Quiet Talks On Service

That's a bit of this friend's imagination, it's true. But -- it's the whole Gospel story, through and through. Jesus has made that plan. He has not made any other plan. He's counting on us, each of us, each in his own circle, in his own way, as comes best, most natural to him tactfully, quietly, earnestly -- simply that, but all of that. And -- if -- we fail -- Him -- let me be saying it very softly so the seriousness of it may get into the inner cockles of our hearts -- if we fail Him, just that far we make Jesus' dying a failure so far as concerns those whom we touch.

Yes, I know that sounds very serious. I'd rather not be saying it. I'm sure, by the Book, it is so. And so, do you see the genius -- may I use that word very reverently of Him who was a man and far more than man -- the genius of His plan? He sent down the same Spirit that swayed Him those human years to live in us, and control us, that we might have the same fine passion for men as He, and the same exquisite tact in winning them as He had.

It must be a passion; a fire burning with the steady flame of anthracite fed by a constant stream of oil. If it be less we will be swept off our feet by the tides all around, or sucked under by their swift current. And many a splendid man to-day is being swept off his feet and sucked under by the tides and currents of life because no such passion as this is mooring and steadying and driving his whole life.

It must be a passion for winning men; not driving nor dragging, drawing. Not argument nor coercion but warm, winsome wooing. Today the sun up yonder is drawing up toward itself thousands of tons' weight of water. Nobody sees it going, except perhaps in very small part. There's no noise or dust. But the water rises up irresistibly toward the sun because of the winning power in the sun for the water. It must be something like that in this higher sphere. A winsomeness in us that will win men to us and through us to the Master.

"Oh! well," some one says, "if you put the thing that way you'll have to count me out. I'm not winsome that way." Well, maybe you need not have bothered to say it. We could easily know that without your saying it. We are not winsome this way, any of us, of ourselves. But when we allow this Jesus Spirit to take possession of us He imparts His winsomeness. For the real secret of a transfigured life is a transmitted life. Somebody else living in us, with a capital S for that Somebody, looking out of our eyes, giving His beauty to our faces, and His winningness to our personality.