Week 27 Sunday
Week 27 Sunday
We Turn to Our Resources
Romans 5:20-21; Philippians 4:13; Colossians 2:6-10
We have now completed the first half of our quest for abundant living, in which we looked at the fifteen major enemies of human living. Now and again we paused to glance at our resources to meet and destroy those enemies. This was necessary to keep up our confidence and faith that they could be overcome, for often in dealing with problems we become so obsessed with them that they get on the inside of us, and we become a problem to ourselves and others. We must gaze at our resources full-faced until they get us—get us down to every nerve cell and to every fiber of our being. We must gaze at them until we are possessed by them, until we no longer possess them but they possess us.
Someone has said, “The early Christians did not say in dismay: ‘Look what the world has come to,’ but in delight, ‘Look what has come to the world.’ ” They saw not merely the ruin, but the resources for the reconstruction of that ruin. They saw not merely that sin did abound, but that grace did much more abound. On that assurance, the pivot of history swung from blank despair, loss of moral nerve, and fatalism, to faith and confidence that at last sin had met its match, that something new had come into the world, that not only here and there, but on a wide scale, humanity could attain to that hitherto impossible thing: goodness. And not only goodness, but health of mind and body, rhythm and harmony in their total being.
That same sense of confidence must possess you if you are to pass from an anemic, noncreative, nay-saying type of person to one who is master of yourself and your circumstances and destiny.
This confidence and faith must not be based on self-hypnosis, a mental and spiritual fool’s paradise; it must be based on the solid confidence that your life is related to the sum total of reality, and that reality is working with you and not against you.
The whole secret of abundant living can be summed up in this sentence: “It is not your responsibility, but your response to God’s ability.”
O Gracious God and Lord, my heart beats a little faster, my pulses throb in expectation at the prospect of being the person that, now and again, in my highest moments, I have felt I might be. And now I am to be that very person. I follow. Amen.
Week 27 Monday
Is the Christian Way Unrealistic?
John 14:1-12; 1 John 1:7; 2:8-13
We finished yesterday by saying that there can be no permanent or thoroughgoing victory unless we feel that the sum total of reality is with us, and that we are with and not against that reality—that we are working with the grain of the universe and not against it. If a doubt creeps in at this point, it is fatal and lays its cold, dead hand on all our highest hopes and possibilities.
But this doubt is just the crux—how can we be sure that in following the Christian way, we are following the way of reality? Maybe the Christian way is a beautiful but unrealistic dream that overlies a basis of hideous but solid reality? In trying to be Christian, aren’t we endeavoring to be something for which we are not made, striving for goals to which we cannot, by the very fact of our human nature, attain? Doesn’t the Christian way of idealism break its delicate wings upon the hard facts of reality? It may work in some other world, but in this world we must not waste our time with the impossible: the impossible that only excites us with much ado about nothing; that only gives us an itch that cannot be scratched; that only leaves us fretted and dissatisfied because of failure, inwardly condemned because we cannot be what we long to be, but what by our very nature we are incapable of being.
That is the haunting doubt of the modern person, and we cannot get an inch into the soul of this defeated age until that doubt is faced and laid.
But this doubt can be faced and laid only when we see that inherently we are made for the Christian way, and that to try to live some other way will be not only wrong but also impossible. You cannot live against the nature of reality and get away with it. You will get hurt. Jesus was surprised, not so much at people’s wickedness, but at their stupidity. “Don’t you see?” he kept saying. “You are living against life, and that is impossible—you’ll be hurt; you are hurt.”
Sin is an attempt to act against God, and not against ourselves. That is impossible.
My Lord, you have fashioned my being for yourself, and when I try to fashion it for something else it becomes all tangled up. My life sums won’t add up correctly. Help me take your way, for I am discovering it is my way. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
Week 27 Tuesday
The Judgment of God and the Judgment of Life
John 6:39; 2 Corinthians 5:10; Galatians 6:7-8; 1 Peter 1:23
Yesterday we ended with the statement that the verdict of life and the verdict of Christ are the same. Christ is life—“I am the . . . life” (John 11:25)—and to live against Christ is to live against life. If that simple statement is true, then it is the most momentous truth ever presented to humankind.
J. Middleton Murry says: “And if men do not care about the kingdom they will find the same lesson taught by life itself. Life cannot be abused. To the judgment seat of God man must take with him only a life that was lived: and the judgment of God and the judgment of life are the same.”*
Two lines of human experimentation, conducted for the most part independently, are now converging: the Christian way and the scientific way. Life is bringing them both out at the same place. Someday science is going to lay everything on the table and say: “This is the way to live, and not this.”
And when we see it all, we will be astonished and exclaim, “But the way to live that you assert is the Christian way, and the way not to live that you assert is an unchristian way.”
The scientist will reply: “Of that we cannot speak, but we can affirm that life comes out in this way.”
The Christian way is written into the constitution of things. It is the natural way to live. I heard two thoughtful people render the same verdict. One was an outstanding nerve specialist who had dealt with jagged and frayed nerves all his life, and this was his life conclusion: “Christianity is just plain common sense.” The other was a brilliant youth who, beginning to experiment with life, said, “The Christian way is just sense.” The youth by a swift intuition and the doctor by a lifetime of experimentation came out at the same place: The Christian way is the natural way.
If you try to live against nature, you get all tangled up; life goes from snarl to snarl.
God of my inmost being, of my nerves and of my tissues and of my blood, how can I sin against you without sinning against myself? Your judgments are swift and sure, for they are inherent. I cannot escape them. I want to escape into you. Amen.
* John Middleton Murry, Heroes of Thought (New York: J. Messner, 1938), 24.
Week 27 Wednesday
The Christian Way Is the Natural Way
John 14:6-7; Acts 19:9; Revelation 2:6-9
The Christian way is wrought into the texture of life. It is life. John 1:3 is a striking passage: “And without him was not anything made that was made.” In other words: There is a way stamped into everything. It is the way life is made to work, and that way is the Christian way: “without him was not anything made that was made.” The stamp of Christ is in everything; it is the way life is made to work. It is the divine intention written into flesh and blood and the total organization of life.
Dr. H. F. Rail of Garrett Biblical Institute says that one does not say to a crocodile, “Now be a crocodile,” for it will never be anything else but. But one does say to a man, “Now be a man.”* Why? For a person can and often does live against, or below, the way he or she is made to live as a person. A person can be unnatural. And to be unnatural is to be frustrated. Sin is “trying to live unnaturally.” It is literally “missing the mark”—the mark for which we are inherently made. That mark is fashioned into our blood cells, into our tissues, and into our nerve cells; it is the will of God. The laws of our being are not other than the laws of God; they are the laws of God wrought into the constitution of our being. To be true to them is to be true to God, and to be true to God is to be true to them.
The early Christians sensed this when they used the phrase “belonging to the Way” (Acts 9:2 Moffatt). Not merely “the Way of salvation,” but “the Way”—the Way that life works, the Way for which it is made—the Way!
In presenting the gospel, we speak of that blessed word “whosoever” (John 3:16 KJV), and rightly so. It was the “whosoever” of an unlimited, redemptive offer. But there is another “whosoever” (Matt. 7:24 KJV) that speaks of an unlimited fact; if you build on my words, said Jesus, your house will stand up under life; if you don’t, then it will go down in a crash. There are no exceptions: “whosoever.”
O Christ, how can I ever cease to thank you that amid the stumblings of life I happened on this—the Way! It fills me with constant surprise that I, even I, have found the Way. My doubts are at rest. Now forward—forever! Amen.
*Published source unknown.
Week 27 Thursday
Evil Is Self-destructive
Psalm 1:1-6; John 3:20; 1 Peter 3:9-13
We have been discussing the Christian way as “the Way,” not a way, but the Way. In every possible situation, it is the way to act. I can admit of no exceptions whatever. If one tries to act in some other way, the sums won’t come out right; life becomes tangled up.
Evil entangles every situation, for evil is against the nature of reality. Therefore, to try to straighten out a situation by an evil is only to entangle it the more. Therefore, evil is not only evil; it is stupid. Somebody has suggested that the word evil is the word live spelled backward. It is: evil is the will to live put into reverse; it is life turning against itself. Human nature is allergic to evil. Evil is the way human nature is not made to work. In evil, life desires to gain freedom, but gains only the freedom to destroy itself. It runs away from salvation! It revolts against life!
Some schoolboys were allowed to take a slot machine apart to study its inner workings. They found that the machine was designed to yield up only one dime in ten to the player. The players might fuss and fume and call on Lady Luck, but in the end there would be one result, and only one result: one dime in ten was the average. Luck was not against them; the machine was against them. So every morning the machine would be empty, and every night it would be full. People had figured it out scientifically by the law of averages and had built that knowledge into the machine. Anyone who tries to beat that machine is not merely bad but a fool!
Every sinner, therefore, turns out to be one thing and one thing alone: a problem to self and others. God has us hooked. We cannot revolt against God without revolting against ourselves. If you clash with God, you clash with yourself. The attempt to disprove this statement has filled the world with human wreckage.
Everyone who tries it thinks that he or she will be an exception, but there are no exceptions.
My Lord, you have made it impossible for me to hurt or harm myself without your protest. The penalties attached to evil are not the signs of your wrath, but of your love—your redeeming love. Help me to work with that love—not against it. Amen.
Week 27 Friday
Jesus, the Standard Note
Matthew 13:54; Acts 6:10; 1 Corinthians 1:18-31; 2:7
Yesterday we saw that sin is not only bad; it is also foolish. The opposite is true: Goodness is not only good; it is also wisdom. That is the reason Jesus identified with Wisdom: “Nevertheless, Wisdom is vindicated by all that she does” (Matt. 11:19 Moffatt). He had just been talking about himself. He asserted himself to be Wisdom: “Life approves of that statement, for it approves, vindicates all I do.” The emphasis is upon that word all—not here and there was Jesus/Wisdom hitting right notes—never did he miss the right note. When Jesus and his teaching are put under life to see what the verdict will be, there is but one verdict: he is vindicated by all that he does.
Paul takes up the same note and says, “Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God” (1 Cor. 1:24). Note that he connects the two: power and wisdom. They are bound to be connected. For the sum total of reality is behind wisdom; the whole moral universe backs it. Sooner or later wisdom is bound to win.
The opposite is also true: Sin and weakness are inseparably connected, for the sum total of reality is against evil. Sooner or later it is bound to fail. Evil has the seeds of its own decay within itself. In evil I cannot win; in good I cannot lose. The stars in their courses work against sin. The stars in their courses work on behalf of good. There is a saying that “only the stars are neutral.” But the stars are not neutral; nature is on the side of good and will not respond to evil. Goodness is wisdom, and goodness is power.
In Washington, D.C., there is struck over the radio each day the note A=440 Hz, the standard note by which the nation is to tune its instruments. Everything that departs from that note is discord, and hence torture. This standard note is not arbitrary; it is inherent.* In Jesus the standard note of human living is struck. Everything that tunes to that note catches the music of the spheres; everything that departs from it is discord and torture. God does not inflict any torture. The departure itself produces the torture. It is inherent.
O Christ, you standard note of all human living, forgive me that I have tried to live against that note. The result has inevitably and invariably been discord and inner torture. I tune my life fully and wholly to you from this hour. Amen.
* A=440 Hz is a general tuning note for orchestras, sometimes referred to as concert A.
Week 27 Saturday
Let’s Be Normal!
Ephesians 2:21; Colossians 1:17; Revelation 1:17-18
We ended yesterday by saying that Jesus is the standard note that God has struck for us and that God bids all people tune their lives and institutions by, or be a part of chaos. One man said of himself, “The trouble with me is that I am in harmony with chaos.” Everything not in harmony with Christ is in harmony with chaos. The choice is literally Christ or chaos.
Dr. Fritz Kunkel, a noted psychologist, writes in Let’s Be Normal! that his psychiatry and his Christianity bring him out at the same place: Christ is the Norm—to depart from him is to be abnormal, hence frustrated. Let’s be normal; let’s be Christian.* The scientific conclusion of this great psychologist and the intuitive conclusion of a laborer are the same. At the close of an address, the laborer blurted out, “Well, we can’t have too much of Christianity.” Is there anything—literally anything else—of which it can be said that we cannot have too much of it? Nothing!
David Seabury says:
Disease is a loss of balance in part or in all of the organism. It may begin in the spirit and end in bodily disintegration. It may start from physical causes and react upon the psyche. But always it is a loss of balance in one’s basic being. Too little or too much emotion at once records itself on the endocrine system. Neither inhibition nor wild release of feeling tends to health. . . . To much or too little food, exercise, sleep, indeed too much or too little of anything . . . destroys health. Only by achieving a psychical and physical equilibrium on and between each plane of life is a man’s vigor maintained.**
We can have too much of everything except one thing—Christ—for he is equilibrium; he is the norm; he is life itself.
Was it mere chance that the early Christian writers spoke of Christ as “Life,” or was it a deduction from the facts? They found he was Life with a capital L.
O Christ, now at long last I have something I cannot have too much of. I cannot be too like you, have too much of your spirit. Help me to drink deep draughts of your mind and way. Amen.
* Let’s Be Normal (New York: I. Washburn, 1929).
** How Jesus Heals Our Minds Today (Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1940), 310.