Week 43—Saturday Acts 8:26-29
Week 43—SATURDAY
“LET HIM WHO HEARS SAY ‘COME’ ”
In the final chapter of Revelation is this verse: “The Spirit and the Bride say, ‘Come.’ And let him who hears say, ‘Come’” (Rev. 22:17). The Spirit is saying within every person, “Come.” For Christ is what the human heart is made for. So our longings are longings for him, often wrongly interpreted. But the Spirit is saying “Come.” And the Bride, the church, is saying “Come.” Often the church instead of saying, “Come to Christ,” says, “Come to me.” Then we have churchianity instead of Christianity. But it is not enough to have this collective call—it must be individual. The general word of call is often the Word become word; in the individual it must be the Word become flesh. He who hears must say “Come.”
A layman heard his pastor preach on this text. It awakened him. “All my life I’ve been hearing, but I’ve never said to anyone ‘Come.’ Time for me to begin.” He did begin and never stopped, and was transformed by it.
Gaston Morris goes about on crutches because of arthritis. In one year he won two hundred sixty people and the next year one hundred fifty. He did this while carrying on his real estate business.
Recently, I was in Taiwan and saw a cave with a chapel beside it put up in memory of a tattooed grandmother, who used to sit in that cave all night and teach the headhunters the gospel. When the missionaries came back after World War II, they found over ten thousand of these headhunters had become Christians. No missionary or pastor—just a dedicated lady in whom the Word had become flesh.
The young people of a church in Phoenix, Arizona, go out on Sunday afternoons. Fifty-five young called on one hundred ten other young people and won fifty-five, every other person! They have little gold “wish bones” which they wear on their lapels. When someone asks them what it means they reply, “My dearest wish is that you become a Christian.” The wish had become flesh.
Dear Lord and Father, may all my wishes become wills. May I not only wish people to come to you, but may I will it. May all my impulses become pulses. May I hear and say, “Come.” May my words be words of invitation. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: Definition of evangelism: “One beggar telling another beggar where to find bread.”