If someone were to call us an addict, no doubt our first reaction would be to feel insulted. This need not be the case for the word addict means to devote, to give oneself up habitually. It is certainly in this sense that Paul tells us that ”the house of Stephenas had addicted themselves to the ministry of the saints.”

Unfortunately the word today is used mostly to describe those who are slaves to a bad habit such as tobacco, liquor or drugs. These people certainly are devoted to serving these vices and so the word aptly describes their slavery. We are all a slave to something, as Paul tells us, either to Christ or to sin. What are you addicted to? How wonderful to be addicted to ministering to the saints of God. This is the kind of addiction we need.

God really does need people. He needs us to do His work for He works through His children. When God told the children of Israel to make an holy anointing oil He gave them the recipe, yet He said it was to be made after the art of the apothecary. In spite of the fact that the exact ingredients and the exact amounts of each were Divinely specified, it still required the art of the apothecary to blend it into the holy anointing oil. The art of a man was used to serve God!

Those of us who are not cooks know that it takes more than just the recipe to make a cake. We can follow it to the letter and our creation will be nothing in comparison to the cake that mother used to make from the same recipe. The art of the cook is important to the making of a delicious cake.

So it is in our work in God’s vineyard, He wants us to use our art, our skill in ministering to the saints and if we do this faithfully then we are addicted or devoted in our work. The truth does not turn out peas in a pod. God wants us to develop our individualities, our skills, our arts for Him. God does not want uniformity but unity. The four Gospels all show the personalities of the writers while telling us the story of the life of Christ. Each was true, but each revealed the life of Jesus after the art of the writer. These men were addicted to a life of service to God and yet Peter and John were as different as day and night. Each loved the Lord and Jesus loved them both. Each served God with their whole hearts but their approach to things was entirely different. We need to remember that God made each of us different and He did not make a mistake when He made us. He made us with the capabilities of serving Him and we each need to become addicted to our work.

Let us find a work to do and do it with all our might. Let us develop our skill as did Bezaleel whom God chose and filled him with wisdom and under- standing in knowledge and in all manner of workmanship to devise cunning works, to work in gold, and in silver and in brass. Speaking of him and his assistant, Aholiab, Moses says ”them hath God filled with wisdom of heart, to work all manner of work.”

God will fill our hearts with wisdom also if we have a mind to work. What- soever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might; says Solomon. Become addicted to the work of the Lord. Use your skill, your art, your energy in God’s service. May we each respond as did Isaiah when he heard the Lord saying ”Whom will I send, and who will go for us? Then said I, Here am I; send me.”