Saturday: Called in Now and Then
WEEK 13
SATURDAY
CALLED IN NOW AND THEN
2 Corinthians 3:16-18
We have seen that the difference between modern church life and the Acts is in the place the Holy Spirit occupies. In Acts, the Spirit was in control of life, and in modern church life the attempt is made to control the Holy Spirit in the interests of success. the Spirit is called in only to help out. We are at the center, and the Spirit is to help us. So he silently stays away—on those terms. We frustrate the grace of God and remain frustrated. Then we question whether Christianity will work. The truth is we are not working it.
The position of the church in regard to the Holy Spirit is like that of a man who courts a girl, admires her, enjoys her fellowship, but stops there and doesn’t invite her to be his wife, to come into his home and take charge of it, to live life out with him. All else is preliminary to this; if it doesn’t happen, there is a halfwayness, a frustration. The church has companionship with the Holy Spirit, seeks the Spirit’s counsel, adores the Spirit—does everything but ask God’s Spirit in to take over the within, including the subconscious.
The disciples in their simplicity had turned over to God their total beings, conscious and subconscious; and when they did so, the Holy Spirit moved in and took them over and made them over. They were released at the center of their beings. Now they were free and joyous and natural—and effective. God was pulling out all the stops and playing them all over. The conscious and the subconscious minds were not striking different and contradictory notes; they were under one control—the Holy Spirit—and now both conscious and subconscious were blended into an amazing harmony. Life harmonized; and the world, astonished at such heavenly music from such earthly instruments, crowded to listen and long and accept.
Just how did this happen? Did the disciples set their jaws, clench their fists, knit their brows, and throw all the adrenalin they had into the bloodstream to make them fight a little harder than the rest of humanity? No, it was all done effortlessly. They were not trying but trusting, not striving but surrendering; and the Holy Spirit did the rest.
O Holy Spirit, teach us how to accept your resources, to stop our futile struggling, and let you do in us and through us what we will not and cannot do. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: I am learning the art not of offering resistances but of accepting resources.