Week 36 Sunday
Week 36 Sunday
A Secret Society
Mark 2:18-22
We come this week to consider “A Secret Society.” It is based on this statement of Paul: “I have been initiated into the secret for all sorts and conditions of life, for plenty and for hunger, for prosperity and for privations; in him who strengthens me, I am able for anything” (Phil. 4:12-13 Moffatt).
People, especially in the United States, dearly love secret societies. It gives them a sense of security and superiority to know they are “in on a secret.” Well, here is a secret society that guarantees absolute security. No matter what happens—prosperity or privation—you are safe, secured against anything and everything. The “secret” seems to be that you can live “on account of” or “in spite of.” You do not despise “on account of”; you can get joy out of surrounding life, home, beauty, friendships, love; you are healthy minded, rich in everything around you. But you do not depend on “on account of.” You can take it, but you don’t lean on it. You can also live “in spite of.”
Some people cannot live “on account of.” They cannot take the joys of life and assimilate them and make them a part of their Christian lives. They are afraid of them. They are not happy unless they are unhappy. If they put on a good and useful outer garment, they always wear a hair shirt under it. That hair shirt saves them, for they believe in the gospel of being unhappy. The Hindu ascetic cannot live “on account of,” but only “in spite of.” I sat beside a former high court judge who had renounced the world and sat among ashes, meditating on the banks of the Ganges. “Please leave me alone. You disturb my meditation,” he said. Conversation, friends, comfort—all were ruled out. He could live “in spite of” but not “on account of.” Another sadhu (holy man) told me he had been in his monastery for thirty years, and during that time, he had not seen a woman. He was afraid.
But the purest Man that ever lived, and the most emancipated, was not afraid. “Jesus loved Martha, and her sister, and Lazarus.” That statement would have “killed” any religious teacher in India. But Jesus could live “on account of,” for at its center was a renunciation.
O Christ, I thank you that you are of the healthy mind and attitude. You did not despise love for man, for woman, but you were not tripped up by it. Emancipation amid participation. Oh, give me your secret, for I too would be free. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: “I can live on compliment, for I love something more than compliment—Christ.
Week 36 Monday
A Gospel for the Happy?
1 Corinthians 3:21-23; 1 Timothy 6:17-19
Some people can live “in spite of” but not “on account of.” They feel it their duty to be unhappy as a protest against a world of this kind.
A woman asked one day, “You have a gospel for the hurt; do you have one for the happy? I have a happy home; my husband, my children love me and I love them, and we haven’t any particular financial worries. Have you any gospel for me—a happy person?” I could say that I had, and that gospel is just this, “I have been initiated into the secret . . . for plenty . . . for prosperity” (Phil. 4:12 Moffatt). When we are Christian, we can make “plenty” more plentiful and “prosperity” more prosperous by dedicating them and making them instruments of the purposes of God. Without that dedication, plenty and prosperity have a worm—the worm of selfishness—eating at their hearts. But dedicated plenty and prosperity are sound and singing.
Take love. The Christian—with central loyalties to God and people to whom one is bound by ties of marriage intact—is free to accept and give love. The home in which I write this is a beautiful home with a deep and beautiful attachment between husband and wife. With their loyalties and mine intact, we are free to give one another a very deep affection. The Way is the way of healthy-mindedness. The God who made sunsets and sunrises, who painted the lily, put a smile on a baby’s face, and laughter in our souls is not happy when we are unhappy. God made us for positive appreciation and love and enjoyment.
Someone imagining what an Ashram would be like wrote, “Brother Stanley goes around with long black robes, and the rest follow him weeping.” Nothing could be further from the truth. The people do not follow “Brother Stanley,” but Christ, and consequently there is gaiety not gloom, laughter not weeping. “Everything belongs to you, but you belong to Christ, and Christ belongs to God” (1 Cor. 3:22-23 CEB). The world of beauty and art and friendship and growing things and the sheer zest of living—all belong to you. For the Way is written in them, and when we take them we find the Way. It is God “who lets me stand securely on the heights” (Ps. 18:33 CEB). Yes, on the heights of love and life.
O Christ, you give me everything. I’m beautiful in every flower, rich in every friendship, happy in every baby’s smile, and joyous in the laughter of the truly joyous. I thank you, I thank you. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: When things go my way, I can take them; and when things go against me—I can take it!
Week 36 Tuesday
The Ultimate Security
Hebrews 12:28; 1 Peter 5:10-11; 2 Peter 3:14
We saw yesterday that we can be initiated into the secret for plenty. Today we pause upon the secret of initiation for privation.
In one of my books, I told the story of Dr. Robert Blair. He went to China on an adventure of love and there caught an eye infection that left him blind. His wife died of a painful cancer; one son died of Addison’s disease, another from an infection; his daughter caught infantile paralysis and can walk only on crutches. Between them, they had a pair of crutches and a Seeing Eye dog to begin life over again. Was that all? Oh no. They had an unconquerable spirit. Dr. Blair was pastor of a church, and the daughter ran the home—on a pair of crutches—and they were radiant. And now the sequel. The remaining son was killed on Okinawa, and the father became ill with a painful skin disease and had to resign his church. But father and daughter are both still on top—still radiant. They have been initiated into a secret. They can stand privation because they can use privation.*
If you can stand only prosperity, you are weak; if you can stand only privation, you are weak. You are strong only if you can stand anything—good, bad, and indifferent. “You are safe only when you can stand everything that can happen to you.”** Then Christians are safe, for we cannot only stand anything that can happen to us but also use it.
The securities promised by insurance societies, by governments, by bank accounts are all partial securities. They are vulnerable. You can find the Achilles’ heel in every one of them. But here is the ultimate security, for life can hit you from either side—privation or prosperity—and you cannot only stand it, you can smile it; and not only smile it, you can sing it. Doubt it? Listen to this, “After ordering them to be flogged . . . he put them into the inner prison and secured their feet in the stocks. But about midnight, as Paul and Silas were praying and singing . . .” (Acts 16:22-25 Moffatt). “Praying and singing”—praying is obvious and natural in such a situation, but singing is different. They knew “the secret.”
O Christ, I thank you that you have taught my heart to sing as well as to pray. For I’ve learned life’s deepest secret, and now I am secure. The wind can blow from any direction and it will only drive me to my goal. Glory be! I thank you. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: I am safe, for I can stand anything that can happen to me—stand everything, for I can use everything.
*See Abundant Living (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2014), week 41, Saturday.
**Josiah Royce, The Sources of Religious Insight (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1912), 249, italics original.
Week 36 Wednesday
The Password
Hebrews 12:7-11
We have seen the fact that we can learn how to live by prosperity or by privation. Now look at the initiation fee and the password.
This secret society is an open secret society. Jesus speaks of “the open secrets of the Realm of heaven” (Matt. 13:11 Moffatt). It is secret; you have to know the combination. But it is an open secret; anyone can join, provided you are willing to pay the price. And the price is commensurate with the security provided. Other secret societies give partial security and demand a partial price. This one offers total security for the total person, in total situations, for a total length of time—time and eternity—and therefore it demands a total price: the price of yourself and all you have.
If God has you partially, God can secure you only partially; you are still vulnerable. But if God has you wholly, then you are wholly secure; you are invulnerable. Everything now “works together for good” to those who love God (see Rom. 8:28). When God has all of you, then you have all of God, and in God, there is perfect security. Anything can go, but if you have God, you have everything.
A young bride reading a telegram over the shoulder of her husband—a telegram telling that their newly found home had burned—looked at him and said, “But dear, we’ve still got one another.” When the Christian has the central relation with God intact, he or she can come back from anything.
The password? The password into this secret society is in the last portion of Philippians 4:13 (Moffatt), “In him . . . I am able for anything.” The password is “anything.” Repeat the password to yourself until it becomes, not a word that you possess, but a word that possesses you. You are ready for “anything” from anywhere. You march forth fully armored behind and before, and the slings and arrows of fortune cannot find an opening, and the atomic bomb could blow you only into perfect wholeness—forever.
So whisper the password “anything” to yourself as you awaken and as you fall asleep, and say it during the day, and you will become “able for anything.”
O Christ, your secret society is open. I know, to even me. For there are no snobberies there. It is free to everybody who will pay the price and take the gift. I am so glad it is a gift. I can take it, holding in my hands my all, as I do. I’m in, I’m in. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: I have the ultimate security, for I can make good, bad, and indifferent serve the ends for which I live!
Week 36 Thursday
The Meaning of Faith
Hebrews 10:35-39; 11:1, 39-40
We study together for the rest of the week the place of faith in all this. Many sigh and say, “I’d like to be initiated into this secret society, but it is a step of faith, and I just haven’t the faith.”
Faith is not trying hard to believe. That is anxiety trying to look like faith. There is a humorous touch to Paul’s saying, “Salute Tryphaena and Tryphosa, who work hard in the Lord” (Rom. 16:12 Moffatt). They might be called “Brother Try” and “Sister Try,” sweating Christians “who work hard in the Lord.” They exhaust themselves; they are under the gospel of trying. I would like to change their names to “Trustphaena” and “Trustphosa,” who accomplish much in the Lord. The passing from trying to trusting is the change of the basis of your life from yourself to God.
Here was a young minister, sick with tuberculosis, who was told by doctors that his lifework was finished. For seventy-two hours, he struggled in the dark, and then God spoke to him, “I will take care of you and your future.” He surrendered the whole matter to God, ceased to struggle, became joyous, and got well. He says, “I’m grateful it came. Up to that time, I was depending on myself and my preparation; after that, I was depending on God. I’m a new man and have a new ministry.” He has passed from fighting to faith, from trying to trust.
What, then, is faith? The best definition I know is this, “Faith is welcoming that which you believe in.” Faith, then, has gone beyond belief. It welcomes now as fact what you have believed in as idea. Faith is “an affirmation and an act that bids eternal truth be fact.”* It is “an affirmation and an act.” You must act faith as well as affirm faith. Peter Böhler said to the seeking John Wesley, “Preach faith until you have it, and then because you have it you will preach it.”**You must affirm faith, talk faith to God and others, and yourself, and then act faith. Ten lepers leaped over the stage of affirming faith and acted faith, “Show yourselves to the priests. . . . And as they went they were cleansed” (Luke 17:14 Moffatt). In the act of obeying, faith turned to fact; healing ensued.
O Christ of God, help me to act upon the things I believe. Help me to welcome them now as working facts within me. Let me have more than a faith affirmation and a faith act. Let me have a faith attitude. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: “Though I cried out, ‘I am crushed. . . . All men are a failure,’ yet I had faith” (Ps. 116:10-11 Moffatt).
*Hartley Coleridge, “The Just Shall Live by Faith” in Poems by Hartley Coleridge, vol. 2 (London: Bradbury and Evans, 1851), 341.
**This quotation is widely attributed to the Moravian bishop and missionary as advice offered to John Wesley after his seemingly failed mission to Georgia.
Week 36 Friday
An Open Universe
Mark 11:23-24; 2 Timothy 1:12-14
We continue our meditation on faith. We saw yesterday that faith is not struggling and trying; it is letting go and trusting. The oft-repeated statement, “Let go, let God,” someone suggests, should be put this way, “Let go, let God, let’s go.” But “Let’s go” is last, and rightly. Peter says, “Furnish your faith with resolution” (2 Pet. 1:5 Moffatt). Note that “faith” is first and “resolution” second. Our gospel is not primarily resolution—a whipping up of the will. It is primarily faith—a surrender of the will to the will of God. Linked with Almighty Resources, you can now add resolution, for the resolution now is not an anxious fretting—trying in one’s own strength and power—but a restful, confident resolution to take infinite resources.
This is an open universe, open to faith. But there is a legitimate catch in the words of Jesus, “All that ever you ask in prayer you shall have, if you believe” (Matt. 21:22 Moffatt), for in saying that anything is possible to those who believe, the catch is in the fact that you cannot have faith unless you are committed to God, in which case you will ask only the right thing in faith. It is self-correcting.
Moreover, it is self-developing. Jesus said, “Regain your sight, your faith has made you well” (Luke 18:42 Moffatt). Suppose he had said, “My power has made you well.” That would have left no incentive in the person healed, for someone else had done the whole thing. But this putting of it—“Your faith has made you well”—left the man with a sense of self-respect. Jesus develops people as he gives to people. “It is the faith he inspires which has made the man thus hale and whole before you all” (Acts 3:16 Moffatt). He inspired the faith and then answered the faith. Jesus “faithed faith” out of the faithless.
We often say, “Seeing is believing.” But here, “Believing is seeing,” seeing things come to pass. Jesus said, “As you believe, so your prayer is granted” (Matt. 9:29 Moffatt). These two words as and so are the smallest and greatest words of life, “As”—faith; “so”—result.
O God, I come to you with the smallness of my faith—it is a grain of mustard seed. But it is a seed, and in it is everything, everything I want to be and do. Water it with your faith, and I know it will spring up and be adequate for anything. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: “As for me, I hope on and on, I praise thee more than ever” (Ps. 71:14 Moffatt).
Week 36 Saturday
Faith Is Alert Receptivity
Mark 6:53-56; 10:13-15
We continue our meditation on faith. Faith brings things into the now, but it can wait until the morrow. It is timeless. A little girl, praying for her father’s recovery, said, “O God, make my daddy well. One, two, three—go!” We can understand the child’s impatience, but the surer faith is this, “So, when he heard of the illness, he stayed where he was for two days” (John 11:6 Moffatt). Here was a divine pause. Jesus was working out purposes too great for haste. Suppose Jesus had rushed to Lazarus’s side. Then we should have had a rising from illness, or a rising from a very recent death—a swoon they would have called it. This pause brought a miracle! God pauses only to make us of tougher fiber through the waiting or to work a greater miracle. God’s pauses are always purposeful. The pause often lets us settle more deeply “in God’s name,” “in God’s character,” and thus assures that the prayer is answered.
“By faith . . . we wait in the Spirit for the righteousness we hope for” (Gal. 5:5 Moffatt). Here are the steps: (1) By faith, (2) we wait, (3) in the Spirit, (4) for the righteousness we hope for. Here is pure receptivity, an attitude of open acceptance. But it doesn’t end in passivity. It ends in activity, for the next verse speaks of “faith active in love.” Suppose we put it in terms, often preached as though it were Christianity: (1) We fight, (2) we struggle, (3) in the spirit of determination, (4) for the righteousness we expect to attain. That would be pure self-endeavor. The end of this would not be “faith active in love,” but “fighting active in frustration.” This latter would be strain, hence drain, and the end would be bankruptcy and frayed nerves.
“Faith active in love” is creative and healing and filling. Of someone it was said, “She took life on tiptoe.” The person of faith takes life on tiptoe, and the person of self-centered trying takes life on leaden feet. “A little faith will bring your soul to heaven, but a lot of faith will bring heaven to your soul.”* It will.
Jesus said, “You believe—believe in God and also in me” (John 14:1 Moffatt). “You believe” in something—chance, your own effort. Everybody believes in something. Then believe in the highest—God—and God as shown by Jesus.
O God, help me to take this belief that I am bound to fasten on something, and help me to fasten it upon the highest—upon you and your purposes. Then faith will not be barren, but will blossom. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: “In God I trust without a fear: what can man do to me?” (Ps. 56:11 Moffatt).
*Often attributed to D. L. Moody.