Everyone is Dying for a Drop of Love — Henrietta Mears

Henrietta Mears helped change a generation. My new book tells about her life, how she did what she did, and offers you , the reader, an opportunity to explore how God is calling you to help change your generation. The following, used by permission from Wipfandstock.com, is an excerpt from the introduction of, A Little Drop of Love: Henrietta Mears, How She Helped Change a Generation and You Can Too It is available from all major distributors: Amazon; Barns and noble; Christian Books; Wipfandstock.com Wipfandstock.com with be running special discounts very soon.

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She stood five feet four inches tall, thick-set, with hazel eyes dimly visible through the “coke bottle” lenses of her spectacles. Her daily attire might include a chartreuse dress, a fox fur draped over her shoulders, and a hat with a long plume that swept down under her chin. Her gravelly voice, considered deep for a woman, resounded throughout the room when she spoke. 

Henrietta Mears was once described by Billy Graham as, “a Christian in Technicolor.” Billy Graham also said she was one of the greatest Christians he had ever known. He, along with Bill Bright, founder of Campus Crusade, often said that the three most influential people in their lives were their mothers, their wives, and Henrietta Mears.

She had an intimate relationship with and clear dependence on God. The love she personally experienced from God, she poured into the relationships she had with those around her. Her personal relationship with God and people, coupled with the biblical principles she mined from the word of God and other sources, are just as valid today as they were in the last century. The ministries that hers spawned that are still focused on relationships and these biblical principles continue to be noticeably fruitful for the Kingdom.

As she called college-age people to be “Expendables” for Christ after World War II, God used her to help these Expendables grow to arguably diminish the tide of Humanism, Communism, Secularism, and other anti‑Christian ideologies that rose up in the first half of the twentieth century. Today, we face different but similar challenges. Henrietta Mears still has much to say to us, both personally and corporately.

The love of God and the fullness of the Holy Spirit in our lives cut diagonally through every intersection on the grid. These are primary sources for the growth of our personal love relationship with God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. This relationship is crucial if we are going to mature, to influence, and to win others to Christ. Without these infusing all the other areas, there may be some sort of effectiveness, but over time and through generations of lives touched, there will be a decrease in fruitfulness. Mears said:

“The Christian life is not “trying to be good,” or “trying to be like Jesus.” It is seeking to have a deeper experience of fellowship with Christ. You cannot have fellowship unless you have confidence. Christianity is not adding a burden to our life. It is adding a power, for it is adding Christ, our friend. He will live our life for us.”²

Jesus never called us to be effective ministers of the gospel. Jesus chose us to abide and bear fruit. He told the disciples:

You didn’t choose me. I chose you. I appointed you to go and produce lasting fruit, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask for, using my name. This is my command: Love each other. (John 15:16–17 NLT)

His choosing and appointing us is our calling and destiny. Our fruitfulness for the Kingdom of God is related to how we respond to our calling and destiny. These, mingled with the empowering love of God and our surrender to the Holy Spirit, expand the Kingdom of God like leaven in bread.

The degree to which we let God love us relates to the fruit we are able to produce for the Kingdom:

And as we live in God, our love grows more perfect . . . Such love has no fear, because perfect love expels all fear. If we are afraid, it is for fear of punishment, and this shows that we have not fully experienced his perfect love. We love each other because he loved us first.” (1 John 4:17–19 NLT)

Miss Mears lived in another age, but the biblical principles she lived and ministered by are arguably eternal. . . .

My challenge to you, the reader, is to read the remarkable life of Henrietta Mears through the lens of this grid. You will see God’s part in her life and her part. Ask yourself: What did God do, and what did she do with what God gave her? How did she respond? 

Then comes the personal part. The “Our Part” of the grid from each reader’s perspective will look noticeably different from Miss Mears’s because our circumstances are as unique as our callings and destinies. To help apply those larger, universal principles on the grid, ask: What has God done for you and what has he given you? Then: What are you going to do with it? Each new day brings fresh choices, new beginnings. We are invited to be world changers, one step at a time.