College Union

From will you …to but you

BY: E. STANLEY JONES

(Excerpts from E. Stanley Jones devotional classic, Mastery, week7)

 

We come now to look at another mastery – the mastery of looking to Jesus to do everything.

            “So when they had come together, they asked him, ‘Lord, will you…?,’ He said to them, …’But you…’” (Acts 1:6-8).  The emphasis had now shifted – they had been looking to Him to do everything – “Lord, will you?” – and now Hew was going to look to them – “But you.”

            That change from Jesus Himself doing everything to His doing everything through them, is of utmost importance. For if their attitude had not changed, the movement of redemption would have resulted in a flabby group of pietists folding their hands and rolling their eyes and saying, “Jesus will do it all.” The movement would have died and ought to have died, for it would not have been worth surviving. It would have weakened the persons involved, taking away their initiative, their very personalities.

Up to this time they watched Him do everything – heal the sick, preach the Good News, feed the multitudes, die, rise again, instruct them. He was taking the initiative. They were in the dependent stage – of childhood – then for forty days they were in the independent stage – of adolescence – for He came and went and left them on their own. Now they were passing into the interdependent stage – of maturity – where they working things our together.

For while He was looking to them to be the center of activity, He was more than with them – He was in them in the Holy Spirit. “But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be my witnesses.” There was an interplay here – He was not going to work save through them, and they couldn’t work save through Him. They were in the stage of maturity – of interdependence. Now they were grown-up human beings working with Christ within them and working out His purposes. He had brought them to the stage where He wanted them – of upstanding human beings who now morally independent choose to be morally interdependent and to work out things in co-operation with Him – a cooperative endeavor. They would supply willingness, and He, power.

 

This simple fact is the most astonishing revelation of the nature and purpose of God I know of. If it means anything, it means that the Divine is tying its hands to the human and limiting itself to what the human will do. Of all the delegations of authority, that it the most astonishing.

For after all the ages of preparation to redeem humanity, bearing with the sins and stubbornness and blindness, He then takes the incarnation, dies upon the cross for their redemption, rises again, goes off to heaven, and says to a handful of His followers: “From this point on I’m trusting my movement of redemption to you. From now on I’m working only through you. The movement survives or perishes through you.  I’m trusting you.” That is a breath-taking act of faith in humans on the part of God. And it reveals His purpose. He is not jealously sitting tight on the throne of the universe demanding that we grovel before Him – He is determined to produce beings who will share His authority, carry out His plans voluntarily, and co-operate with Him in the remaking of the world. …

God is creating not puppets but persons great enough to share his authority. That reveals the nature of God and His purposes. It also reveals our destiny.

Categories: Virtues & Choices
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