The work of the Holy Spirit - pagina 686

PRAYER

646

God, but that love springs from the fellowship of the life of grace, to all His saints. That which grows not from one root, and, therefore, shares not the same life, can not attain to love in higher sense. Prayer for one another is born of the love to one another; and the love which unites us ascends from the one root of

common

life

upon which we

all

are grafted through grace,

virtue of our creation from

work

of the

Holy

Adam we

all

were

upon which

set.

And

Spirit in the prayer of intercession will

by-

thus the

appear in

clearest light.

In the realm of nature, our vital pcnver

human

kinship through the Son,

is from the Father, our and the conception of that kinship

from the Holy Ghost. Hence in the ordinary manifestations of benevolence, such as helpfulness in distress, friendliness in daily life, and the desire for social intercourse, it is the work of the Holy Spirit to is

keep alive

in us the conception of

our

human

kinship.

true that sin has terribly disturbed this conception.

It

Yet the

Holy Spirit has not forsaken His work but, when a man seeing a strange child drowning, and, without considering his own life, jumps into the water and saves him, then it is the constraining ;

power

Holy

of the

Spirit that

must be honored

in this heroic act of

philanthropy.

But much more apparent is the work of the Holy Spirit in the prayer of intercession which belongs to the domain of grace. For with reference to the fellowship of the body of Christ, it is again the Father from

whom proceeds

our redemption, the Son in

whom we

are

and the Holy Spirit who imparts to us the conception and consciousness of this unity and holy fellowship. The mere fact of being chosen by the Father and redeemed by the Son does not constrain us to love it is the act of the Holy Spirit, who, revealing to our conception and consciousness this wonderful gift of grace, opening our eyes for the beauty of being joined to the body of Christ, kindles in us the spark of the love for Christ and for His people. And when this double work of the Holy Spirit effectually operates in us, causing our hearts to be drawn to all that belong to us by virtue of our human kinship, and much more strongly to the people of God by virtue of our kinship in the Son, then there awakes in us the love of which the apostle says that it is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost. united,

;

And yet this is not all of the Holy Spirit's work. Love can be tender without compelling one to prayer. This is evident from the

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