Week 50—Monday 1 John 4:13-15
1 John 4:13-15
Week 50—MONDAY
I FELT I WAS HOLDING IN MY HAND A KEY
We ended yesterday with the statement of the Muslim brother who said that the Hindus and Muslims must have been more honest and sincere because they said they found nothing and the Christians all said they had found something. My reply was, “That is one interpretation; the other is that Jesus is the Way.” As I have sat in these conferences I’ve felt that I was holding in my hand a key. And that key was Jesus. He unlocked everything. Without him you have the Word become word—a philosophy about life, with him you have Life—the Word become flesh. Put the non-Christians on the abstract and they are wonderful, put them on finding in experience and they are flat. That doesn’t mean that many Christians are not flat, too. But they are Christians not in vital, first-hand contact with Christ. They often have “a high blood pressure of creeds but an anemia of deeds.” But when Christians are real they are finding something Real.
Someone has said that “Christians are very ordinary people making very extraordinary claims.” Not about themselves, but about their Redeemer. They know they are very imperfect followers of a very perfect Lord. So they say, “Glance at me, but gaze at Christ. Don’t follow me, follow him. ‘We preach not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord.’” A Hindu convert said in his prayer, “Save me from vain and magnificent words and give me simple deeds.” A good prayer—and needed. But Jesus Christ is proving himself a Savior to the degree that people expose themselves to him in simple surrender and faith and obedience. It works, and it works with a mathematical precision—it works to the degree that we work it. It is verified knowledge—and verified across all races and classes and ages.
O Lord Jesus, I know that you are a Savior for you save me, most of all from myself, my chief enemy. We do not boast when we talk about you, we testify. “Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.” We thank you. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today, and for ever”—the only one about whom that can be said, except God; therefore Jesus must be God.