You can have your energies mobilized by the Holy Spirit
Mining the Church’s Wealth
by Kobert James St. Clair
of our Lord but unconsciously ap pears as an inefficient organism weighted down by nerveless limbs and vestigial organs! T h is t r a g ic fa c t o f unmined wealth is written off as an unfor tunate result of a lack of consecra tion. “ Have a two week revival” seems to be the answer. No, there is more to it than that. Decidedly more. If the challenge of God’s Spirit were accompanied by a more intelligent and systematic leader ship recruitment and training, then the picture of 1 Corinthians would be the realistic rule and not a way- out-there ideal. There are a number of immedi ate reasons why so many laymen do not have their energy mobilized by the Holy Spirit: 1) The man in the pew has not been made to realize how much the Lord Jesus Christ is depending on him through the work of the local church and how much God can do with him if given an opportunity. 2) The layman may feel that his minister is a dynamic (what ever that means) salesman, publi city man and orator out to wow the world and simply desires his peo ple to support him by swelling the crowds at services and by tithing. 3) The individual has come to CONTINUED
stitute a vast source of spiritual wealth by which the community and the world were designed to prosper. This wealth is not derived from the educational or economic potential of the laymen but from the one Spirit who finds an addi tional redemptive instrument in each dedicated person. One of the reasons we tend to become insensitive to revealed truth is that we hear this theology of the priesthood of all believers, while surrounding us are a vast number of Christians with no practical func tion in the daily tasks of the church. To put it in psychological terms, our conscious minds give assent to the truths of the indwelling of the Spir it in all believers in order that we shall continue to be accepted within the highly doctrine-conscious mores of a conservative church. Our unconscious minds, however, accept the concept that the indwell ing work of the Spirit is a fancy term for very religious people and “ the gifts of the Spirit” is a term describing fortunate souls with talent and inborn initiative. When you consider how many laymen in the local church contrib ute little or nothing of value in the planning and working phases of the church there is no doubt that consciously the Church is the body
Suppose that you were requested 9 to write out in a few words your idea of the genius of the Holy Chris tian Church. What would you say? In one way or another you would probably touch on the glory radiat ing from Christ and the glory given to man. The Lord Jesus Christ is alive in the Church. Through the Holy Spirit indwelling every Chris tian He continues His ministry in the world. The Church is Jesus walking, talking and healing on the earth. Poor mortals who otherwise would not be able to keep their heads above life’s storms are now seen working in intimate coopera tion with the Creator of the cosmos, working in joy and confidence de spite persecution. Christ takes utter nobodies and makes them more than conquerors in a tragic world. In some fashion utterly beyond us the Holy Spirit takes up His di vine residence within our personal ities. All persons in Christ’s body cohere in divine function, each min istering to the world through the gifts of the Spirit, such as prophesy ing, ministering, giving, exhorting, teaching or whatever. The honor of the human vessel is not derived from its inborn capabilities but from the one Spirit who touches it and directs it in eternal purpose. The laymen of the church con
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The King’s Business/October 1957
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