Week 41—Thursday Matthew 7:7-11
Week 41—THURSDAY
“I REFUSE TO ACCEPT MY LIMITATIONS”
Everything in Jesus is present tense. Heaven? You can have it now—in him. Apocalyptic? You can live in “realized apocalyptic.” “When they have experienced the goodness of God’s word and the spiritual energies of the age to come” (Heb. 6:5, NEB). “Experienced . . . the spiritual energies of the age to come.” You can live tomorrow today! Last night a polio cripple, unable to walk, told me that her priest had said, “Yes, my child, you will enjoy happiness in heaven.” But she saw the possibility of living in heaven now through surrender to Jesus, took heaven as her portion now, and is radiantly happy and useful in teaching seventy children. She went past the priestly “No, not now,” took the immediate “Yes” of Jesus, and is a center of spiritual contagion.
A minister radiantly happy and useful at eighty-three said, “This is my life philosophy: In view of the resources of God I refuse to accept my limitations.”
A critic said to Sister Mary, “I don’t believe in your way of life,” and she quietly replied, “Well, the difference between you and me is that you are digging for oil and I’m pumping it.” She had learned to take, and it made the difference between the frustrated critic and the fruitful Christian.
When Jesus breathed on his disciples and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit” (John 20:22), it could be translated, “Take the Holy Spirit”—it is active. Everything in Jesus is open and everything is present. Jesus brought God into the Now.
A couple who had turned their backs on Jesus and were trying to climb the ladder to God by their renunciations said rather wistfully, “We have a long way to go.” In Jesus it’s never “a long way to go”—it’s all in the here and now. A student in Japan said, “Stanley Jones tonight gave instances of people finding God now. I don’t think that can happen.” The next morning he appeared at the door: “Sir, it has happened—to me.”
O Jesus, we do not have to climb up to heaven to bring you down, for you are here. If I’m in a hole you are in the hole with me—to release me. All I need to do is to stop turning my back on you. You are here. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: In view of the Here-ness of Jesus, I am not alone and I am not without adequate Resources.