Week 52—Saturday John 1:29-34
John 1:29-34
IN JESUS I HAVE EVERYTHING
The eighth thing Jesus Christ means to me is the kingdom of God—God’s total answer to our total need. Without this fact of the Kingdom our faith would be a personal allegiance to a Person—it would lack total meaning, individual and corporate. But with Jesus and the Kingdom one—he is the Kingdom—then “all authority” is in him both “in heaven and on earth.” I belong to the sum total of Reality and the sum total of Reality belongs to me.
Ninth, Jesus Christ means to me eternal life. I don’t get it hereafter, I have it now in him. I am sure of heaven, for I’m sure of Jesus. To be in him is to be in heaven wherever you are. So whether I live or die, so-called, is a matter of comparative indifference.
Tenth, Jesus Christ means to me a divine-human fellowship in the church. I put this last not first. The church has been the mother of my spirit—at her altars I found Christ. When I found Christ, I found the church. But I do not belong to the church, though I’m a member of it—I belong to Christ—the church belongs to me—a gift of Grace. The most precious fellowship the world holds.
Eleventh, Jesus Christ means to me self-surrender. Not a self-surrender once and for all—it is that—but a continuous moment-by-moment surrender of my self and my problems as they arise. I say to him, “I am yours and this problem is yours; tell me what to do about it.” One morning early at what I call my Listening Post, he said, “You are mine, life is yours.” I saw its amazing sweep, so I asked him to repeat it. He did. I belong to him; life with all its problems and possibilities belongs to me; I can master it. One morning as I got out of bed, I said to myself, “Stanley, how are you?” And I found myself replying, “Well, I am his.” That settled everything. So when I have Jesus Christ—the Word become flesh—I have Everything. For it has me—has me with the consent of all my being. “See the Christ stand!” “I commend my Savior to you.”
O Redeemer, we cannot give to you this, that, and the other, for nothing less than our very all is befitting. So we offer to you our all, and lo, we have your all. And what an All! It fills heaven and earth and me—with Glory. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: “And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being changed into his likeness from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit” (2 Cor. 3:18).