SINCE GRACE, NOT attainment, is written across this approach to God and life, then this way is open to all. This is not for the elite, nor for the elect, but for the “whoever will.” This possibility of firsthand, saving contact with God through and in Christ is open to all, from the dregs of humanity to the highest moralist on the same terms—surrender!
This is what I mean: Robert Jones, a black man sentenced to electrocution, was converted and filled with the Spirit. The chaplain said that the first night Robert was in prison, one of the hardened criminals brought to his cell was converted. The next night three more were converted, and the last night every one the chaplain could get in to Robert’s presence was converted. The chaplain expressed the conviction that if the state would permit Robert to live he would be the greatest black man of his time, greater even than Booker T. Washington. As he took his seat in the electric chair and was asked if there was anything he would like to say, he said he hoped all of those present would repent and go where he was going. Looking around and seeing the sons of the man he had killed, he told them he did not mean to kill their father, that he was sorry he had struck him, and that he wanted them to forgive him. He went on to say that he was not the same man who struck the blow, but that if they wanted to kill him for what that former man had done it was all right with him. After the cap was put over his head and just before the death lever was pulled, Robert was heard saying, “I’m in Him, and He is in me.” The law with its retribution could not touch this deathless thing in a dying man: “I’m in Him, and He is in me.” The highest was open to the lowest through Grace.
O Jesus, Lord and Savior, I stand amazed at Thy grace that takes a thief from a cross and translates him into paradise, and a condemned murderer from a cell and makes him calm and in control in an electric chair. What a Savior! I thank Thee. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: I’m in Him and He is in me—that makes me impervious to any earthly happening.
