Week 46 Sunday
Week 46 Sunday
The Owner’s Stamp
Deuteronomy 6:5-9; 15:12-17; Proverbs 3:7-8
We have about rounded out our study of right personal and social attitudes for abundant living. We have outlined these attitudes in our minds; now they must be stamped within them—the study must become a stamp. Paul says: “Henceforth let no man trouble me; for I bear on my body the marks of Jesus” (Gal. 6:17). Or, as Moffatt puts it, “the owner’s stamp of the Lord Jesus.” The marks were the marks of the Owner stamped in his flesh, as a symbol that the Owner’s stamp was stamped into the mental and spiritual as well.
In India, you see people who have the stamp of their god branded on their foreheads, put there by a hot iron, non-erasable. The bulls of Shiva are branded with the Shiva trident and are his wherever they roam. Paul was thinking of this type of branding when he asserted that he was free from humanity because he was bound to the Man. He asserted his freedom through a deeper bondage. Strange way to find freedom—through complete bondage! And yet he saw that Christ was the fulfillment of his being, the way he was made to live—the Way. In another passage, Paul says that we are “predestined” to “share the likeness of his Son” (Rom. 8:29 Moffatt). We have argued for centuries over predestination. And yet it seems simple: If you carry out the destiny written into the constitution of your being, you will be made in the likeness of Christ. You are predestined to it by the nature of your being and by the very nature of the universe. You are predestined to be a Christian, a Christlike person, if you follow the lines laid down in your being. This is your destiny, and you can escape from it only by sinning against that destiny—in other words, only by sinning against the God who wrote that destiny within you. So, “the Owner’s stamp” is simply the outer sign of something that is stamped within you constitutionally. You give your consent to the constitution; the way becomes the Way. The Owner’s stamp is branded upon you.
Every single organ, tissue, and nerve cell is made to work in a Christian way. That is their destiny, written into their constitutions.
O Christ, I see that you are the Way. If I fulfill the thing I am made for, I shall be like you. I dare not sin against that destiny. For I see it is not an arbitrary decree written in a book and imposed, but it is written in me and inescapable. Then help me consent with all my being to be branded as your own. Amen.
Week 46 Monday
“It Will Spring Up Out of the Earth”
Psalm 139:14-16; Proverbs 17:22; Luke 19:40; Ephesians 6:1-3
We saw yesterday that we were predestined by the very laws of our being to be Christian. This is the predestination I believe in with all my heart. Dr. Bosworth once said, “If the principles of Jesus were torn out of the heavens, they would spring up out of the earth”*—and out of the nature of our very beings. You have Christian lungs, Christian glands, a Christian stomach, a Christian heart, a Christian liver, a Christian nervous system. The total organization is Christian; and to put these organs to unchristian uses is to throw them out of gear—and worse—to grind the gears of life against each other, to live in inner conflict.
“It will spring up out of the earth.” Dr. Henry Link, in his study of psychology, gave up Christianity as an outmoded superstition. When, however, he began to try to untangle snarled-up lives, he found he had to give them something outside themselves to love. The only thing permanent he could give them was God; and soon he found he was talking himself back into being a Christian. Life wouldn’t come out right in any other way. He became a Christian, and wrote two great books on the Christian way, led back to it by the very pressures of life.** The Christian way, torn from the heavens, sprang up out of the earth.
The study of psychology and the study of physiology will lead to the conclusion of the cartoon character Aunt Het, who says quaintly: “Nature tries to make us good. I used to get awful mad years ago, but I had to quit because it gave me bad digestion.” Dr. Frank Crane says: “Depression, gloom, despair, pessimism—these slay ten persons to every one murdered by typhoid, influenza, diabetes, or pneumonia. If tuberculosis is the great white plague, fear is the great black plague.”*** But fear, depression, gloom, despair, pessimism are all unchristian. They slay, in the language of the newspaper columnists.
“It will spring up out of the earth.” Nature is unfolding its book, and its finger points to the passage of the whole, and that passage reads, “Be Christian.”
To be Christian is your destiny.
O you loving, relentless, redeeming Owner, I find your marks upon my being. And now I countersign your writing—countersign it with deep consent. Brand your stamp of ownership in me. For I cannot wander unowned and unclaimed. Your will is my native air, your mind the climate of my being. I thank you. Amen.
* Published source unknown, but see Edward Increase Bosworth, Studies in the Life of Jesus Christ (New York: YMCA Press, 1909).
** See, for example, Henry C. Link, Return to Religion (New York: Macmillan, 1936).
*** Published source unknown.
Week 46 Tuesday
The Owner’s Stamp Already There
Leviticus 26:14-16; Ephesians 4:11-16; Colossians 3:10; James 5:15-16
We have seen that Christ is Owner whether we acknowledge that fact or not. The confession of that Ownership is being more and more wrung from reluctant lips. A doctor said to me: “More men get stomach ulcers from fear and worry than from resentments and anger. I suffer from a gastric ulcer. I used to get angry. I don’t dare do that now, for I know where anger will hit me—in the stomach! Now when anyone is about to make me angry I simply turn on my heels and walk off.” And then he quoted Dr. Harvey Cushing, the great surgeon who said, “Don’t operate on the stomach of a man for stomach ulcer—operate on his head.” He is worrying or harboring resentments. Dr. Taylor of Columbia, South Carolina, says, “I’ve never had a case of arthritis . . . except among those who fear or are worried.”
“It will spring up out of the earth.” Faith, good will, love aren’t something imposed; they are the things we are made for.
The Owner’s stamp is there within you. Now take it by consent. Where shall I be branded? Paul says, “on my body” (Gal. 6:17). Perhaps you have had the Christian way painted on and not branded in. Therefore it has not stayed. You are given to the wayward, instead of to the Way; you are fickle, instead of fixed. Now this whole Way is about to be burned in, beginning at the body.
Western civilization is body-minded, a sensate civilization, a civilization of the senses—that which can be touched, and tasted, and smelled. Say to one of our civilization, “This will hurt your soul,” and he will reply, “So what?” But say, “This will give you a stomach ulcer,” and he will sit up and take notice. Since we are body-minded, we will begin at the body: “Stamp your mark, O Christ, in every brain cell, in every nerve, in every tissue, in my total physical life. I want to be branded.”
This prayer upon our lips is simply the unspoken prayer of every portion of our beings—everything within us cries out to he Christian, for that is their destiny.
Gracious Master, I shrink from the heat of your iron—the burning flesh makes me draw back. But I know that this wandering, wobbling life must be at an end. I want something that will brand me forever, before God and humanity, that there shall be no mistaking of my identity any longer. Let the fire of your Spirit brand me forever yours. Amen.
Week 46 Wednesday
The Mark of Jesus: Forgiveness of Injuries
Mark 11:25-26; Luke 11:4; Ephesians 4:32; Colossians 3:13
Yesterday we spoke of shrinking from the brand. But when we see what is being branded into us we shrink no longer. For we are being branded with “the marks of Jesus.” Could anything be finer than that?
A quaint preacher prayed and thanked God for each member of the Trinity, and when he came to Jesus, he said, “O God, even you couldn’t do any better than he did.” He was right. Christlikeness is to be stamped into you. You cannot have too much of that. What were some of the marks of Jesus?
(1) Forgiveness of injuries. The sublimest prayer that was ever prayed, for it embodied the sublimest spirit ever shown, was the prayer, “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do” (Luke 23:34). Sir John Seeley says that the outstanding distinguishing mark of a Christian is willingness to forgive injuries.* A bandit held up a man, who gave him his wallet. “Do you need money as badly as that? I will give you some more,” the man said, handing over his other wallet. “If you will take a job, I’ll help you get one.” The bandit dropped his gun and said, “I can’t take your money; you’re a Christian.”
Ralph was a converted prisoner serving a sentence. A fellow prisoner said of him: “No one can hold a grudge any more when Ralph comes into the room.” That was the authentic sign of being a Christian. A missionary lady in Japan was walking along the safety zone when her coat, blown by the wind, caught in the knob of a passing car and she was dragged and injured. In the hospital, she begged that the driver of the taxi should not be prosecuted, or his insurance taken away, as it was an accident. The taxi driver was so moved by her attitude that he attended her funeral and became a Christian.
Now you are to be branded—branded, mind you, with the spirit of forgiveness of injuries. It is going deep, deep; never again will you retaliate or harbor resentments.
Retaliation and harboring of resentments belong to a dead past—gone forever!
O Christ, brand me deep. I surrender all hurts, all resentments, all retaliation. From henceforth I am free—free from corroding hate and cankering resentments. I shall love everyone—friend and foe—those who do me good and those who do me ill. By your grace I can do this, but only by your grace. From henceforth let no hate trouble me. I bear your brand. Amen.
* See Sir John Robert Seeley, Ecce Homo (Boston: Roberts Brothers, 1968).
Week 46 Thursday
The Mark of Jesus: No Self-pity
Luke 6:20-23; Acts 21:10-13; Romans 8:28; Ephesians 5:20
We continue the branding with the marks of the Lord Jesus.
(2) No self-pity. Jesus said to the daughters of Jerusalem when they wept over him on his way to the cross: “Weep not for me” (Luke 23:28). No self-pity. This is a positive negative. There can be no self-pity in the Christian’s makeup. Surrender all impulses to be sorry for yourself, all feelings of inferiority, all bidding for pity from yourself and others.
A pastor’s father, himself a minister, lost his reputation through immorality. The disgrace left a stigma on the son. At least, so the son felt. He found himself shrinking within himself, feeling that others were holding this against him. I called his attention to the fact that the genealogy of Jesus includes this item about his chief ancestor: “David was the father of Solomon by the wife of Uriah” (Matt. 1:6). “By the wife of Uriah”—that stigma. And yet Jesus never pitied himself because of his poor ancestry, nor did he surrender to inferiorities. He took the raw materials of life—and some of them can be very raw—and turned them into a new posterity. The pastor surrendered the self-pity, held up his head once more, and was released.
Now you are to do the same. This mark of “no self-pity” is being branded into you—forever. It has no part or lot in you henceforth. You are free. You can say: “From henceforth let no self-pity trouble me. I bear, branded, a freedom from it.”
(3) Joy, in spite of. Anyone can have joy on account of; but Jesus had joy in spite of. A Christian said in one of my Round Table conferences: “I have found that if you follow Christ, three things will happen. (i) You will be delivered from all fears. (ii) You will be absurdly happy. (iii) You will have trouble.” The absurd happiness was in spite of! A highly intelligent woman, whose life had about cracked up under inner conflict, found Christ, and her colleagues said, “It is indecent to be as happy as you are.” They couldn’t see the Source! Her happiness was in spite of.
And now, O Christ, I too am to have stamped within me this mark of yours: joy, in spite of. Gloom and despair and the blues are to have no lot or place in my life from henceforth. They are burned out in fires of your joy. From henceforth, let no gloom or despairing thoughts trouble me, for I bear branded within me the marks of joy, in spite of. Amen.
Week 46 Friday
The Mark of Jesus: Calm Receptivity
Psalm 37:1-7; Isaiah 40:31; Ephesians 3:13-21; Hebrews 10:35
We continue the branding with the marks of the Lord Jesus.
(4) Calm receptivity. He was constantly giving out, but only because he was constantly taking in. An organism can give out as much energy as it takes in, and no more. So you. Jesus knew how to give because he knew how to receive. His relaxed spirit kept the channels free. There were no tight knots in his life blocking the power of God. He lived in a state of alert passivity. You are to be branded with that spirit—branded—which means that alert passivity is to be a continuous state of mind, instead of an imported occasional thing in periods of relaxation. You are to live relaxed and receptive.
Mozart, when asked how he found his musical inspirations, is supposed to have said: “I do not know myself and can never find out. When I am in particularly good condition—perhaps riding in a carriage, or on a walk after a good meal, or during a sleepless night—then the thoughts come to me in a rush, and best of all. Whence and how—that I do not know and cannot learn.” He was relaxed and receptive and attuned to Music. So Music played him all over.
You are now being branded by this mark of Jesus. You are not going to live a nervous, overwrought, fussy type of life; you are going to be relaxed, receptive, and released. You are not a reservoir with a limited amount of resources; you are a channel, attached to unlimited divine Resources.
(5) Courage. His was not the excited, desperate courage of a battlefield, but the quiet courage that went on in the face of growing opposition and of certain crucifixion. Yours will be the same kind of quiet courage—courage to say no to enemies, also to friends; courage to be in an unpopular minority with truth and right; courage to go on undismayed when a loved companion drops beside the road and the future is all unknown—the courage of cosmic confidence.
This quiet courage is to be stamped within me; never again shall I be afraid of anything. I am free!
O Christ of the undaunted faith, give me your quiet confidence and courage. May I not hold my faith; may it hold me—hold me when everything else is gone. Stamp this courage into my flesh and blood and nerve tissue—into me until I shall never again be afraid of anything, because I shall want only you. Amen.
Week 46 Saturday
The Mark of Jesus: The Power to Take It
Romans 5:8; 12:1; 2 Corinthians 11:23-29; Galatians 1:4
We continue listing the marks of Jesus that are to be branded within us.
(6) The power to take it. When things happened to Jesus, good or bad, he could take it. A judge said to me: “There is an increase of the use of drugs, narcotics, and opiates because people can’t stand frustration. The people that come before me have no religion, so they turn to the props of aspirin, drugs, liquor. They can’t take it.” Jesus could take it—yes—when popularity tried to make a king of him, and when people blinded by hate put him on a cross. In either extremity, he could take it. And that power to take whatever comes is going to be branded within you. Never again will you whine or complain or retreat. You will take everything that comes, and you will use it—an unbeatable way to live.
(7) He cared. He cared little as to what happened to him, but he cared deeply as to what happened to others. He was so deeply sensitized that every person’s hunger was his own; he was bound in every person’s imprisonment and lonely in every person’s loneliness. To be in touch with Christ is to be sensitized. And to be fully in touch with Christ is to be sensitized on a world scale. As FreidrichVon Hügel says, “Christians are people who care.” They care beyond race and class and color; they care indiscriminately. Now this same spirit is to be branded into you. It will deliver you from all smug self-centered satisfaction and indifference to others. You will care—hurt in the hurts of others, and be happy in their happiness.
(8) He gave himself. The crowning mark in Jesus was that he not only cared; he cared enough to give, and not only enough to give, but to give himself. The ultimate test is there. We give money, interest, words, attendance—do we give ourselves? Now this last quality of life is being branded into you. You give yourself to everyone of every race or class or color who needs you.
O my Christ, I await the branding, not with this or that quality of yours—I want to be branded with your total spirit. Come into my blood, my nerves, my tissues, my moral consciousness—into the total me with your total self. For I thirst for you. One touch of you and I am set aflame for more, for more, for all. I can be satisfied only when I wake in your likeness. Amen.