«　WEEK 4　DAY 1　»

　　Matt. 24:45-46 Who then is the faithful and prudent slave, whom the master has set over his household to give them food at the proper time? Blessed is that slave whom his master, when he comes, will find so doing.

　　In what way should we be faithful in the service? What shall we do? First, in Matthew 24:45-51...the Lord charged us, commissioned us, to minister something to His household, that is, to the believers in the church. According to verse 45, what we minister is food…. At the proper time we have to minister food, the life supply, to the Lord’s people. Do not say that others have a gift of teaching to teach you the Word of God and minister spiritual food to you but that you do not have such a gift. There is not such a thought here. All of the Lord’s servants received the gift for their commission. (CWWL, 1985, vol. 5, “The Way to Practice the Lord’s Present Move,” pp. 514-515)

　　Whoever serves food knows the proper time. If you are serving food every day, you have to make breakfast, lunch, and dinner. To buy a cup of coffee and a doughnut for breakfast is the lazy way. If we are like this in the spiritual realm, we will be poor slaves to minister the life supply to the master’s folks at the proper time. The proper time in the morning is breakfast. Also, good wives prepare the best sandwiches for their husbands to bring to the office for lunch at the proper time and are accustomed to preparing a big dinner for their family.

　　In like manner, whenever we meet together, this is one of the proper times, the appointed times, for you to minister the proper food to the Lord’s folks…. If I did not labor adequately in the Word and came to speak to you, I would just be ministering to you “a cup of coffee and some doughnuts.” To cook a nourishing, good breakfast, requires your diligence. According to the context of this parable, the faithful one is the diligent one. Faithful here equals diligent….We must be diligent in seeking the Word so that we could prepare to serve good food when we come to the meeting. The eating time is the proper time, and the meeting time is the proper time….The meeting times are the proper times when we all have to minister some portion of the life supply to our folks, to our fellow believers, to our possessions.

　　To care for them is simply to feed them, to minister food to them. To the sinners the proper food we minister is the gospel of Christ. The nurses in the hospitals know that they must serve the patients with different meals. Different food is ministered to different patients to meet their specific needs. It is the same with us. The entire earth is a hospital, full of sickness and full of all kinds of sick people. The church in a good sense is also a hospital, full of sick people. Therefore, we have to minister different words to them at the proper time. The Lord’s possessions are always around you. The believers, the churches, and even the more all the sinners are around you. It is your duty, your obligation, to minister food to them. If they are sinners, you have to minister the gospel of grace to them as the food they need. If they are believers sick of something, then you need to minister some word from the Bible that suits their condition, either to nourish them, to heal them, to strengthen them, or to wake them up. To do this is to be a faithful and prudent slave, ministering the proper food to the Lord’s possessions, which are all kinds of persons, at the proper time. When you enter into your office, you must realize that this is one of the proper times to minister the proper food of the gospel to the unbelieving ones. When you go to school, ... all the classmates around you are the Lord’s possessions delivered to you that you may take the opportunity, the proper time, to minister the gospel to them. (CWWL, 1985, vol. 5, “The Way to Practice the Lord’s Present Move,” pp. 516-517)

　　Further Reading: CWWL, 1985, vol. 5, “The Way to Practice the Lord’s Present Move,” chs. 8, 10