- Imitative, Conservative or Creative—Which?

GOD IS CREATIVE. He has not relinquished His place as Creator, even though the specific work of forming the first heaven and earth has long beencompleted.
The Holy Spirit as one of the blessed Godhead is also creative. He is forever bringing new things into being, forever giving out and setting in motion, forever making “all things new.” Wherever He is at work, the effects will be creative rather than conservative, though we should know that He also conserves whatever He creates. To create and not conserve would be to waste the creative act. But the whole psychology of the Spirit is toward the creation of new things rather than toward the cautious preservation of what has been created.
It should be said that the Holy Spirit always creates in accord with His character as very God of very God. He stamps whatever He does with the mark of eternity. It has upon it the quality of everlastingness—the dignity and holiness of the Deity set it apart.
When the Holy Spirit is ignored or rejected, religious people are forced either to do their own creating or to fossilize completely. A few churches accept fossilization as the will of God and settle down to the work of preserving their past—as if it needed preserving. Others seek to appear modern, and imitate the current activities of the world with the mistaken idea that they are being creative. And after a fashion they are, but the creatures of their creative skill are sure to be toys and trifles, mere imitations of the world and altogether lacking in the qualities of eternity—holiness and spiritual dignity. The hallmark of the Holy Spirit is not there.
All religious leaders should remember that they will either let the Holy Spirit work through them or their work will be in vain. Every proud religious edifice erected by the zeal and labor of the flesh will perish in the hot fires of judgment. In the eyes of humanity such labors may be praiseworthy, but before God the results will be wood, hay and stubble.
It is hard to imagine a more painful disillusionment than to come to the judgment seat of Christ and find that all our earthly lives we had been striving after the flesh and never permitting the creative Holy Spirit to work in us that which was pleasing in His sight.
So all Christians and all churches are engaged in one of three activities: guarding the dead past, creating fleshly trifles that will perish with the flesh or working in cooperation with the Holy Spirit in the constant creation of eternal treasures that will outlast the stars.