Week 48 Sunday
Week 48 Sunday
Growth in Making the Home Christian
Genesis 18:19; Deuteronomy 11:19; Joshua 24:15; Psalm 10:2
Jesus finally won his whole family to his cause. There was a time when “his brothers did not believe in him” (John 7:5). But at Pentecost, they were all there: “Mary the mother of Jesus, and with his brothers” (Acts 1:14), waiting for the gift of the Spirit. Apparently, they had all been won. One of the greatest proofs of the resurrection can be found in that simple fact. Something had happened to change them.
But Jesus did not win his family by compromising with them. He won them by making sacrifices that were costly for both him and them. Many are willing to sacrifice for the kingdom, but not if it costs suffering to their loved ones. A mistake. Our decisions will involve our loved ones in common suffering with us. It is a part of the price. But it works both ways, for as sacrifice will lift us, so it will lift them. We break with them on a lower level in order to meet them on a higher level.
But we win them not merely by a once-and-for-all spectacular sacrifice, but by the constant pressure of a Christian example. When John the Baptist was born, the neighbors asked, “ ‘What then will this child be?’ For the hand of the Lord was with him” (Luke 1:66).
The question could be asked in many ways. What will this child be, seeing that the hand of narrow nationalistic propaganda is upon him! To ask it is to answer it: a narrow, partisan hater prepared to fight! And what will this child be, seeing that the hand of a ruthlessly competitive order is upon her? Again to ask is to answer: either a hard crusher of others, or a woman who turns out a beaten soul. And what will this child be, seeing that the hand of sex-saturated movies is upon him? The modern libertine!
And what will these children be, seeing that the hand of a consistent and contagious Christian example is upon them? Who can tell? Infinite possibilities of development open up to such children. Are you that kind of a father or mother?
O Christ, we thank you that you won your family. Help me to do the same today. Amen.
Week 48 Monday
Growth in Appreciation
Leviticus 19:18; 1 Corinthians 13:4-7; Colossians 3:20-21; 1 Thessalonians 4:9; Hebrews 10:24
We cannot change our loved ones or anyone else by nagging complaints. The Pharisees thought the only way to change people was by disapproval. They tried it and ended in being themselves disapproved. Once they journeyed all the way from Jerusalem to Galilee, and what did they see? The glorious coming of the long-looked-for kingdom? The wonder of the love of “the Man of the healing hands”? The gates of life being opened to stricken souls? Oh, no! They saw only the fact that the disciples ate “with unclean hands” (Mark 7:1-3 CEB)! They passed by the great and saw only the trivial. They became small by what they saw.
One little boy said his name was “Johnny Don’t,” for that was what he was always called at home. He probably lived in an attitude of resistance and rebellion.
Another hungry little boy sat down to the table and began to obey his appetite instead of waiting for grace, which had to be said when his mouth was full. He replied in response to his mother’s inquiry, “Well, anyway I didn’t chew.” His wise mother commended him for that much restraint, and then appealed for the full restraint. The little fellow evidently caught the spirit of appreciation of others, for when I asked him if he wouldn’t like to come and travel with me in evangelistic work, he replied, “You take the baby; he’s a good Christian!” I think they are both going to turn out very lovely Christians! Bless them!
The one who is hypercritical is usually hypocritical.
Bring into the home a whole lot of appreciation, and you will find that the little flowers will open to its genial warmth. Otherwise they close up. A Hindu student came to a college principal to tell him of his decision for Christ. He forgot to take off his cap, was rebuked for it by the principal, was chilled, and never told his heart’s decision—and never became a Christian.
O Christ. Help me to appreciate people not only for what they are but also for what they may be in you. Amen.
Week 48 Tuesday
“Prompted by Her Mother”
Proverbs 31:28; Ephesians 6:4; 1 Thessalonians 2:11
It is a solemn fact that the children in the home catch the attitudes of the parents, rather than their sayings. The child is much like the subconscious mind; it learns by what it sees people acting on, rather than by what they say.
Of the daughter of Herodias dancing before Herod, Matthew 14:8 says: “Prompted by her mother, she said, ‘Give me.’ ” What did the daughter desire? Well, that depended on what the mother desired. She wanted what her mother wanted.
We wonder at the undisciplined youth of this generation. Do we not need to look back to the previous generation upon whom rests a great deal of the responsibility? This generation has been “prompted” by the parents of today. The parents are astonished at present-day youth, for did not the parents repeat the old claims of morality and religion? Why didn’t youth listen? Well, because this generation of parents repeated the sanctions of morality and religion with less and less conviction and certainty.
The generation before these parents, having undergone conversion in the evangelical revivals at the end of the last century and the beginning of this, had some personal living convictions. The next generation lived on that afterglow with little personal experience. This generation of youth learned not what their parents said, which was too remote and faint, but what their parents did, which was neither remote nor faint. The actions of the generation of parents now living “prompted” this generation of youth, and this is the result.
The story of the daughter of Herodias is the story of “the prodigal daughter,” the counterpart of Luke’s story of “the prodigal son” in chapter 15. They both said, “Give me,” always the first step down. The prodigal son came back because he had a good father. The prodigal daughter never came back because she had a bad mother.
O God, our Lord, help us this day to so live that we will “prompt” this generation of youth in the direction of desiring the noblest and highest because they see it in us. Amen.
Week 48 Wednesday
The Lamp
Deuteronomy 6:7; Malachi 4:6; Luke 11:11, 13
In an ancient Syrian church in Travancore, India, there is a wonderful old brass lamp, with about a hundred arms hanging from the ceiling. At the end of each arm is a cup with oil and a wick. At the close of the service, the young people come up and take one of the cups from the lamp to guide them home through the night. Standing on a hillock, you can see the points of light here and there, moving amid the darkness.
That is what a Christian home should be—a place where youth has put within its hands a torch to guide them as they go out amid the encircling gloom. There are many such torches youth can take from the home circle: the torch of a basic honesty, of good will, of cooperative living, of respect for all races and classes, of hatred for war, of the spirit of self-giving service, of a rich personal experience of Christ.
Once my mother put a torch of prayer in my hands, though she did not know that she had done so. The shadow of financial and other calamities was upon the home, one of those periods when pain and trouble seem to be breathed in the very atmosphere. Going upstairs at midnight, I heard a muffled voice, stopped, and heard my mother in prayer—a heartbreaking prayer. The little crack of the door, the little peep into her heart—for at midnight the reserves that had been kept up so bravely during the day were all down, and I saw into the depths. What a flame of suffering love was there! I took a cup from that lamp of devotion that night and it has lighted me down the years.
The saddest thing on earth is a spiritually poverty-stricken home, where there is no central lamp from which youth can get a torch. Be victorious in the home, and you are victorious everywhere.
O Christ, I pray you that this day I may bring into the home such a flame of pure living that youth may get from me a torch that will never go out. Amen.
Week 48 Thursday
In the City and in the Home
Malachi 2:8; Matthew 18:5-6, 10; Hebrews 12:12-15
Yesterday we said that the torch of a personal living experience of God is the greatest thing we can put into the hands of youth. Many a youth holds steady when smitten by modern doubt because of the clean living faith of father and mother. But some are wrecked because of the weakening of a parent’s faith. Hear the cry of this distressed and disillusioned soul:
Because I believed God brought him to me,
And because I believed him gifted of God
With honor, truth, and love of the right,
I believed in God and worshiped God;
Then when I found he was just a thief,
And full of treason and perjuries,
All for money and worldly pride,
The wreck of him was the wreck of God;
And so I fainted amid the ruins
Of plaster and sticks, and sat in the stillness
That followed the fallen bust of God.*
If a child sees on you as “the bust of God,” do not let that child down, lest the wreck of you be the wreck of God in his or her life. If you are in danger of slipping, remember that victorious living is possible in the city and in the home.
We blame the city, and say this life cannot be lived in it. And yet the Master asked them to “stay in the city, until you are clothed with power from on high” (Luke 24:49). The city! Its temptation, its strains, its greed, its injustices—right there tarry—and right there I will make you adequate and victorious. It was so. Where they had all failed, there he made them a glorious spiritual success. And the home! Pentecost took place in a home—an upper room of a common home—not in a church, or temple. Your home, this day, can to be a personal Pentecost to you. Don’t run away; stay right where you are for adequate power.
O Christ, who gave the disciples power in the very place where they had failed, give me the power, this day, in this city, in this home. Amen.
*Edgar Lee Masters, New Spoon River Anthology (New York: Boni & Liveright, 1924), 111.
Week 48 Friday
Holding the Home Together
Matthew 5:13, 15-16, 45; 19:3-15
We saw that the Epistle to Diognetus says that the Christians “hold the world together.” They do, and they also hold the home together. A homeless, unmarried man becomes the power that sanctifies marriage and holds the home together! His power was never more needed than just at this place. For the home is being assailed from many directions. If it survives—and it will!—the Christians will save it.
Casual divorce is very seldom seen among earnest members of the Christian church. Christians do not fly to pieces under trouble and misunderstanding, and they know how to hold situations together. They know how to forgive when wronged—the central characteristics of the Christian—and how to make an apology when they wrong others. An apology often saves a situation. As someone says,
An apology
Is a friendship preserver,
Is often a debt of honor,
Is never a sign of weakness,
Is an antidote for hatred,
Costs nothing but one’s pride,
Always saves more than it costs,
Is a device needed in every home.*
Jesus says, “Have salt in yourselves, and be at peace one with another” (Mark 9:50). “Have salt in yourselves”—don’t be dependent on your environment for life’s taste. Have springs from within. Then the ups and downs of the home will not mean you’re going up and down. You are fed from within. That very self-contained sense of taste will help you to be at peace with one another. For the greatest cause of breaking peace with others is the sense of tastelessness within ourselves. We feel out of sorts with ourselves and take it out on others. The Christians hold the world together; they hold the home together, for they hold themselves together by the fact that life has inward taste, no matter what happens on the outside.
O Christ, give us that inward salt that we may give outward peace. Hold us together, that we may hold the home and all situations together. Amen.
* Source unknown.
Week 48 Saturday
“This Is a New People”
1 Peter 1:22; 2:9-10; 4:8-10
The Christian is the emergence of a new type, as different from ordinary humanity as ordinary humanity is different from the animal. This may be seen from the Apology of Aristides, an Athenian philosopher who wrote about Christians to the Roman emperor Hadrian in the second century:
The Christians know and trust God. . . . They placate those who oppress them and make them their friends, they do good to their enemies. Their wives are absolutely pure, and their daughters modest. Their men abstain from unlawful marriage and from all impurity. If any of them have bondwomen or children, they persuade them to become Christians for the love they have toward them; and when they become so, they call them without distinction brothers. . . . They love one another. They do not refuse to help the widows. They rescue the orphan from him who does him violence. He who has gives ungrudgingly to him who has not. If they see a stranger, they take him to their dwellings and rejoice over him as over a real brother; for they do not call themselves brothers after the flesh, but after the Spirit and in God. . . . If anyone among them is poor and needy, and they do not have food to spare, they fast for two or three days, that they may supply him with necessary food. They scrupulously obey the commands of their Messiah. Every morning and every hour they thank and praise God for his loving-kindness toward them. . . .
Because of them there flows forth all the beauty that there is in the world. But the good deeds they do they do not proclaim in the ears of the multitude, but they take care that no one shall perceive them. Thus they labor to become righteous. . . . Truly, this is a new people and there is something divine in them.
“A new people,” “something divine in them.” This is the spirit that will create a new world. We must rediscover it and embody it.
O Christ, we pray you to make us worthy of this inheritance; worthily give it to this age, so desperately in need of just this. Amen.