Monday: Nobody but Me and Jesus
WEEK 50
MONDAY
NOBODY BUT ME AND JESUS
John 16:31-33
We are considering the mastery of loneliness. What was the secret of that mastery in the Acts, and what is the secret today?
It is simple and very effective. Jesus said, “Lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world” (Matt 28:20 KJV). And they found that he was! He had changed his presence for his omnipresence. People didn’t have to go to Palestine to see him; they dropped into the silence of the heart, and lo, Christ was there. The God revealed in Jesus was personalized. He was not mere vague force; he was a Person, a Person with whom you could talk and have him talk to you in unmistakable terms. I can testify; I know Jesus better than I know any other person in the world. And he knows me better than anyone else in the world knows me, and he still loves me. Someone called to an African American woman standing in a cabin door and asked, “Auntie, who lives there?” The answer came back, “Nobody but me and Jesus.” That blessed woman knew a secret, a very great one.
A Chinese friend, Dr. Lo, was traveling with me, and he said that once when he was lonely in America, he turned to his Bible, and the first verse his eyes fell on was this one, “Lo, I am with you always.” He felt Christ calling him by his first name. And he did, and does.
People say to me, “You’re a traveler around the world, and you get home a couple of weeks a year. Don’t you ever get lonely?” My answer is, “Well, I suppose I do live without a home. I feel sympathy for the man who put a label in the lid of his suitcase: ‘God bless our home.’ My home is a suitcase. Yet I’ve never had a discouraged or lonely moment in thirty-five years. Why? Well, I know he is with me. And I can turn to him anytime, anywhere, and commune with him.” It works. He has guaranteed that his presence will not be a-coming and a-going; he puts it, “even unto the end of the world.” He gives a guarantee against loneliness. This motto expresses it: “Without him, not one step over the threshold; with him, anywhere.” Then every place is home and every meal the Bread of the Presence.
O Jesus, your loving presence surrounds me, envelops me, makes me at home anywhere, everywhere, and at all times. What more do I need? Nothing! Absolutely nothing. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: I can never drift beyond his care; I can never be where he is not. I am safe and at home, in Christ.