Monday: No Longer Religious Busybodies
WEEK 52
MONDAY
NO LONGER RELIGIOUS BUSYBODIES
John 15:16, 26-27
We continue to sum up the conclusions and point to the lessons of this book.
The outlines of this New Order, the kingdom, were laid by Jesus in the three years of his ministry; but that Order couldn’t come until the divine dynamic came in the Holy Spirit.
Jesus was the kingdom. He used interchangeably “for my sake” and “for the kingdom’s sake.” But he had to leave them in order to come back to them in the Holy Spirit universalized. He changed his presence for his omnipresence. In the Acts, the Son of Man came in his kingdom.
I said in the beginning that we need two things for human living: light on the mystery of life, and Life for the mastery of life. Those two needs were completely met in Jesus. In three years of his life we get light on the mystery of life. We look at him, and we know he is light—light in everything, everywhere. But we find in him more; he is Life for the mastery of life. He moves into us in the Holy Spirit, and then our inadequate lives move out into adequacy; we move out on top of this thing called life, masters of it.
Greater changes in human living took place in the thirty years after the coming of the Holy Spirit than in any period before or since—basic changes.
And those changes began at the right place, with the Christians themselves. All other proposed reformers start to change the world by starting to change others. They have petered out. These people began with themselves; it was from the inside out and from themselves to others. For ten days they waited to have themselves changed, and for twenty centuries we have felt the impact of that change. They were no longer religious busybodies meddling in other people’s problems; they were radiant witnesses to a mighty solution, a solution that had begun within and was now working out to others. They weren’t meddling moralists; they were messengers, and their message was a witness. That struck the world as new. The word of the kingdom had become fact.
O Blessed, Blessed Master, you have taught us where to begin, with ourselves. Now with assurance we move out to other persons and problems. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: My answers for the world will all come out of me; they shall be operative with me.