"Ambassador" is defined as "one who is sent as an agent or representative of another, or of others. "We readily recognize this as expressing the status of those persons who are designated by a government to represent it abroad in its contacts and relations with other nations. The position is one of dignity, honor, responsibility, and authority; for the ambassador stands officially for the government he represents. An ambassador fulfills his mission only as he faithfully sets forth in word and deed the motives and purposes of his government, submerging his own, should they be in conflict therewith.
But individuals, generally speaking, little realize that each of them is actually an ambassador; yet Paul's words may be taken to indicate this where he states in the fifth chapter of II Corinthians, "Now then we are ambassadors for Christ." What can that mean, save that each of us must accept the mission faithfully to show forth in his own life the motives, the purposes, and the character of the Christ? "Ambassadors for Christ"! Could any humanly bestowed appointment carry with it so much of dignity, honor, responsibility, authority, and blessedness? Assuredly not!
When we have awakened to an appreciation of this mission and are preparing ourselves to serve mankind, we have as a guide thereto the life and teachings of Christ Jesus as illumined in Christian Science, which reveals this ambassadorship in its true, practical, and vital import. There is no course other than the thorough, prayerful study of what Jesus said and did, as set forth in the four Gospels of the New Testament. He was confronted and dealt with human experiences common to men, and he thus became the Way-shower for us. The reverence this study invokes does not obscure the blessed but often ignored fact that no trait of character he manifested, no deed he wrought, but can be made our own if we will follow the course he followed and marked out for one and all. It would be a mockery of his selfless love to believe that his words are without practical import here and now, and that his deeds followed the exercise of power preferentially bestowed upon him alone.
