Week 16 Sunday
Week 16 Sunday
Further Compromise
2 Kings 5:18; Luke 9:57-62
Last week I said that the self lets go reluctantly and that compromise will be asked for. This old pharaoh, who has been used to ruling for ages, when asked to let you go into freedom will say, “no,” and then, “yes-no.” But you must insist that “not a hoof shall be left behind” (Exod. 10:26).
The “yes-no” attitude at this place is subtle and sometimes covered. I gave up my mattress to someone at the ashram and felt virtuous for doing so. Then I remembered where there was another, and got it for myself. I thus satisfied two things within me: the desire to get the approval of my higher life and of my fellows by giving up the mattress, and the desire for my own comfort by getting another mattress.
Some Chinese offer to their gods what to them is one of the most precious things they have, the pig. It used to be that the whole animal was offered. Now they offer the severed head with the severed tail in its mouth—and keep the body for themselves! With us there is a good deal of offering of that kind. We offer the useless remnants and keep the essential self intact. We offer our service and withhold the self. We offer our talents on occasions to Christ and reserve to ourselves the right to decide the really big things of our lives. Thus religion becomes the window dressing that hides our essential motives. We are not necessarily hypocrites, for many of these motives are hid from us. We are just halfway givers. This exactly expresses what we try to do with God. We pass a resolution of complete surrender, and then nullify it by “riders.” And then we wonder why there is no liberty in the life.
O Christ, search our hearts relentlessly to find the hidden stowaway. We want everything, everything to come under your sway. For we want everything to express your freedom. Amen.
Week 16 Monday
We Search Relentlessly
Matthew 6:24; Romans 13:14; 2 Corinthians 6:15-18
I must not seem to labor the matter of compromises too much, lest you become vexed with me. But this is so important that I must hold myself and you to this point. It may be that your very vexation with me is a sign that I am on uncomfortable ground, and that you would prefer that I change the subject.
One can often see a Hindu swami on the small raised platform while the faithful lay offerings at his feet. He seems to be indifferent to it all; in fact, he treats the whole thing with contempt. Does it not belong to the world that he has renounced? He gets up and leaves the whole thing with an air of utter indifference and leaves. As the curtains close behind him, the servants deftly gather up the rich offerings and follow him. It goes into the treasury. The swami is wealthy beyond words. He is probably not a conscious hypocrite, at least not now, for he has lived so long in the illusion of renunciation that he really believes he has renounced all. And others believe it, hence their offerings. The essential self underneath it all is covered so that one hardly sees that it occupies the offstage throne.
When you come to offer this inmost self, you will be strongly drawn to do what the Hindu does when offering a water buffalo to a god. The long knife falls toward the neck of the buffalo, but just as it is about to strike, the executioner deftly turns it and it cuts off the tip of the ear instead. The sacrifice is finished and everyone is satisfied.
When you are about to lay low your essential self, the temptation will be very strong to cut off the tip of some self-indulgence instead, and leave the matter at that, the essential self untouched.
O Christ, you see how we hesitate to strike the blow that would seem to slay our most precious possessions. But nerve our hearts and our arms that we may not divert the blow into irrelevancies. Amen.
Week 16 Tuesday
Two Welcomes
Luke 7:36-50; 10:38-42
Perhaps we can see ourselves in one or the other of these welcomes:
(1) Jesus was invited into the house at Bethany, and there Mary “sat at the Lord’s feet and listened to his message” (Luke 10:39 CEB).
(2) A Pharisee “invited Jesus to eat with him. After he entered the Pharisee’s home, he took his place at the table” (Luke 7:36 CEB). Then follows the story of the woman who anointed his feet. The Pharisee said within himself, “If this man [note the attitude] were a prophet, he would know what kind of woman is touching him. He would know that she is a sinner” (v. 39). “Is a sinner”: to men like the Pharisee, there is never a “was a sinner”; it is always is. Once a sinner, always a sinner. They never forgive and forget. To Jesus she “was a sinner”; she is not one now.
But to go on: Jesus said to Simon, “I entered your home, you didn’t give me water for my feet. . . . You didn’t greet me with a kiss. . . . You didn’t anoint my head with oil” (vv. 44-46). In other words, Simon, “I have come into your house, part way, at the door. You gave me food, and reserved your heart. You gave me a welcome, with reservations. I am in, and yet not in. This woman has sinned in her flesh. You are sinning in your spirit. I can release her. But I cannot release you. You won’t let me. For you want to retain your pride and me. You would like to have me and not have me. You are divided, and therefore self-damned.”
But Mary welcomed him and gave him food, and her heart. She sat at his feet. He was at home there. For the welcome was complete.
Is your heart a Bethany to Christ or a Pharisee’s house? Self-surrender will turn that proud, barren, critical, aloof, self-righteous Pharisee’s house into a Bethany.
O Christ, I fling open the door to my house and my heart to you. You shall be to me no longer the threshold Christ, but the throne Christ. Take the very throne of my divided heart. Take it now. For I give it. Amen.
Week 16 Wednesday
All I Know and All I Don’t Know
John 16:12-13; 1 Corinthians 13:9-12
There may be the lingering fear that your giving may not be complete. But if you are completely honest in giving what you know, then you can lump all the other unknown things and future contingencies in the words, “I give all I know, and all I don’t know.”
“All I don’t know” has within it the future as it unfolds. It means that in your giving is absoluteness and yet relativity. There is absoluteness in that it is once and for all, and yet relativity in that you will have to keep offering things to God as they come up day by day. But you need not be anxious now about those things that come up in the future; let them be met as they come. If there is no Inner Voice telling you that you are withholding, then you have a right to believe that all has been given, for if there were something left behind, the Spirit would let you know.
The absoluteness and the relativity in full self-giving can be seen in real marriage. There is a once-and-for-allness about self-giving in real marriage, but there is a relativity in that there are continuous adjustments and continuous unfoldings of pledges of self-giving. Marriage is over in an hour, and yet it takes a lifetime to be really married.
The all that you use is a small word, but it has within it an amazing capacity for unfolding. It holds within it pleasure and pain, struggle and battle, joy and peace, glorious relationships and difficult adjustments. It is well that the curtain shrouds all that it holds. For we do not need to live all of life at once; that would exhaust us. We can live it a day at a time. What the future holds is not for me to ask, but whatever it may be, Christ has that too.
O God, I thank you that I need not worry about tomorrow. You have today, and you have me. Let that suffice me. Amen.
Week 16 Thursday
All I Don’t Know (continued)
Psalm 103:1; John 4:14; Colossians 2:6-7 (Weymouth)
We saw yesterday that “All I don’t know” covers the unfolding future. But it covers something else: the hidden depths of the unconscious mind. Its reach is not only in length into the future but also in depths within us.
The unconscious mind is now a well-established psychological fact. Long before modern psychology began its description, sincere religious people had felt the fact within them. It has been variously described as another law working within “my members,” “Evil is present with me,” “the old man,’’ “inherited evil,’’ “original sin,’’ and so on. All these point to a realm that seems to be working against the conscious purposes of life and over which we have little control. It is unconscious—the place of inherited instincts, instincts polluted by the streams of human tendencies that have poured into them for ages.
We do not know the subconscious mind except indirectly, nor can we control it except indirectly. That control must come from God. We can surrender it to God, who then takes over charge of the depths. They become cleansed and Christianized. How do I know this? I do not know it except indirectly. But look at the disciples after Pentecost. They do not seem to be sitting on the lid of an inner volcano. They seem to be unified to the very depths of their being. The new life came out of them like perfume from a flower—it seemed the natural expression of their unified lives.
The life that is controlled at the depths of the subconscious mind by the Spirit seems tensionless, not between itself and its ideals, for that tension will always remain, but tensionless in regard to itself. The conscious and the subconscious are both dedicated to the same purposes and working toward the same ends.
O God, I thank you that you are about to give me healing at the very center of my being; you will make conscious mind and unconscious, now according well, beat out music vaster than before, I give both to you. Amen.
Week 16 Friday
The Acceptance
Mark 3:5; 9:22-23; 11:22; John 1:16
We now come to the place where we are prepared to take the step that will mean full deliverance. It is the step of faith. Faith is an adventure in acceptance. It banks on the bona fides of God. It believes that the character of God and the moral stability of the universe are behind this offer of full deliverance. There is an element of quiet aggressiveness in our reaching out and taking this pearl of great price, inward freedom; for we have paid the ultimate price, our all, and now we have the moral right to accept all. It is a step in mutual confidence.
But some stand, having paid all, hesitating to take all. I once saw a lady who, about to go into the Chicago Exposition, having dropped her coin into the turnstile slot, stood waiting for the turnstile to open for her. But it did not open, even though she had paid the price. It needed the aggressive push of faith against it, and when she made that push, it opened.
You have paid the price, now press, literally press against the promises held out to you, and you will walk through them into freedom. A few days ago a doctor, who had found life turning sour, walked out into freedom through these words, “Whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received them, and it will be yours” (Mark 11:24). Note “have received,” not “will receive,” for it is already done. It awaits only your acceptance. You cannot trust yourself, you cannot trust your own resources, but you can trust God. God will never let you down.
I have stood alongside of thousands of people at this hour of acceptance, and whenever people have made the step in simplicity and aggressive sincerity, God has never let them down. Not once. God will not let you down. Try it.
O God, my Lord, I come to the moment of the test of my love to you. For I know if I love you, I will trust you for this gift of full release. I do love you and I do trust you now. Amen.
Week 16 Saturday
A Personal Word
Luke l:2; Acts 1:8; 4:20
Perhaps a personal word might help. I was a Christian for a year or more when one day I looked at a library shelf and was struck with the title of a book, The Christian’s Secret of a Happy Life.* As I read it, my heart was set on fire to find this life of freedom and fullness. I reached page 42 when the Inner Voice said very distinctly, “Now is the time to find.” I pleaded that I did not know what I wanted, that when I finished it, I would seek. But the Inner Voice was imperious, “Now is the time to seek.”
I tried to read on, but the words seemed blurred. I was up against a divine insistence, so closed the book, dropped on my knees, and asked, “What shall I do?” The Voice replied, “Will you give me your all—your very all?”
After a moment’s hesitation I replied, “I will.”
“Then take my all, you are cleansed,” the Voice said with a strange, inviting firmness.
“I believe it,” I said and arose from my knees. I walked around the room affirming it over and over, and pushing my hands away from me as if to push away my doubt. This I did for ten minutes, when suddenly I was filled with a strange refining fire that seemed to course through every portion of my being in cleansing waves. It was all very quiet and I had hold of myself and yet the divine waves could be felt from the inmost center of my being to my fingertips. My whole being was being fused into one, and through the whole there was a sense of sacredness and awe and the most exquisite joy.
Very emotional? So be it! But I knew then, and I know now, that I was not being merely emotionally stirred, but the very sources of my life were being cleansed and were taken possession of by Life itself. My will was just as much involved as my emotion. The fact is the whole of life was on a permanently higher level.
O God, I too take you in this simple way. If you are looking for a heart to refine and dwell in, you have mine, completely and forever. I accept the Gift. Amen.
* Hannah Whitall Smith, 1885.