"The Husbandman waiteth—
He waiteth? What for?
For the heart of one servant
To love Him yet more.
[26] F. M. N.
"The Husbandman waiteth—
Long patience hath He—
But He waiteth in hunger—
Oh! Is it for thee?"[26]
Taking with Your Life.
[27] Ephesians i. 20-22.
But—ah! listen, there's a wonderful "but" to put in here. But, while waiting He puts all His limitless power at our disposal. If that simple sentence could be put into letters of living flame, its tremendous meaning might burn into our hearts. When Paul piled up phrase on phrase in his eager attempt to have his Asiatic friends in and around Ephesus take in the limitless power of the ascended Christ, he added the significant words, "to the Church."[27] All that power is for the use, and at the disposal, of the Church.
The Church was meant to be a unit in spirit in loyalty to her absent Lord, wholly under the dominating touch of the Holy Spirit, not only in her official actions, but in the lives of the individual members. If she were so, no human imagination could take in the startling, revolutionary power, softly, subtly, but with resistless sweep, flowing down from the crowned Christ, among grateful men.
Not being such a unit it is not possible that that power shall be as great in manifestation as was planned and meant. For no individual nor group can ever take the place in action of the whole unified body of believers, acting as a channel for the power of the crowned Christ. That power shall be realized on the earth only when the Church is so unified, and at work, under the reigning Christ, from the new headquarters up in the heavens.
But meanwhile all of that power is at the disposal of any disciple of Christ—the humblest—who will simply live in full-faced touch with Christ, and who will take of that power as the need comes, and as the sovereign Holy Spirit leads.
[28] Ephesians iii. 20.