Week 47 Sunday
Week 47 Sunday
Developing through Collective Quest
1 Corinthians 12:5, 12-13, 26-27; Ephesians 4:25; 5:30
We cannot grow unless we join with other questing lives. Hence the church. How can we get most out of that corporate fellowship? Simeon came into the temple and saw the Lord’s Christ. How did it happen? He brought something to that hour, and seeing the Lord’s Christ was the result of what he brought.
Luke 2:27 says, “And inspired by the Spirit he came into the temple.” Go to church that way—“in the Spirit”—and you will see something. But many go to church “in the flesh.” It is all on that level, to display clothes or oratory. Or it is all “in the mind”—we listen to some new or attractive thing. Or it is “in the emotions”—our aesthetic natures like the music and the stately ritual. But the Lord’s Christ does not appear. We do not come “in the Spirit.”
What does it mean to come “in the Spirit”? Luke’s account tells us in verse 25 that Simeon had a fourfold rightness: (1) rightness toward humanity—“righteous”; (2) rightness toward God—“devout”; (3) rightness toward the nation—“looking for the consolation of Israel”; ( 4) rightness toward himself—“the Holy Spirit was upon him.” He was a man four-square.
But the looking for the consolation of his own people did not keep him from seeing the possibilities in other people. He saw that Christ would be “a light for revelation to the Gentiles” (v. 32). He saw that Christ would not only bring consolation to Israel, his own nation; but he would reveal the possibilities in others, the Gentiles. This is Christianity; narrow nationalism is not. Bring with you these four basic things and you will come into the temple “in the Spirit.” Then you will see amazing possibilities in yourself, in your nation, in other nations. All through Christ.
O Christ, as we prepare to go into your temple, help us to take this fourfold rightness with us, and then we shall see you, and when we return we can stand four-square to life. Amen.
Week 47 Monday
Developing through Unity
Ephesians 1:10; 4:4-6, 12-13, 16; Colossians 3:15
The next great step in Christendom is Christian unity. In a world seeking unity, Christians have little moral authority unless they can demonstrate unity. Now we do not demonstrate unity; we demonstrate disunity. This is blocking the acceptance of Christianity and the development of Christians themselves.
I believe that we have gone as far as we can in spiritual development under separate denominationalism. We may advance here and there, but with no great burst of collective spirituality until we come together. You ask, “How can we come together unless we agree in everything?” But we do not make that a prerequisite for fellowship in the home. The home can be a unity in spite of differences in temperament and belief. The one thing that binds together is that all are members of the same family. So in the family of God, the thing that binds us together is not that we all have the same spiritual temperament, or the same shades of belief, but the fact that we are all children of the same Lord. Let that suffice us.
We need our differences as possible growing points. The music of the Hindus is based on melody and not on harmony, as is Western music. A Hindu heard an African American group singing spirituals in parts, bringing out marvelous harmony. His comment was, “What a pity they can’t all sing the same tune!” Had they done so, it wouldn’t have been harmony! The very differences made for richness. We shall never get melody-unity in church unity, for we cannot all sing the same part, but we can have harmony-unity, and that will be far richer. Each denomination will sing its part, and out of it will come the full richness of our gospel.
We shall grow individually and collectively only as we appropriate from one another the distinctive contribution of each. We must grow in unity.
O Christ, we thank you that you are bringing together many differing parts to make one great harmony. Help us to sing our part and to appreciate and to appropriate the parts of others. Amen.
Week 47 Tuesday
Grow in Grace
Psalm 84:7; Proverbs 4:18; Philippians 1:6; 2 Thessalonians 1:8; 2 Peter 3:18
Perhaps the most distinctive thing in the gospel is grace, so the most distinctive thing in our growth must be growth in grace. The grace of God is love: judging our sins, suffering for our sins, forgiving our sins, removing our sins, and then abiding in unworthy hearts. That is grace.
To grow in acceptance, in living by that very grace, is to grow in the deepest thing in our gospel. But the modern mind is afraid of the doctrine of grace, however much the deepest instincts long for it. We are afraid that to depend on another destroys initiative, weakens one’s fiber, and turns the upstanding into the clinging. If this were the result of grace, I should reject it too.
A strange paradox is found in the gospel at this place. God’s gifts do not weaken personality, they strengthen it. Jesus says, “The water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life” (John 4:14 KJV). Note that the gift of water becomes within one a well of water springing up. The gift produces spontaneity! Now, many gifts do not. They weaken. It is hard to give to people and not weaken them. But here is a gift that strengthens in the very act of giving. For it is not a gift that demands nothing on our part. It is the most expensive gift we shall ever receive—expensive to us. For when we take it, our very all goes out in exchange. Now, having given to God, there is mutuality. We are no longer worms of the dust; we are cooperating persons. At the very moment we bend lowest, we stand straightest. Those who depend most on the grace of God develop the strongest personalities. So when we grow in grace, we grow in personal initiative and energy.
We can exclaim: “Arise then, free man! Stand forth in your world. It is God’s world. It is also yours.”
O Christ, may this well of spontaneous life ever spring up within us, since we depend so much upon your life. Amen.
Week 47 Wednesday
Grow in Humility
John 13:3-5; Romans 12:3, 10, 16; 1 Corinthians 15:10; 1 Timothy 1:15
Yesterday we saw that grace strengthens personality. Author and lecturer H. A. Overstreet says, “We come to the most authentic in ourselves as we go forth to that which is immeasurably greater than ourselves.” But the very strengthening of the personality will bring a danger. As you grow, spiritual pride becomes a real danger. Many fall because of it.
Yesterday I went out after a storm and found a beautiful branch of a tree broken off and lying on the pathway. Parasites had done it. Great bunches of a parasite, like mistletoe, had weakened it, and when the test of the storm came, it broke and fell. The most dangerous parasite is spiritual pride—many are weakened by it and fall in the time of test.
The Episcopal bishop of Massachusetts, Phillips Brooks, says, “The true way to be humble is not to stoop until you are smaller than yourself, but to stand at your real height against some higher nature that will show you what the real smallness of your greatness is.” Stand at your very highest, and then look at Christ, and go away and be forever humble! When we lose sight of Christ, we, ourselves, begin to loom large.
A Hindu said to me: “I used to believe in idols. Now I don’t believe in God at all. But I am coming around to believe that I myself am God.” He gave up his idols and made one of himself! When we lose God, we lose our source of humility.
John 13:3-5 says, “Jesus knew the Father had given everything into his hands and that he had come from God and was returning to God. . . . Picking up a linen towel . . . he . . . began to wash the disciples’ feet” (CEB). The consciousness of greatness was the secret of humility. The small dare not be humble. But Jesus’ greatness was rooted in God. Being in God made him great and humble—great because humble and humble because great.
Remember, only the humble can lead. “People who parade their virtues seldom lead the procession.” They cannot lead, for we simply cannot inwardly respond to the proud, however “spiritual” they may seem to be.
O Christ, give me your mind. For you are meek and lowly in heart. And I would be like you. Amen.
Week 47 Thursday
Development in Creative Obedience
John 15:10, 14, 16; Ephesians 2:10; 1 Peter 2:9; 1 John 2:17
When the disciples came in from a night-long, but fruitless night of fishing, Jesus said, “Put out into the deep and let down your nets.” Peter in half-doubt, half-faith said, “Master, we toiled all night and took nothing! But at your word I will let down the nets” (Luke 5:4-6).
“At your word I will”—could fewer words sum up the Christian attitude? “At your word”! That word, speaking to people all through the ages, has never let us down. Whenever people have obeyed it, they have found they were upon an open road; where they have disobeyed it, they have found that they are running into roads with dead ends. That word has been energy to the living and grace to the dying. Other words let me down; this word does not. Nothing has been so utterly tested in history as Jesus’ rightness, and nothing has proven itself so utterly right as his rightness.
Then? There is only one thing left: “At your word I will!” But many of us do not say that. We say, “At your word I think.” We are intellectually aroused by him, but not controlled by him at the place of volition. We are mere intellectualists in religion. Or some of us say, “At your word I feel.” We are moved with strong emotional response to him—sermons stir us, the reading of the gospel brings a thrill—but it does not get beyond that, it does not work itself into our wills. We are emotionalists in religion.
But there are those who say, “At your word I will.” They are the Christians. I am really growing at this point. This is the test of whether the gospel is functioning within me.
Many of us are willing to do God’s work, but not God’s will. If so, the center remains unchristianized. I am Christian to the degree that Christ has my will. When you can say, “At your word I will,” then you are really growing.
O Christ, I can bank on you. Help me to do it this day, and may I show that I do, by the way I will. Amen.
Week 47 Friday
Development in Creative Courage
Proverbs 28:1; Ezekiel 3:9; Philippians 1:27; 2 Timothy 1:7
To break with the present order, to put into operation your vision, demands courage. But that is what the Christian is here to do—the impossible. When a thing becomes possible, the politicians take it over. Courage!
Two incidents of creative courage spring to mind. An Afghan convert felt the call of Christ, to witness to him, in the closed country of Afghanistan. He no sooner began in Kandahar than he was captured and driven to Kabul at the command of the emir. Literally “driven,” for they put a bridle in his mouth and drove him like a donkey the two hundred miles, and along the way men were invited to pluck his beard and spit in his face. Arriving at Kabul, he was asked by the emir if he would renounce his faith. He refused. One arm went off. He was offered everything. Again he refused, and the other arm went off. When he refused even then to deny his Master, his head went off. Courage! A lamp burns perpetually before the “Martyr’s Shrine” at Peshawar, and high up on the list is this man’s name. We feed upon such creative courage as that.
Look at these two pictures: The Christian commissioner of Peshawar was asked if mission work could be started on that wild frontier. His reply: “What, do you want us all to be killed in our beds?” He wasn’t killed in his bed, but a Muslim fanatic did stab him to death on the veranda. What he feared came on him. Mr. Edwards, the next commissioner, when asked the same question, replied, “It is not a matter of our safety, it is a matter of the will of God. Of course we will do it, for we Christians have no other choice.” He called the station people together, took a collection of three thousand rupees on the spot, and invited the missionaries in. His name is loved and revered by Christian and non-Christian alike. Courage, creative courage. Grow in that, and you really grow!
O Christ, give me this gift, for you have it, and I need it—today. Amen.
Week 47 Saturday
Growth in Reconciliation
1 Corinthians 6:20; Ephesians 2:15; 1 Peter 2:21-25; 3:8-9
“Be reconciled to God!” How familiar that sounds as a text for the unconverted! This text was not written for the unconverted, however, but for the converted: “Be reconciled to God. . . . Working together with him, then, we entreat you not to accept the grace of God in vain” (2 Cor. 5:20; 6:1). It was to workers who had received the grace of God that the plea to be reconciled to God was given. It was not for initial reconciliation, but for a continuous reconciliation that the demand is made. Otherwise the grace of God will be received in vain.
Christ is calling to the church today to be reconciled to God. (1) In regard to our message. Our message has not been “the kingdom of God.” We have not preached the kingdom as a head-on, sweeping answer to the world’s needs. We have preached a doctrine here and a doctrine there for individuals, but this full answer to humanity’s total needs, individual and social, has not been singlepointedly proclaimed. We need to be reconciled to God at the place of our message.
(2) We need to be reconciled to God at the place of making the contacts of society vicarious. We have made the contacts antagonistic, or legal, but not vicarious. We need to suffer in the sufferings of those who suffer, be hungry in the hunger of the hungry, and be guilty in the guilt of everyone.
(3) We need to go over our lives and see where there are any points not reconciled to God. Has self-will crept in and taken the place of the will of God?
The love of Thee flows just as much
As that of ebbing self subsides;
Our hearts, their scantiness is such,
Bear not the conflicts of two rival tides.*
There is scarcely anything needed in the world today so much as that the church be reconciled to God in its total life to the total will of God.
O God, bring to my remembrance any point of difference between your mind and mine, and I will be reconciled to you this day. Amen.
*William Cowper, “Divine Love Endures No Rival,” in The Poetical Works of William Cowper (London: Macmillan, 1874), 419.