stinctly human forces. The first is an organization,
the Church. And then that of which the Church is made up, men and women; I
mean the power of personality, developed and consecrated personality.
There are two divine forces that work through the human--Jesus and the
Holy Spirit. I have put these second in order, because they work through
the human. The leadership is in human hands. The initiative of all action
is with us. Of course, if you go a bit deeper in, the initiative is with
God who moves upon our hearts to make us act. But on the distinctly human
level the beginning of service rests in human hands, and these two
mighty, almighty, divine forces work through us.
The divine law of leadership and of cooperation in leadership has not
always been clearly understood. And there has been bad delay often because
of the lack of understanding. Our Lord Jesus in the days of His humanity
surrendered Himself to the leadership of the Holy Spirit in His great
mission to men. The Spirit worked through Jesus. After Jesus' Ascension
the order was reversed. The Spirit yielded Himself to the control of the
glorified Son of God. Jesus worked through the Spirit. It was Jesus who
sent down the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost for the special mission
begun that day.
And now, with the greatest awe coming into our hearts at the thought, be
it said that these two work through our human leadership. The leadership
in service among men is human leadership. The wondrous Spirit of God works
through our leadership to reveal Jesus to men in all His winsomeness and
power.
There can be no power at all in our human action and leadership except as
the Spirit leads and controls us, and is allowed to. And, on the other
side, we must not forget, though it has sometimes been forgotten, that
God's working waits upon human action and leadership. Memory quickly
brings up the fact, so often repeated in the history of the Church, that
when men have failed to respond to God's call His work has fallen behind.
Whenever a new chapter of earnest service has been begun it has always
been through a new leadership. Some man has listened to God, and let Him
have the free use of himself in reaching out to other men.
God needs men. He needs you and me. We are the wire for the transmission
of His current of power. The wire is useless without the current. And the
current must have the wire along which to travel to its place of service.
The divine power is thr
|