Week 19—Saturday 2 Corinthians 4:1-2
Week 19—SATURDAY
WOULD NOT PREACH ANYTHING NOT OPERATIVE
This speaking out of experience and its power was illustrated by a minister who decided that he would not preach anything that was not operative within himself. He began to preach with power. His range was less, but his power in what he did say was greater. He claimed less, but reclaimed more—more people wanted what he had. Bishop Oldham, before he became a bishop, was pastor of a church in Singapore. One day he preached on the Holy Spirit and at the end said frankly, “I haven’t got what I have preached. But I want the Holy Spirit. I am going to this altar to surrender myself and to pray for the Holy Spirit. Those who would like to join me in this seeking may come.” Nearly the whole congregation surged forward to seek what their pastor was seeking. No wonder the church elected him a bishop and no wonder a saintly life underlay all his activities, inside and outside the pulpit and platform.
When the Japanese had taken over Manchuria from the Chinese, some Chinese pastors said to me, “Don’t preach to us to love our enemies, preach to us spiritually.” They wanted the gospel as spirituality, and not the gospel as the word of spirituality become flesh in loving one’s enemies. Those in our churches who are without sin in this regard may cast the first stone. Not many stones will be cast! “There is nothing covered that shall not be revealed”—revealed, whether it is reality or unreality. For reality steals into the words of the real, and unreality steals into the words of the unreal. And the people sense it intuitively. “Nothing is covered”—good or bad. So all our inner thoughts become words and the words become flesh—good or bad.
O Jesus, Author and Finisher of Reality, may everything about me be real today. May the thoughts of my mind, the meditations of my heart, and the acts of my will be acceptable in your sight. And then and then only will I be real. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: May all my spirituality take shoes and walk this day.