Isaiah xlix. 2.[1] Personal preparation is essential to the best success
in personal work. No familiarity with the methods of other workers; no
distinction among men because of past favours of either God or men; no
past success in the line of special effort; no amount of intellectual
equipment and no reputation for cleverness in the estimation of your
fellowmen will take the place of individual soul culture, if you are to
be used of God.

[Footnote 1: Suggested by Dr Charles Cuthbert Hall.]

Thou must be true thyself,
If thou the truth would teach;
It takes the overflow of heart
To give the lips full speech.

The words of Isaiah the Prophet literally refer to Him who was the
servant of Jehovah. He was God's prepared blessing to a waiting and
needy people. He came from the bosom of the Father that He might lift a
lost and ruined race to God. And swifter than an arrow speeds from the
hand of the archer when the string of the bow is drawn back, He came to
do the will of God. In the Epistle to the Hebrews we find Him saying,
"Lo I come, in the volume of the Book it is written of me I delight to
do thy will." This was the spirit of all His earthly life. When He was
hungry and sent His disciples to buy meat, He found it unnecessary to
partake of the food they brought to Him, saying, "My meat is to do the
will of him that sent me." And when He came to the garden of Gethsemane,
well on to the climax of His sacrificial life, we hear Him saying again,
"Not my will, but Thine be done." In such a completely surrendered life
we have a perfect representation of the prepared Christian worker.