There were some who had gifts in service that seemed more attractive and
desirable than others had, it might be said more showy. And their
brethren, not free from the old worldly spirit, were envious and jealous.
And these who had such gifts were not free from a boasting spirit.
Factions or parties had arisen as a result. It was the bad world spirit of
competition and rivalry in among Christ's followers where it should never
come, yet where it still does come. In writing this letter Paul throughout
blends great plainness and common sense with great tenderness.

In the beginning of his letter he calls attention to the fact that there
are not many among them of those who were reckoned by the world's
standards as wise or mighty or noble. On the contrary, in choosi