WHAT CAUSES THE CHANGE?

When does a person really become a Christian? What do you have to do to be a Christian?

We all know the customary requirements. Each church has a set of minimum standards. For membership in most churches you go through a prescribed instruction period and learn basic information about the church and its teachings. At last you stand at the front of the congregation and make a public confession of your faith in Jesus Christ. Then you're baptized or perhaps confirmed.

Truly these outward forms can be quite meaningful if they reflect an inward reality. But how often it seems like just so much ecclesiastical red tape you have to go through in order to join the "religious outfit" of your choice. How often one has the disturbing feeling that for all the ceremony, nothing is happening within the heart.

If you haven't already become a Christian in your heart, the ceremony will never make you one. Confirmation is meant to confirm a fact which already stands. And even baptism, basic as it is to the life of the child of God, is really something which is meant only for the believer ... the Christian. Without the word of God and the faith of Christ already living in the heart, all the baptisms in the world will never transform anybody into a Christian.

Then there are those who reject all the arbitrary requirements of the churches and set out on their own to simply try to "be Christians." They're going to abide by "Christian principles." They're going to practice honesty, compassion, patience, courage and generosity in daily life.

One has to admire these people. No doubt God blesses them as they sincerely try to do what's right and good. But if they're honest, they will soon find that they too are on a dead‑end street. You may make a dramatic decision to henceforth live like a Christian, and you may be utterly sincere, but when you get out into the world and have to face hard realities of existence, you'll see your good intentions quickly battered to pieces like a fragile kite smashed in a hurricane. You want to be honest, but sometimes it seems as though you just can't. You truly desire to show mercy, but there are times when you may have to excuse yourself by saying, "After all, I have to make a living." Christianity is not something you can attain by trying hard. No matter how hard you try, your good intentions will never materialize as Christianity.

Christianity is a life which is completely the handiwork of God. It's like a house that God has already built for you. All you have to do is enter it. It is a highway that has been rolled out to you from heaven itself. All you have to do is get on it. But to enter this house ... to get on this highway ... you must pass through a narrow door, a door which is so narrow that you can take nothing with you, but just you.

You cannot take that ridiculous mask you wear every day before the eyes of other men ... you cannot take that high horse of pride on which you ride all your waking hours ... you cannot take all those loves and fears and dreams and grudges or attachments you call your life. All these things must be left behind.

Take off your mask... dismount your horse... lay aside your possessions, real and imaginary... bend down and pass through that narrow door into a new world, an unbelievable world... a world where the air you breathe is the very Spirit of God, and the light for your path is from the face of the heavenly Father, and your companion on the way to the shining city in the distance is the man whose hands still bear the marks of the nails.

The act of passing through the narrow door is called faith. But the effect of going through the narrow door is better known by those who have done it as death.

It's true when people say, "All you have to do to become a Christian is exercise faith ... believe in Jesus Christ with all your heart." Sure, but what does it mean to believe in Jesus Christ? There are people who claim to believe in Jesus Christ ... they believe "real hard." They believe that he was born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead and buried, etc. And yet this faith in Jesus Christ has no influence on the way they treat their wives, or raise their children, or do their work, or handle their money. In the decisions of daily life they are governed by what they call "common sense." Jesus Christ may be saying, "Forgive… show mercy"... but common sense is saying, "They're taking advantage of you ... you're being a door mat." Which voice do they heed? Common sense of course. Jesus Christ may be saying, "Give that man ten dollars," but common sense says, "Hold on to your money, you may need it yourself some day." Again common sense wins.

These people believe certain things about Jesus from the top layer of their brains. Yes indeed, they believe that Jesus is the Son of God. But do they believe in him? Have they put faith in Jesus?

To have faith in Jesus is something quite different from believing certain things about him. To have faith in Jesus is to become related to Jesus in a personal way... and to enter this personal relationship with Jesus you have to pass through that narrow door.

Notice that whenever scripture talks about having faith in Jesus Christ it involves a death of some kind. When Paul talks about living by faith in Christ, he talks about being crucified with Christ. When he talks about being baptized into Christ, he explains that it means to be "baptized into his death." Whenever Jesus teaches about discipleship, he connects it with bearing a cross... losing your life. There is nothing morbid about this at all. It is the most liberating truth in the world. Don't be afraid of it. To pass through the narrow door into life ... into a living relationship with Jesus ... involves a triple death.

First, you have to die to all pretenses. This is the only way you will ever become small enough to fit the narrow door. We talk much about the importance of being honest. We usually consider ourselves to be rather honest ... but are we? ... really?

We read in the newspaper about a man who pretended to be a medical doctor with astonishing success. He got on the staff of a large hospital, performed operations, earned a good reputation, without ever seeing the inside of a medical school. Then one day he gives himself up and admits that he's a fraud. This makes interesting reading because we know what that poor chap was going through. Always wondering, "What if I get caught? What if they find out what I really am?"

When a man finally stands before Jesus and wants to enter into the kingdom, this is exactly what happens. In order to get through the narrow door he gives up the phony game. He confesses that he's nothing but a pretense ... he comes down to size.

If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. But if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

The Bible calls this repentance. Repentance is not just feeling sorry... repentance is to turn around, to quit the false game, to give up the fraud, to die to the whole business and present yourself as the trembling sinner you really are before the Son of God.

Now you'll fit the doorway. The next thing is to step into it. To do this you have to die a second time. Die by faith ... die by reckoning yourself dead with Jesus. You see Jesus hanging from the cross and you assert, "There I am ... I'm in him ... this old sinner which is the real me died when he died."

The place where you have to begin to exercise faith in Jesus is at the cross. Identify with him ... see yourself in him. See your sins crucified, your pride crucified, your vanity crucified, your slothfulness crucified. "I am crucified with Christ," says Paul ... not "I hope some day to be crucified and delivered from these sins." I am ... it happened when Jesus died. It is no longer I who live; I died on the cross in the body of my Lord.

Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin...

One more death remains. To pass through the door into the kingdom you must die a third time by abandoning yourself to Jesus. When you abandon yourself to Jesus you don't ask where he's taking you or what is going to happen to you ... you just go.

When Andrew and his friend asked Jesus where he was staying, Jesus did not give them a list of instructions or hand them a map showing the risks involved in getting there. He said, "Come and see." Never mind how far it is ... never mind how difficult it may be ... never mind how long it takes ... just come.

Peter's wife had dinner on the table for him one day. She knew Peter had been up all night fishing and would soon be in, very tired and hungry. It was a lovely meal, but Peter didn't come. After a while she left her kitchen and went down to the sea. There was the boat drawn up to the land but no Peter.

"Have you seen my husband?", she asked an old man sitting in the sun.

"Yes, he went off with Jesus of Nazareth."

"When will he be back?"

"Who knows?"

When you abandon yourself to Jesus you have no idea when you'll be "back" or where he will lead you. You have no control over your future. Everything's unknown. It's like death. It is death. Are you willing to abandon yourself to Jesus? ... to go out with Jesus wherever he leads you? ... no matter what happens or what strange deserts he may take you through.

When you have died this third death, your life ... life as you always planned it and hoped for it and desired it to be, is gone, and another life, a life from above, falls like fire from heaven upon the altar of your heart. Now you're a Christian ... you have Christ in you the hope of glory. The narrow door is behind you and you are on the highway of the kingdom. And every step you take (even the steps through the dark valleys) brings you closer to the glory that awaits those who persevere faithfully to the end.

This is how you become a Christian...not by means of an ecclesiastical ceremony ... not through giving mental assent to certain Biblical doctrines ... not by the sincere intention to live an upright, moral life. Salvation is God's gift from heaven, a gift received through faith.

But remember that faith in Jesus ... genuine, saving faith ... always has certain effects. Faith and its effects are inseparable, like the two sides of a coin ... you can't have the one without the other. A living relationship with Jesus will be accompanied by three deaths: a dying to all pretense, a dying of the old self (that "body of sin" which sent Jesus to the cross), and a dying of your self‑planned life. But the overall result of this triple death is life ... for Christ will dwell within you with all his resurrection power. Even as the death of Jesus was followed by his glorious resurrection and ascension, so your death by faith in Jesus will result in newness of life. And at the end of the highway beyond this narrow door is heaven Itself… the city of the living God.

THE CHRISTIAN AND THE "CHURCH"

In The Church

It would be convenient if, at the moment you commit yourself to Jesus Christ, your life would be instantly transformed ... you get up from your knees, blink your eyes a few times and find to your joyful astonishment that your mind is now filled with wonderful new thoughts ... you have become absolutely Christ‑like. All the nasty inclinations you had just an hour before are gone. Your worries have evaporated. Your heart is now one marvelous fountainhead of compassion and trust.

You walk out of church to find your car stolen ... it doesn't bother you at all. You take a bus home, have a cup of hot milk and sleep like a baby. The next day the person who was your arch enemy at work for ten years finally succeeds in squeezing you out of your job ... you shake his hand, wish him God's blessings and just go on trusting God. No matter what storms may rage outwardly, your life continues to be all sunshine in the sweetness of the Lord.

There may be certain drugs which affect people in this way ... or hypnosis ... but not Jesus Christ. Beware of sudden transformations! When people are suddenly "transformed" it is usually the symptoms of an illness. Conversion to Christ may be sudden. A person may suddenly come to repentance ... or be suddenly arrested by a vision from heaven ... or be suddenly visited by the Spirit of God. But the full change of the actual life is never sudden.

It takes only seconds for the fire from heaven to fall upon your heart making you a Christian, but it takes more than seconds for the fire of God's love within to "come through" your flesh in actual living. For you to live like one who is redeemed, or act like a child of God, or think and speak like an incarnation of the Spirit of Jesus takes some bending and molding and battering and melting in God's "shop" until he has formed you into the shape of his Son ... transformed you.

When you were born, you were immediately looked upon as a little human being. You were given a name ... the same name you have now. But for you to become the man or woman you are today took a bit of work… it took some forming and training. If you had been thrust out into the world as an infant to make your own way, you would have died… because the man or woman in you was only potential.

So how did you change from that squalling baby in diapers to the person you are now? You were placed in a family ... among people who belonged to you and you to them. In interaction with these other lives some of your rough edges began to come off. When you laid down on the floor and screeched and kicked your feet your father picked you up and gave you something to screech about. When you ate all the cookies that were reserved for supper dessert your mother punished you. When you ran off with your brother's marbles he took care of you in an effective way. When you were afraid of strange noises your father explained them to you. When you were discouraged your mother comforted you. Soon you were making your own way in the world, but the roots ... the principles ... that were planted in you by your family continued to influence you ... and they do to this day.

This is precisely what happens on a higher level when a person is "born again" of the Spirit of Christ. In order to remake you in the image of Christ who is now within, God puts you into a family and in this family he begins to mold and grind you into shape.

The church is not, as so many people seem to think, a place of escape from the evils of the world. It is the workshop where God transforms our fleshly life into the image of Christ ... it is the family where our Father forms us into real people who can actually live like Christians in the world.

This is why that little group of twelve men were gathered around the table with Jesus in the upper room ... they were a family ... individual men who had been drawn together so that in fellowship with each other they could be formed into actual men of God. In interaction with each other they were being molded into the kind of men who could spread the fire of the gospel over the face of the earth. They were being trained to be servants.

These men still had natures like other men. They were status seekers. They were looking for approval. They competed for position. James and John wanted the seats next to Jesus in the kingdom. Peter was set to be the hero. Today when we have a gathering of men who all want to be something we have an election ... we form committees. We give everyone a status job. We harness this ego drive in man and put it to work. The man who produces the most for the organization gets the top position.

But when Jesus puts you in the church he does just the opposite. He is not interested in making you a boss, or a celebrity, or a hero ... but a servant. All his training is aimed at just this. Until you learn to be a servant ... to serve other men ... your Christianity is worthless. Until, in the family of God, you can perform the thankless jobs, the dirty tasks, the monotonous duties, and not be upset because your efforts go unnoticed, your Christianity ... if you have any at all ... is still infantile ... you are in diapers.

Jesus, knowing that the father had given all things into his hands, that he was come from God and went to God…

He knew who he was. He knew how far above these men he was; he was their Lord. Nevertheless he got up from the table, laid aside his garments, took a towel and wrapped himself, poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples' feet and to wipe them with the towel that covered his nakedness. The meanest, dirtiest, lowliest servant's work that a man could perform … he did it.

"Ye call me master and Lord, and ye say well, for so I am. If I then, your Lord and master, have washed your feet, ye ought to wash one another's feet. For I have given you an example that ye should do as I have done to you."

Jesus put you in the church to make your Christianity real ... not a ball of spiritual yarn tangled up inside your head, but actual service to your fellow men. In the family of the church you start serving your brothers and sisters. If they never say "thank you" ... if they never pat you on the back ... if they never show appreciation … if they forget all about you ... just go on washing feet.

The other people in the church are just like you are ... they're blundering children. They have faults ... they make mistakes. They're far from perfect. But their rough edges are the sandpaper in God's hand to smooth all your rough edges.

We're so far from this idea of washing each other's feet that we don't know where to begin to serve each other. To most of us, "service" means teaching a Sunday School class, or being an usher at services, or singing in the choir, or serving on a committee. These things are fine ... but the service Jesus means when he talks about washing feet is much more simple and down‑to‑earth. If you want to know what Jesus means by washing feet, look for the words "one another" in the New Testament.

Whenever the Spirit of God tells us to do something for one another, he is calling us to a form of washing feet.

To wash one another's feet means first of all to submit to one another.

"Submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God."

You'll never be a servant of God out in the world if you haven't learned how to submit ... to put yourself under another believer. It makes no difference whether you are a newborn Christian or a minister or bishop of considerable influence ... there is not one believer in the church that you can stand over or stay aloof from. In "the world" that other person may not make as much money as you ... he may not live in as fine a house or have nearly the education you have. But in the church these things mean nothing. In the church you are the servant of that brother. If he wants to talk to you, submit ... listen to him. If he has a word of loving advice, submit ... consider what he says. If he wants to pray for you, submit ... look upon it as an honor.

To wash feet means to bear one another's burdens.

"Bear ye one another's burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ."

This means bearing the burdens not only of your favorite objects of charity, or your favorite friends, but any brother or sister who needs a little help. There's an elderly couple down the block who never have a visitor from one week to the next. Theoretically they're members of the church but who bears their burden of loneliness besides the pastor on his routine calls? There are people in your congregation with financial burdens, burdens of disappointments, burdens of disgrace. To wash feet means to get under their burdens with them and help. If you are insensitive to the burdens of your brothers and sisters in the Body of Christ your concern for people and issues outside will never be more than sentimental.

To wash one another's feet means to forgive one another.

"Be ye kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another,

even as God for Christ's sake has forgiven you."

The place where you learn to forgive is in the church. If you can't be forgiving in God's family, how will you ever be forgiving beyond it? When someone in the fellowship has wronged you or you think he's wronged you ... this is simply a God‑sent opportunity to wash feet. Don't stand around with your feathers ruffled and your pride hurting and threaten to quit. "They're nothing but hypocrites anyway!" Lay aside your fancy robes and get down on your knees, as your Lord did for you, and start washing that person's feet ... forgive absolutely and utterly from the bottom of your heart.

To wash one another's feet means to pray for one another.

"Confess your faults to one another and pray for one

another that ye may be healed."

How often do you pray by name for other people in your fellowship? You pray for your pastor ... he surely needs your prayers to fulfill the ministry he has been given. But there are other people in your church who need your prayers too. Start with the ones you find hardest to accept. What a blessing will come to them, and to you, as you wash their feet by praying for them.

If we are ever to become in actual living what God willed us to be when he made us his children at Calvary, the transformation will take place largely in the church. This is the family where God has put us to grow up ... this is the workshop where God rubs one life upon another to mold them both into shape.

But we will never grow ... our actual lives will never change ... until we begin in fact to wash one another's feet. God help us to do this and to continue doing it until we all come in the unity of the faith and the knowledge of the Son of God to mature manhood ... to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.

By Praying Together

You don't have to read the latest books by students of the American religious scene to know that there is a growing rebellion against "organized Christianity" in this country and abroad. For a few years after World War II, in America at least, this rebellion was quiet, while organized Christendom enjoyed the biggest boom it ever had. But now we again begin to hear the voices of many people who look upon church ... going to church on Sunday, or functioning in any way as part of a congregation ... as quite unnecessary. You hear it from your friends at work ... you hear it from your neighbors down the street or across the hall in the apartment, "I don't have to go to church to be a Christian! I can be just as good a Christian right here in my living room as those people who go to church."

These are fighting words for us who feel that we have to defend the church‑going way of life. We argue ... "You can't be a Christian sitting home in your living room ... you need the fellowship."

The amusing thing about this is that most of us who do go to church are actually trying to be Christians in the same way as the people who don't. In spite of the fact that we come to church, we are trying to be Christians all by ourselves. We enter the sanctuary and perhaps shake hands and smile to one another ... we worship ... we listen to the same sermon. Yet each of us remains in a tightly enclosed little world of our own. When it comes to opening our hearts, joining our spirits with one accord and truly worshipping God together, we hardly know what it is. Somehow we are just as alone sitting together in church as if we were home in our living room ... there is an invisible compartment of reserve that walls us in.

Until these compartments break and we have actually become one we have nothing better than our friends out in the world who feel they can be Christians alone. The fact that we are physically together doesn't mean very much. Jesus took Peter, James and John with him into the depths of Gethsemane to watch with him ... he wanted their support ... he wanted their spirits to join with his in prayer to the Father. They were there, but they might just as well have been home in bed. They were four separate, isolated people.

This separateness, this aloneness, which persists even when we're gathered together in church, never lets go of us until we enter into the reality of corporate prayer. When we have really learned to pray together ... not as an assembly of individuals hooked up within their separate souls, but as spirits which have openly and freely come together around Jesus to call on God ... then we have something no isolated man, however good he may be, can know ... out there by himself.

The solitary individual is very unlikely to meet Jesus Christ alone in his prayer closet until he first meets him in fellowship with at least one other believer.

"If two of you agree on earth…

Where two or three are gathered in my name…"

Think of Cornelius, he was a man of prayer. He lived a devout, God-fearing life but he was alone. His fellow Romans did not understand him … the Jews would have nothing to do with him because he was a Gentile. Yet God blessed Cornelius. God sent an angel to speak to him. But before Cornelius could receive the grace of God he was seeking, he had to come together with a believer who knew Jesus.

"Send to Joppa for a man named Peter..."

This is God's order ... this is God's way of doing things. Jesus was not being sentimental when he took those three disciples with him to watch while he prayed ... he needed them ... oh how he needed them!

When we say a person cannot be a Christian apart from the church, this is what we mean; he can get along without the formalities ... he can get along without the ceremonies ... he can survive without the organization … but he cannot get along without having some disciples with whom he can come together before God to pray. And the sad fact is that for all the "togetherness" in Christendom these days, we know very little about coming together to pray. We're with the Lord in the temple ... we're with him in the upper room ... we're even with him when he gives us his body to eat and his blood to drink in communion. But when Jesus takes us into Gethsemane and asks us to pray with him, our minds cloud ... we don't see the importance of it. We yawn and fall asleep. And so one of the deepest joys that can be known this side of heaven is passed by unnoticed and untasted.

What happens when believers pray together? The primary blessing is that they have fellowship with the Lord Jesus. When one person alone calls on the name of Jesus he or she indeed receives an answer. But when two people or three people or ten or fifty gather ... and with one accord call on the name of Jesus ... Jesus comes into their midst and blesses them with the unspeakable joy of his presence. Fellowship with the Lord comes as at no other time when Christians are praying together.

When Christians pray together, they are given power to "bind and loose."

"Verily I say unto you, whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven and whatsoever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. Again I say to you that if two of you shall agree on earth as touching anything they shall ask, it shall be done for them by my Father which is in heaven."

God alone knows how many times that promise has been taken at face value by believers. But more doors have been opened and more demons have been bound, and more tragedies have been averted (or transfigured) by simple believers crying out together with one accord to God, than this earth will ever know. A link is established with heaven the instant Christians begin praying together, and the invisible powers of heaven move behind the visible things of this earth in answer to the heart cries of the gathered children of God.

When Christians pray together, they are renewed by the Holy Spirit. There is a refreshing worth more than sleep or food or drink that comes to believers when they pray together. Burdens lift ... vision clears ... vigor returns to body and mind. The apostles were "filled with the Holy Spirit" not only on Pentecost ... they were filled again and again. These in‑fillings occurred ordinarily when they were gathered together and praying. This is what kept them going.

Most Christian enterprises these days can be characterized by an insatiable thirst for money. Few people ever question the unspoken premise that lies behind the endless stream of financial appeals that flood the country in the name of Christianity... "If we had more money we could do more good." When this is said (or implied), it is a sign that the church is spiritually tired ... it lacks the energy of God and now turns to the energy of man that is stored up in dollar bills. Whatever our financial needs may be as churches or missionary enterprises, they are always secondary to the need for the energy of the living God ... the power of the Holy Spirit. When we have this we shall never lack money or the things it buys. And the energy of God's Spirit will surge through the church once more when it prays together.

This is not a plea for more prayer groups or more prayer meetings. We could multiply prayer groups and prayer meetings again and again and still be no farther along than we are now. Many a prayer group meets faithfully, but somehow never enters into true corporate prayer. And there are prayer meetings which attract large numbers every week ... still each one remains imprisoned in his own soul.

What we have to do is take the occasions that already bring us together around the word of God ... at church, at home, in Bible studies ... and turn our formal prayers into the real thing ... into real praying together.

If we study the promises of our Lord concerning corporate prayer, we find two factors that command attention. The first is agreement.

If two of you agree on earth as touching anything they shall ask...

Our Lord is talking about something more than intellectual agreement. We may agree that such unity of Christians would be a good thing... and we may say a few prayers about this on Sunday in church... but mere intellectual agreement is not enough. Before we can enter into real corporate prayer, there must be agreement of heart. Are we really burdened for what we request? Do we really, deeply, want the petition we bring? For instance, Jesus commands us to pray the Lord of the harvest that he would send forth more laborers ... we agree ... but how deep is our agreement? Are we agreed in our hearts that this prayer is as important as he says it is? Are we burdened with him for the fainting multitudes who are like sheep without a shepherd? When we agree in our hearts an arc of heavenly fire burns between believer and believer, and it becomes the prayer of the Body of Christ.

The second factor which will bring our corporate prayers to life is to enter into the name of Jesus.

"Whatsoever ye shall ask in my name ... Where two

or three are gathered in my name..."

Obviously this means more than ending our prayers with the formula, "in Jesus' name, amen." To enter into Jesus' name we have to get out of our own name ... out of ourselves. Forget who you are and what you are and what people think of you. Leave your little private compartment. Let your spirit go forth to join the others under the canopy of the name of Jesus. There you will find yourself able to pray with perfect liberty.

When we are nervous and self‑conscious in praying together, this is a sign that we haven't entered into the name of Jesus. We're worried about whether or not we're being accepted by others who are praying ... a sure indication that we're still tangled up in ourselves. Or when we are impatient and domineering in group prayer, this is a sign that we haven't left ourselves behind ... we're afraid to let Jesus have charge of the group. We're trying to run it. But when we have truly gathered our spirits under the name of Jesus and let Jesus rule the praying, then there will be accord, unity, and liberty to truly pray together.

In our family prayers, or in the prayers that are shared in the Bible study we attend, real benefit will come by taking time to think together about these two factors mentioned by our Lord... agreement and being in his name. Are our hearts in agreement on the things we're going to pray about? Are our spirits ready to leave the protective castles of our own names and gather together under the name of the Son of God?

When we have agreement, and when we are unified under Jesus' name, then we can pray. Together we will have fellowship with the Lord himself, we will exercise power to bind and loose, and we will be renewed by the Holy Spirit. For the gathered fellowship of praying believers is the dwelling place of Christ on this earth. Nowhere this side of the End does the light of the Kingdom of God shine more purely than when disciples pray together.

Through The Enabling Spirit

And the scribes and Pharisees brought unto him a woman taken in adultery; and when they had set her in the midst, they said unto him, "Master, this woman was taken in adultery, in the very act. Now Moses in the law commanded us that such should be stoned: but what sayest thou?" This they said, tempting him, that they might have whereof to accuse him. But Jesus stooped down and with his finger wrote on the ground, as though he heard them not. So when they continued asking him, he lifted up himself, and said unto them, "He that is without sin among you, let him cast the first stone at her." And again he stooped down and wrote on the ground. And they which heard it, being convicted by their own conscience, went out one by one, beginning at the eldest, even unto the last: and Jesus was left alone, and the woman standing in the midst. When Jesus had lifted up himself, and saw none but the woman, he said unto her, "Woman, where are those thine accusers? Hath no man condemned thee?" She said, "No man, Lord." And Jesus said unto her, "Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more."

There's a hymn which we like to sing, especially when we've had a recent glimpse of the ugliness in our own souls, or a reminder of some shameful thing we've done: "There's a wideness in God's mercy like the wideness of the sea." What a comfort to be told once again that God's mercy includes even me! What a relief to be assured again that the healing stream which flows down Calvary's mountain avails for my sin.

But there are times when this hymn is utterly out of place ... when you have no right to sing it. When you are presently involved in something you know is wrong ... when you are stubbornly clinging to a path you know is not God's will ... to open your mouth and sing, "There's a wideness in God's mercy like the wideness of the sea," is blasphemy.

God's mercy is wide, like the sea indeed. But like the sea, it has limits. There is a shoreline ... a point beyond which God's mercy does not go.

Here was a woman taken in adultery, a sin which according to Jewish law deserved stoning to death. After a few minutes of silence, Jesus lifts himself up and finds that the scribes and Pharisees have disappeared.

"Woman, where are thine accusers?

Hath no man condemned thee?"

"No man, Lord.

"Neither do I condemn thee."

There's the mercy of God … the woman's sin is wiped away. Now she stands before Jesus with the same liberty as if she were one of the holy angels. At this point, however, the mercy of God has reached its limit. Notice carefully the words with which Jesus sends her away. Jesus does not say, "I realize madam, that you were born with a sinful nature. You'll have more problems ... just do your best; try a little harder." He does not say, "Here's my calling card. If you get caught again come to me; I'll stick up for you." Jesus says to this woman words that are as clear and exacting as they can possibly be: "Go and sin no more."

God is merciful and forgiving when it comes to the life you lived when you were out in the darkness, far from your Shepherd. Every sin you committed out there is forgiven and forgotten. But now you are not out in the darkness, you have come into the presence of the very Son of God ... you have stepped into the light. Now God expects you to walk as a child of the light.

"For this ye know, that no whoremonger, nor unclean person, nor covetous man, who is (actually) an idolater, hath any inheritance in the Kingdom of Christ and of God."

Once you're in, the same God who forgave your sins now becomes exacting… exacting about what goes on in your heart:

"Be ye therefore perfect as your father in heaven is perfect ... Love your enemies ... Bless them that curse you."

Exacting about what comes out of your mouth:

"For every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give an account thereof in the Day of Judgment."

Exacting about what you do with your hands:

"Let him that stole steal no more, but rather let him labor, working with his hands the thing which is good."

There are many people who really don't believe that God expects any more of them after they've been forgiven than he did before.

"God must be kidding ... how can he expect me to love my enemies and turn the other cheek? God knows my nature. He knows how weak I am. He understands that I am at the same time justified and a sinner."

So we become lax ... we cut a few corners and compromise here and there. When we feel a little nervous, we open our hymnals and sing those comforting words: "There's a wideness in God's mercy like the wideness of the sea ... There is no place where earth's failings have such kindly judgment given" ... and soon we're feeling better.

But what happens? The demon that God cast out of our lives comes back with seven other demons more wicked than itself and they enter and dwell there ... and our last state is worse than our first.

The most pathetic people in the world are not the gross sinners ... they are the people who have stood in the presence of Jesus Christ, had their sins washed away, and then go right back and do it again … as scripture says, "Like dogs returning to their own vomit," because they did not believe it when Jesus said to them, "Go, and sin no more ... go and live like a child of the light."

Many people look upon the church as a kind of spiritual shower room. We come to church and get washed off ... then we go out into the world and get dirty. We return in a week or a month and take another shower, then we go out and do it again. The idea is to keep the dirt down to a minimum by taking frequent baths. If this is what your church means to you friend, you're wasting your time. If you're just running back and forth to your church to get your sins forgiven, and never overcoming sin or conquering it, you're presuming on God's mercy. The Jews tried to use the temple that way. They'd sin ... then they'd run to the temple ... then they'd sin again ... then they'd run to the temple ... until God destroyed their temple.

Remember this: the church is not a shower room where you keep rinsing off your guilt ... even if every service in your church begins with a confession of sins ... this is not its primary function. The church is a place where God gives you power to live a godly life. God wants to bring you way beyond the point of just having your sins forgiven. God wants to make you into the very likeness of his Son.

God is not exaggerating when he says, "Go and sin no more ... Be ye perfect ... Love your enemies." Stop shaking your head and saying, "I can't," and learn that there is such a thing as an enabling Spirit. There is a Spirit who enables you to go and sin no more.

As many as received him, who believed on his name, to them gave he power to become sons of God.

There is a Spirit who enables you to love your enemies, who enables you to bless them that curse you, who enables you to do the will of God.

For ye were once in darkness, but now ye are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light ... for the fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness and righteousness and truth.

Notice how the New Testament describes the Holy Spirit as the Enabler.

He is the Spirit of Love.

"For the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit which is given to us."

In ourselves we have no power to love, but the Holy Spirit makes it possible to love with the love of God.

He is the Spirit of Prayer.

"For we know not how to pray as we ought but the Spirit himself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered."

He makes it possible for us to lift up our souls to heaven.

He is the Spirit of Adoption.

"For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, 'Abba, Father.'"

The Spirit makes us to know that we are sons of God, and enables us to say, "Father."

He is the Spirit of Utterance.

"And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word with boldness."

When the Spirit gets control of your tongue, it begins to glorify God ... and to behave itself. Every time it steps out of line, the Spirit will convict it.

When Christians hear the commands of Jesus Christ and fail to carry them out, there is only one reason: It is because they are not living under the power of the Holy Spirit. There is no excuse for this. We can live under the enabling power of the Holy Spirit all the time ... he has been given to abide with us forever. All you have to do is place yourself under his authority.

There are three ways in which this is done. You come under the authority of the Holy Spirit in the gathered fellowship ... the Holy Spirit moves upon believers when they gather as he does at no other time. When you come to church, don't just come to have a spiritual rinsing ... come to receive power. Come to be renewed by the Holy Spirit. Come asking God to fill you with the enabling Spirit, that you may go forth into the world and do his will. When the fellowship prays, don't just stand there and let the pastor do the work. Enter into it with all your heart ... concentrate ... think ... let your spirit go out and join the other spirits in truly corporate prayer, and the Holy Spirit will begin to move upon the unified gathering with supernatural power.

When the congregation sings a hymn or the liturgy, do not permit your mind to spin around in neutral ... enter into the corporate praises of God. As your spirit eagerly goes out to join the others in praise, the Holy Spirit will renew within the fellowship the very sanctifying presence of Christ.

You will come under the power of the Holy Spirit in daily meditation. I do not believe that there has even been a person who has lived under the authority of the Holy Spirit who did not engage in some kind of disciplined daily meditation. The example of our Lord is enough to show the necessity of daily fixing the heart upon God afresh ... listening to his word ... opening the mind to his light. Whenever such a discipline is mentioned, there are always those who claim to satisfy this need by praying while they shave or while they're doing the dishes. It's fine to pray while you are doing these things, but you're insulting God and cheating yourself if you try to make dishwater or shaving cream prayers a substitute for a period of single-minded, concentrated waiting upon God alone. If you want to live under the enabling power of the Holy Spirit, make a place in each day to receive the Spirit of God into your heart afresh.

A third discipline which will enable you to live under the authority of the Holy Spirit might be called the discipline of the indwelling word.

"Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom."

Let it dwell in you, not as something merely memorized, but in all wisdom.

"The words that I speak to you, they are spirit and they are life."

The example of our Lord and the apostles indicates the value of being steeped in the word ... Moses and the prophets just flowed from their lips.

You don't have to carry little memory cards with Bible verses in your pocket ... though that may have its value. But just start calling to mind through the day the words of Christ that are already familiar to you. Ask yourself from time to time, 'What is the Spirit of Christ saying to me?" Against the background of your work or your problem or the book you may be reading there will arise a phrase from a psalm or sentence from a prophet or a verse from the Sermon on the Mount, or some advice from an apostle. You will be amazed to find how much of God's counsel is already stored in your heart, and you didn't even realize it. Those words are Spirit and life.

Receive the Spirit in the gathered fellowship, in daily meditation, through the indwelling word. When you begin living under the power of the Holy Spirit in this way, the fruits of the Spirit will appear in daily life in all goodness and righteousness and truth. God indeed gives power to live up to his exacting demands. Whenever the Spirit goes with you, it is possible to "go and sin no more."

THE LIBERATED CHRISTIAN

The Problem ‑--- Guilt

It requires no great flash of insight to realize that for many of us life is nothing more than a treadmill ... it's like a giant wheel. You walk on the wheel ... the wheel goes around ... but you don't get anywhere. Who knows how many miles a day you walk? Yet, you're no farther along when the day's over than when it began.

You wake up in the morning. What are you going to do? Just about what you did yesterday and the day before and the day before that ... another boring day to live through! ... another day filled with problems and frustration ... another day to worry about how I'm going to pay the bills ... another day to run around trying to please my boss or my family or my teachers. When it's all over what will I have accomplished? Same as yesterday ... nothing.

Strangely enough some of the greatest sufferers from this treadmill existence are folks who are trying to be Christians. How many duties we perform in the name of Christianity that are done, not with joy, not with liberty, not with enthusiasm, but with heaviness of heart ... obligation. "Here it is Sunday again. Guess I'll have to go to church." "Another letter from Aunt Susie ... guess I'll have to go and visit her." "My neighbor's sick again ... I suppose I'll have to make him another pot of soup." "They need youth workers, Sunday School teachers, and choir members down at the church, but I'm so tied down already." You're on the treadmill ... you're not free and joyful and able to see where you are needed and where you aren't ... you're weary and pressed.

But really now, where is this treadmill? Is it really that you have so much work piled upon you? Is it because you have too many obligations? Is it because you're getting old? ... No ... the treadmill, friend, is in your head. Nobody put you on that big wheel and ordered you to keep turning it but you yourself. Who said you have to always be doing something? Who said you may not sit down and rest? Who told you to take on all those obligations? ... You did ... you did it to yourself. The master of the treadmill lives in your heart. And it's not God ... God never put anyone on a treadmill. The master of the treadmill is guilt.

Observe how many things you do in your life, not because you want to ... not even because you think they need to be done ... but only because you know that if you don't do it you're going to feel guilty. Somebody comes to the door collecting for the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Sparrows. You're not worried about the sparrows ... yet you feel that you have to put something in his little plastic jar. It's cheaper to give him a quarter than to feel guilty.

The more you yield to the demands of this old tyrant, guilt, the more demanding he becomes. Gradually you become wearier and wearier. Your mind gets dull and your step becomes slow. Guilt stands over you with a whip and says, "Get going ... move ... pray ... work... sacrifice!" You stumble on but you know in your heart that you're not getting anywhere. You are merely turning the wheel of the old treadmill.

You will never get off the treadmill until you get rid of the guilt that drives you from within. But how? ... How do I stop feeling guilty all the time? How do I stop feeling guilty about all the things I've done or left undone?

First we try to ignore the guilty feeling. "Enough of this ... I'm going to live a little. I'm going to do what I want to for a change. I'm going to slack off and take it easy. I'm going to run away from the whole mess." But the strange thing is that no matter where you go or what you do, your guilt goes right with you. Here is a man who has spent years trying to ignore his guilt. He divorced his wife and left his children and tried to swing clear of his obligations. He began to travel with a happy-go‑lucky crowd. He concentrated on simply having fun. But every time he stopped running, who was standing by his side?... guilt. That man isn't having fun ... he's still on the treadmill.

When we find how futile it is to run away, we may then try to escape this guilt by paying it off with work or good deeds. We join a church ... or we become a volunteer, we help with the Boy Scouts or collect for the March of Dimes. There are men and women who hardly spend a night with their families they're so busy "doing good." They're not really doing good ... they are attempting to bribe their guilt feelings by working themselves to death.

The Solution ‑‑‑ His Blood

There is only one way to deal with guilt ... wash it away.

There is a fountain filled with blood,

Drawn from Immanuel's veins;

And sinners plunged beneath that flood

Lose all their guilty stains.

Don't ask me how it works I don't know how it works, but it works.

Thirty‑four hundred years ago the Jews began having what they call the Day of Atonement ... blood was sprinkled on the Mercy Seat in the Holy of Holies in the tabernacle. It was the blood of an innocent animal. This blood in some mysterious way was to wash away the guilt of the people ... and in a sense it did.

These ancient people understood a truth which is more profound than all the books on philosophy and religion that have been written since the world began. They understood that there is only one way to clean up a guilty conscience ... you have to wash it in innocent blood. Nothing else will remove the guilt from the human soul but innocent blood ... the blood of a slain life. So the high priest took the blood of a bull or a goat and sprinkled it on the Mercy Seat and a spirit of peace descended upon the camp and the people gave thanks to God for his mercy. This continued for nearly fifteen hundred years. Once a year the people would gather together and receive a "clean slate," ... but they had to come back again and again as long as they lived.

Then came the real thing. Not a goat or a bull, but the Son of God in human flesh. Again we have the shedding of blood ... innocent blood. He dies, and out of his side comes blood. Notice how often Jesus and his followers refer to that blood.

"This cup is the New Covenant in my blood

which is shed for you."

"Much more then being now justified by his blood,

we shall be saved from wrath through him."

"How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God."

This only had to happen once ... once for all time ... for all men. Now the fountain is there. All you have to do is go and wash in it. Get under it and stay under it and your guilt ... all the guilt you ever had ... will disappear.

There is a spiritual fatigue that sinks down over our churches from time to time. People seem so weary. Their ministries seem so full of effort. They just don't know how they're going to be able to continue. Everything's such a chore! This is always a sign that the people are being driven not by the free Spirit of God, but by the demonic spirit of obligation ... the dark spirit of guilt. This is a symptom that the people have been slipping away from the blood of Jesus Christ. Instead of serving God with a clear conscience and a joyful heart, they're plodding away at the treadmill of dead works. If you want to remain a true Christian, stay off the treadmill and stay under the blood of Jesus Christ.

1. Put your past failures under the blood. No one is really happy with his past ... no one is without a few things to be ashamed of. But what can you do about your past? ... it is out of your reach. You can't change it. If you stole, you can make restitution. Or if you hurt someone, you can ask his forgiveness. But you cannot undo what you did ... it's done. Even though you tried to punish yourself for the rest of your life you could never remove the guilt.

Could my zeal no respite know, Could my tears forever flow,

All for sin could not atone; Thou must save, and thou alone.

There is only one thing to do with your past ... put it under the blood. Jesus died for it ... Jesus atoned already ... leave it at the cross and be at peace.

2. Put your present failures under the blood. Even now there are certain situations in your life where you are wrong no matter what you do. This person needs you and that person needs you. If you neglect Bill to help Charlie, you are wronging Bill. If you neglect Charlie to help Bill, you are wronging Charlie. You can make yourself very unhappy worrying about all the people you have been unable to help. This is as sinful as to be indifferent. Take your present failures and put them under the blood of Christ ... "Lord, you know I don't feel good about how I'm treating Charlie or Bill, or those shut‑ins who have been waiting for me to come. Where I could be doing better, correct me. Where there's nothing I can do, cover it with your precious blood."

3. Leave your future failures to the blood. There are people who believe that they're saved now but they're worried silly about whether they're going to stay saved. "Will I be able to stay on the path? Will I be able to conquer temptation? What if I fall away?" These very fears are the most miserable sin against God. If Jesus' blood can cleanse your past don't you think it can keep your future? When you start worrying about your future, draw near to Calvary again and look at the riven side of your Lord and see the blood and say to yourself, "That's all I need … that's all I need ... nothing more."

If it should be that you find yourself on the treadmill now, why not leave this slavery to guilt and enter into the glorious liberty of the sons of God? Enter into the life which is not drudgery but joy unspeakable ... joy in the simple things ... joy in the common daily disciplines of being a Christian ... joy in meeting God in prayer every day ... joy in serving your fellow man in the most humble ways ... joy in speaking of Jesus to people you meet from time to time.

Joy will come in when guilt goes out ... and guilt will leave when it is touched by the blood of Jesus Christ. Take your life, your whole life, past, present and future, and plunge it under the blood. Believe that Jesus has already died for every sin you have ever committed. Then, just start praising God ... and live to God's praise.

The Abiding Place --- His Cross

If, on the way home from church next Sunday, you were to fall and break your leg, this would certainly severely disrupt your way of living for a few weeks. You would be rushed to the hospital. You wouldn't be able to do your normal work ... your finances would suffer. But after a while the effects of the broken leg would completely disappear. After the bone has healed and you have returned to your normal life even your financial losses would soon be forgotten. What looked almost like the end of the world when you rode the screaming ambulance to the hospital turns out to be really nothing at all.

Suppose, on the other hand, that you learn in church next Sunday that two of your young friends eloped and got married. Outwardly nothing has changed very much. In a week they are back at their jobs looking just as they always did. But the decision which they made will not wear off in a little while like a broken leg ... it will influence their lives long after your broken leg is forgotten. It was the starting point of a radically different life.

In other words, there are some events which are like a bump in the road. We bounce over them, leave them behind, and forget them... like the broken leg; while other events turn out to be a pivot ... like the marriage event. They grip us and hold us and we revolve around them the rest of our lives.

True, there are people who treat marriage like a broken leg. They find some unpleasantness in it. Or they think they see something more interesting somewhere else ... so they get over it and forget it. They don't know how to take an event like marriage and let it deepen and grow and bless them more and more as the years pass.

But notice this: whenever a marriage disintegrates it is because the partners have drifted away from the covenant which they made in the beginning ... the promise to be faithful to each other for better or for worse. Instead of renewing this covenant day‑by‑day ... by being faithful, giving love, serving one another, the man blessing the woman and the woman blessing the man ... they start letting days go by when the covenant is forgotten. Days come and go when the man looks upon himself not as a husband of that woman, who has accepted her as she is, to be flesh of his flesh and bone of his bone, but he looks upon himself as a separate entity, and thinks of himself as a poor mistreated soul... as the injured one. Soon he is thinking of himself as a bachelor. He is more and more withdrawn from the covenant he made with her until it means absolutely nothing to him … then he is ripe for trouble.

Or it may be the woman who fails to renew the covenant in her heart. She stops remembering that she is his wife ... she ceases to give herself as a wife to her husband ... she becomes hollow and lifeless and disinterested and withdrawn until she forgets that she is a wife and what it means to be a wife.

There are a thousand variations of this. But basically, a sick marriage comes about because the man and the woman have drifted away from the covenant which they made with each other at the beginning. We talk about the knot which the preacher is supposed to tie at the altar. There is no such thing. What happens at the altar will never automatically hold any marriage together.

If the two human beings who have given themselves to each other do not daily, tie the knot afresh, the knot won't hold.

Exactly the same principle holds when you become a Christian. Don't ever think that the commitment you made at the beginning of your discipleship will automatically hold you faithful to Christ for all time ... it won't. That bright moment of surrender to Jesus Christ will gradually fade into the past and mean nothing at all unless it is renewed day‑by-day.

Just as the marriage partners have to go back to their covenant, so the Christian has to go back to Calvary daily and renew the covenant which God made with him there. If she starts neglecting her pilgrimage to Golgotha, her discipleship very soon begins to die. Then their surrender to Christ, instead of being a pivot around which their lives revolve, becomes a bump in the road which is passed over and forgotten.

Through the ministry of Paul, the Galatians had received a vision of the crucified Christ. They saw their sins washed away ... they received the gift of the Holy Spirit to go forth and live like sons of God. Their church became a fountainhead of the miraculous. Then Paul left. In a short time the Galatians were far more "religious" than they were when Paul was around. They were having special feast days and fast days and days for this and days for that ... they were taking on more complex forms of worship … they were doing all kinds of wonderful things under the leadership of some marvelous new preachers who came through from Judea. But the power was gone ... the liberty of the Spirit was gone ... the joy was gone ... the love of Christ was gone... God was gone.

Why? Because they had forsaken the ground where they had started out with Paul ... Calvary. When Paul was there these Galatians became Christians simply by standing on Calvary and looking at Jesus and believing that his blood had washed away their sins. The blood from the cross touched their guilty consciences and set them free. The Holy Spirit descended from heaven and gave them power.

But now they had left Calvary. They had gone back into the bondage of legalism. They were trying to perfect themselves with their own efforts.

"0 foolish Galatians, who hath bewitched you, that ye should not obey the truth, before whose eyes Jesus Christ was openly set forth as crucified."

They were no longer looking at Jesus on the cross ... they were no longer trusting solely in his blood. And their faith was dried up and shriveled.

The place where you become a Christian is Calvary ... and the place where you stay a Christian is Calvary. You don't just look at Jesus hanging from the cross in the beginning and say, "Thank you, Lord," and then travel on to other things. You stay at Calvary and renew your vision of it day-after‑day. You look at Jesus hanging there and remember that it is his grace that saves you and nothing else. You remember that it is his blood alone which makes you worthy to approach God. You remember that it is his death which makes it possible for you to live now as a man or woman of God.

When Christians become blind and proud and stubborn and touchy and chronically depressed, it is usually a sign that they have strayed away from the cross ... they are drawing on their own physical and soulish powers instead of the power of the crucified Christ.

If you want to keep your marriage alive and fresh, keep renewing your covenant with each other daily. But even more important ... if you want to keep your Christianity alive, continue daily to renew your vision of the event that made you God's child ... stay near the cross.

Stay near the cross when you pray. Sometimes we think it's our tears that will cause God to listen to us. But our tears will not move God. Sometimes we think it's our fervent manner …God is not impressed. Sometimes when we pray we even put our faith in our faith... "Surely when God sees my faith he will answer." None of these things will make God hear you. You don't have to do somersaults or work up a sweat. The sweating has already been done more worthily by him who hung on that cross. He has paid for your prayer ... he has made you worthy. Just lift up your heart to the Heavenly Father and know that God will indeed hear and answer your prayer, not because of your tears or sweat or anything else, but for Jesus' sake.

Stay near the cross when you minister to others. The power that enables us to minister anything good to other people never comes out of us. What have you got in yourself that can heal the brokenhearted? What power do you have to lift up the fallen? Even when it comes to feeding the hungry and clothing the naked and visiting the sick, if you try to go out and serve your fellow man by your own strength you will end up crushed under the sheer weight of other men's burdens. Many a social worker or minister or goodhearted Christian volunteer has ended up enmeshed in the very evil from which he was trying to deliver others because he lost touch with the fountainhead of God's grace … the cross. The heavier the burdens, the more pressing the problems, the more intense and disciplined must be your communion with the cross of Jesus Christ ... the place where God made you his child.

Stay near the cross when you suffer. There are people who tell us that suffering automatically brings blessing. They tell us that suffering is bound to bring us closer to God ... don't believe it. Suffering is much more likely to make you turn your back on God. What is the first thing you always ask whenever you suffer? "Why does God let this happen to me?" You're starting to get peeved with God. And this is the first step away from him. When you suffer, remember that Jesus not only promised that you would suffer, he pioneered the path of suffering … he took the worst of it ... he's in there with you ... he knows all about it. Keep your eye and your heart fixed upon the cross when you suffer and the Spirit of glory and of God will rest upon you.

Stay near the cross when you prosper. We know that if a man who has been poor suddenly becomes rich, his marriage is often put under a terrific strain. Suddenly he's a big shot ... he has lots of power ... all kinds of stimulating people now become his friends. His wife who struggled along with him during the hard years looks dull and worn ... he begins to neglect her. When a Christian begins to prosper a similar temptation comes to him. He feels self‑sufficient. He is tempted to forget God's grace. What does he need God for? ... he's got everything. How necessary it is when you prosper to keep your vision of Calvary alive. Look always to Jesus ...

"Who has redeemed me, a lost and condemned creature, from sin, death and the power of the devil, not with silver and gold, but with his holy and precious blood, and with his innocent sufferings and death." (Luther)

The abiding place ... the place where you must stand if you are to remain God's faithful child ... is that hill outside Jerusalem where you stood when you first became a Christian. Never must a day go by when this event is forgotten. Never let a day go by without thanking God for the sacrifice of his own Son.

Why did Jesus link his crucifixion to bread and wine? ... to help us remember. Jesus took the two basic foods of the human race and bound them forever to the cross. He gave them bread ... "This is my body given for you; do this in remembrance of me" ... remember. He gave them wine ... "This is the blood of the New Covenant, shed for your sins. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me"... so you don't forget.

God help us to remember Jesus on the cross even when our minds grow dim and we forget everything else. For as long as we do, we shall have his presence, his power, his compassion and his holy peace.

WHAT IS A CHRISTIAN FOR?

Every Christian A Minister

If I had the power to do it, there are several words which I would eliminate from the vocabulary of organized Christianity. The first word I'd get rid of is the word "stewardship." In the New Testament the idea of being a steward meant something very wonderful ... the apostles thought of themselves as stewards of the mysteries of God. But today when the word stewardship is used in organized Christendom, it means only one thing ... money. If there is a stewardship workshop somewhere, that's a training session on how to get more money. If a man is given a job in the church called "stewardship secretary," we know he will be working on ways to motivate people to give more money. When the pastor gives a stewardship sermon, he starts out talking about how a Christian should use his time and talents … but he invariably ends his homily with an emphasis upon treasure. There's nothing wrong with talking about money in the church ... Jesus talked about it too ... but it's dishonest to try to soften the approach by using misleading words like "stewardship."

The second word I'd eliminate is the word "evangelism." It's a perfectly good word coming right out of the New Testament ... but the New Testament writers wouldn't recognize the way we use it today. The evangel in the New Testament had to do with giving people something ... giving them the good news of what God did for the world in his Son. Today in Christendom the word evangelism simply means getting people. Evangelism committees in our churches are concerned with how to get members. Until this covetous connotation wears off the word "evangelism" won't do so much good.

But if there were only one word that I could strike out of the vocabulary of organized Christianity, I'd leave "stewardship" and "evangelism" alone and try to sink the word "layman." It comes from a good New Testament Greek word, laos, which means "the people." But today when we use the word "layman" we mean not just the people, we mean the "untrained people" ... the people who never graduated from a theological seminary.

It's ingrained in the minds of organized Christians that the Church of Jesus Christ is made up of two groups … the clergy and the laity. The clergymen, that is, the "ministers", are the ones who have been trained ... they're in the know. The laymen are the drones who carry out the plans of the ministers. This concept of clergy‑laity colors everything we do in the church. Unconsciously the ministers feel that they are the top dogs. And the lay people feel that when it comes to Christianity at least, they are inferior ... they are afraid to take any initiative in the things of God without receiving approval from the ministers.

When the average churchgoer reads his Bible, he has his clergy-laity spectacles on. He reads about Jesus and the disciples and sees them dressed in clerical robes. Jesus is the bishop and the disciples are the pastors. When Jesus takes his disciples apart by themselves to rest a while, that's a pastor's retreat. When Jesus sends them forth to preach the kingdom and heal the sick, that's an ordination sermon. Then of course there's the multitude sitting on the grass listening to Jesus preach. These are the laymen ... the ordinary Christians sitting in church.

So the clergymen are the disciples ... the fellows who are really spending their lives in this thing ... the chaps who are really close to Jesus ... the full‑time Christian servants. And the laymen, why, they're the multitude. They come and listen, but they're only laymen. They're at this thing on a leisure‑time basis.

This is one of the biggest lies the devil has put over on the church. In the church of Jesus Christ there is no such thing as a clergyman or a layman. Buddhists have their clergymen … primitive tribal religions of the jungle have their clergymen ... they're called medicine men. Churchianity has its clergymen ... but in the church of Jesus Christ there is no such thing. In the church you are either a disciple or you are nothing. And every disciple has some function in the Body of Christ. He or she may be a teacher or a pastor or an evangelist or a deacon or something else. But whatever he or she is, they have a ministry or they are not Christians at all. And it's never a "lay" ministry ... it's a real full‑time ministry for all.

In the city where I live, it is possible to obtain certain privileges as a "clergyman." If a policeman pulls a preacher over for exceeding the speed limit, when he sees the collar he may give him a break ... "After all, the man's a minister." Or if Pastor Sue goes to certain stores and fills out a few forms, she may get a "clergy discount." Or when the preacher walks into the garage the men may stop swearing ... "Sshh….here comes a preacher." But when the pastor stands before the judgment seat of Jesus Christ, his funny collar won't be worth a dime ... "But Lord, I'm a man of the cloth ... I spent my life in your service."

"My service? Did I tell you to wear the cloth? Did I give you the name Reverend? That backward collar doesn't mean a thing ... I'm looking at your life."

With the religious establishment in America you may be regarded as a layman. If you want to get drunk, never mind, it won't create a scandal ... you're only a layman. If there are people where you work who seem to be groping after the living God, never mind, you don't have to disclose to them what you have found ... it's not expected ... you are only a layman. If you want to cheat on your income tax or loaf on the job, don't let it trouble your conscience too much.

After all, you're only a layman. But when you stand before the judgment seat of Christ your layman's cloak won't be worth any more than the preacher's clerical collar ... "Lord, I was only a layman."

"A layman? What's that? You listened to my gospel ... you heard my commands ... did you obey me or didn't you?"

If what has been said so far is true ... if, in God's sight I'm not a clergyman and you're not a layman (we're disciples if anything) ... then Jesus' instructions to the disciples have relevance for us all. When he sends the disciples forth to proclaim the Kingdom of God and heal the sick, Jesus is outlining the ministry of every Christian. When you are a Christian you can sit and listen only so long. There comes a point when Jesus says to you, "Now my child, it's time for you to go out into the world and minister. As the Father has sent me, even so I send you. Preach the kingdom ... heal the sick." If, when that time comes, you don't get up and go and minister as Jesus commands you, you will begin to wither… your Christian life will lose its vitality. You may still enjoy clinging to the company of the disciples. You may still sit and listen to Jesus, but your light is going out ... your mind is becoming dark ... because you're not doing what your Lord told you to do.

In Christendom today there are churchloads of people whose minds are stagnant, and whose spirits are dead ... ever learning but never coming to the knowledge of the truth because they are afraid to be ministers. They are afraid to go out into the world and proclaim the Kingdom of God and minister to the sick. They just want to sit and listen endlessly until the bell rings and their life on earth comes to an end. "I'm saved, so now I'll sit in church and stay holy until heaven calls."

Why do you think Jesus sent the twelve and commanded them to preach the Kingdom of God and heal the sick? Why did he send the seventy to do the same thing? Because this is what it means to be a disciple: to minister the Kingdom of God in word and in deed to the world. What else are we here for? If we haven't got a ministry to fulfill, then why does God keep us on the earth? Why doesn't he take us to heaven now?

In chapter six of John we see a very simple and beautiful picture of what it means to be a disciple of Jesus Christ. On one side is a multitude ... on the other stands Jesus with bread in his hands. Between Jesus and that multitude, twelve men keep walking back and forth with their arms loaded with food ... serving the people ... ministering to them ... satisfying their hunger. That's how you spend your life when you are a disciple of Jesus Christ.

The bread in their hands stands for two things: the bread is, first of all, the spoken word of God. Read the entire sixth chapter of John and notice how the mystery of the bread keeps unfolding until Jesus explains quite plainly, "It is the Spirit that quickeneth. The flesh profiteth nothing. The words that I speak to you, they are Spirit and they are life." If you are to take the bread from Jesus' hands and give it to the multitudes out in the world, this means first of all that you take the gospel of the kingdom that Jesus has been unfolding to you within the church and proclaim it in the world. "Preach the gospel to every creature ... make disciples of all nations." Give to world missions indeed … give with abandon ... but don't believe that this alone will satisfy God's demands in the matter of discipling the world. You have to minister this bread too. You have to tell the people of your own personal world with your own lips about Jesus Christ. Remember, you're not a layman you're a disciple.

But the bread in the hands of the disciples stands for something else, something which must always attend the spoken word of God ... it stands for power. This is no ordinary bread ... this is the power of God that gives life to what is corrupt and makes it pure, just as when Jesus told the woman to "go and sin no more." This is the power of God that gives life to what is sick and makes it whole, so that the lame walk and the blind see and the lepers are cleansed. This is the power of God that gives life to what is crooked and makes it straight. It can release a woman who has been bent over with a spirit of infirmity for eighteen years or a man whose mind is twisted by demons. When this power comes in, the crooks and tangles disappear. And this power is to attend your ministry to the broken world out there.

When Jesus tells you to heal the sick he is not ordering you to run the doctors out of business any more than he did. He is telling you to take the power of God which gives life and in his name to bless people with it. Whenever you do, there will be a healing of some kind. It may be a healing of the body, mind or spirit it may heal a family or a neighborhood, or a broken friendship or an ailing church. "Heal the sick that are therein and say to them, 'the kingdom of God has come nigh to you.'''

Does this stagger you? ... the idea that you, weak as you are, have been sent out into the world to preach the kingdom and heal the sick? What else are you here for?

The question is often asked, "What will we be doing in heaven when we get there?" You can be sure that in heaven we will not be sitting on cushions of idleness, bored to death. We shall be serving God. And if we ever hope to be serving God in heaven, we'd better start serving him here. And there is only one way you can serve God here ... by serving your neighbor. Take the bread Jesus has put into your hands and give it to your brothers and sisters in the world before it gets stale ... and before you get stale. This bread is the word of God, which creates faith. This bread is the power of God to give life.

Opportunities are coming your way constantly to speak about the living God and to bless men in the name of his Christ ... use them! What else are you here for but to preach the gospel and heal the sick?

Every Christian A Witness

Very few of us live transparent lives, open for all to see. Few of us show ourselves to the world exactly as we are without trying to guard some things from public view. We are strongly inclined to carry on a continuous "public relations" program with our fellow men. The good things about us are deliberately placed out in front while the unpleasant things are buried from sight. If you are an expert at checkers or if you are skillful with a musical instrument, you don't mind a bit how widely this is known. If you happen to be a friend of the congressman from your district or if you're an officer in the union, you don't object if people mention this once‑in‑a‑while.

But there are a few things you'd rather people did not know. Perhaps you made a foolish mistake when you were young ... a mistake you've regretted a thousand times. The very memory of it makes you feel ashamed. This you keep to yourself. Or perhaps there is an odd habit that you engage in to quiet your nerves. Your friends would rock with laughter if they knew. Maybe you chew rubber bands or suck your thumb when no one is looking. Perhaps you're hysterically afraid of thunder or dogs or germs or mice. Naturally you're not going to tell the world about these things.

We let the public see those things about us which will give us status and importance. We hide those things which might make us the objects of ridicule or disdain.

The fact that Peter was a disciple of Jesus was open and public for several years ... Peter was glad to be known as a disciple of Jesus. Who wouldn't be proud to be associated with the greatest sensation to hit Israel since the days of Moses? You can imagine the satisfaction that warmed Peter's soul when some of his old friends would say,

"Are you really one of the disciples of Jesus?"

"Of course … I've been in this movement from the ground floor."

Peter had never had so much attention. Peter was never so important as he was during those golden years. But suddenly everything changed. At noon on one particular day it was still a mark of distinction to be regarded as a disciple of this Jesus ... by midnight it was a disgrace. Peter was still a disciple. He did not run away to hide like some of the others. But now Peter wants to keep the fact that he's a disciple to himself ... he wants it to be a secret.

"Hey, you over there! Weren't you with Jesus of Nazareth?"

"I don't know what you're talking about."

For the first time since he began with Jesus it was dangerous to be known as a disciple ... and Peter does the natural thing ... he denies Jesus. He's afraid to admit to the world how much he loves that man they have on trial.

We know what Peter was going through because the world we're living in has no more time for Jesus Christ than the people in the palace of the high priest did on that evil night. We too measure the risk. And how many times we do exactly as Peter did ... we deny that we know Jesus. We act and speak as if we had no connection with Jesus whatsoever. We're afraid to admit that we love him ... that we call upon his name day by day ... that we commune with him constantly.

Mind you, we're not ashamed to admit that we belong to Good Shepherd Church ... nobody is going to persecute us for that. We're not ashamed to admit that we have certain "religious convictions." We don't mind professing that we have a certain amount of "faith." The world doesn't put people on the spot for being religious or going to church or having faith ... it nails people for belonging to Jesus. That's where the heat is applied ... to your relationship to Jesus. Do you have the courage to admit that you belong to Jesus? Do you have the boldness to speak, not of your church or of your religious opinions, but of Jesus himself?

"Whosoever therefore shall confess me before men, him will I confess before my Father which is in heaven. But whosoever shall deny me before men, him will I also deny before my Father which is in heaven."

Why are we afraid to speak about Jesus? Why are we afraid to admit that we know him? Why are we afraid to share the things he has told us? The answer is very simple ... because what men think of us means more to us than what God thinks of us.

"Among the chief rulers also, many believed on him; but because of the Pharisees they did not confess him, lest they should be put out of the synagogue: for they loved the praise of men more than the praise of God."

Of course our tongues will never have the courage to confess Jesus Christ out in the world until we settle this issue ... is our discipleship to Jesus going to be a secret? Or are we prepared to let it be openly known and suffer whatever the consequences may be?

Some time ago I met a friend I hadn't seen since college days. In school he wasn't exactly a radiant Christian. If he had any relationship with Jesus at that time one would never have known it. In those days he looked upon me as the Christian. He would ask questions and we would discuss Christianity. I was always careful not to offend him... not to give the impression of being a fanatic. I managed to keep his respect for my intelligence but I never brought him an inch closer to knowing my Lord. During the intervening years this man came to know Jesus Christ. And now as we met again, he didn't beat around the bush... he didn't try to convince me of his sophistication. He talked quite simply and plainly about the most important treasure of his life ... Jesus. I knew he was paying a price for talking like that. He was allowing himself to be openly branded as an odd ball and a fanatic... but this made no difference to him. He confessed without a trace of affectation or self‑consciousness or shame that he was a follower of Jesus ... and what a follower he is!

Since I met this man, again, I've done a lot of thinking. I am convinced that if we are ever going to find the liberty to speak of Jesus out in the world as we ought to, there are three things we are going to have to stop:

1. We're going to have to stop being ashamed.

Whosoever shall be ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him also shall the son of man be ashamed when he cometh in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.

Why do we hide our connection with Jesus Christ from the eyes of the world? ... because we're ashamed. We're ashamed to let our friends and relatives and enemies and associates know that we've thrown in our lot with Jesus Christ. Look around you and see the courage of people who have attached themselves to things far less than Jesus. They take hold of red-hot issues and turn all their friends against them, but they're not ashamed. People are suffering and dying for the cause of pacifism, world peace, civil rights, not in the name of God or of his Son, but simply in the name of justice and decency. Where are the Christians? ... hiding. They haven't even come out far enough to admit that they're Jesus' disciples.

We are utterly useless to God and his kingdom until we get over this hurdle of being ashamed to acknowledge Jesus Christ before men. May God, by his Spirit, replace our shame with divine boldness even as he did in the heart of Peter.

2. We're going to have to stop living a double life.

We laugh at the ethics professor at the university who inspires his pupils with every lecture and looks like a saint if there ever was one. But every once‑in‑a‑while he takes a Saturday train to the big city, forgets all his ethics and really "lives it up." Is this very different from what we do when we come into our churches and confess our faith in Jesus and pray our little hearts out... and then we get lost in the world and act as though we never heard of Jesus Christ? In many cases the name "Jesus" doesn't cross our lips from the time we leave the door until we come back inside the following week ... except perhaps in private prayer. But how can our private prayers be prayed in Jesus' name if our daily life isn't lived in Jesus' name? If we are open about being disciples in church God help us to be open about our discipleship in the world.

3. We're going to have to stop worrying about the consequences.

The reason we're so shy and secretive about our relationship to Christ is that we're afraid of what might happen if people find out. Of course something might happen! Suppose it does. Suppose everything you feared came to pass. You take the cover off your relationship with Jesus and you lose friends ... you lose the respect of many people… you become an object of ridicule. Suppose you even suffer economic loss ... you become poorer. Suppose you are even killed for being a disciple ... what does it matter? If Jesus Christ is your Lord, isn't it more important for you to be faithful to him than to be safe?

The temptation which came to Peter that night in the palace of the high priest is the foreshadowing of a temptation which every Christian has to face. Sooner or later the world will put you in a position where you will have to give an answer. Are you a disciple or are you not? You will be tempted to deny it. Too many times we have done exactly what Peter did ... we have flatly denied that we belong to Jesus Christ by our words, by our actions, by our silence.

Until we get over this elementary hurdle ... until we have the courage to say quite simply and frankly to the world that we are followers of Jesus ... that we do love him ... that he is our Lord, our Christianity will never amount to anything more than a coward's game of hide and seek.

May God through his Spirit supply to us the boldness we so desperately need, that we may stop being ashamed ... stop living double lives ... quit worrying about the consequences ... and let our relationship to Jesus be an open, clear, public fact, never to be concealed from anyone again.

The Christian's Ministry To The Ungrateful

I'm going to begin this section by making a confession to you. I want to confess an attitude which is definitely not right and of which I am ashamed. It's an attitude of annoyance and impatience with people who never show up around the church except when they want something ... people who use the church and what it offers but never even take the trouble to come and worship the God who made these blessings available to them.

I'll be quite frank with you ... I get annoyed by parents who send their children to Sunday School but never show their face themselves... or by couples who come to get married and that's the last we see of them ... or by folks who ask for counsel when they're in trouble, but when the trouble is past they don't even offer a prayer of thanksgiving.

What's the matter with these people? Don't they have any gratitude in their hearts? Don't they have the decency to show a little appreciation?

Gradually as you get older and smarter, you become like the shrewd clerk in a furniture store. You gain the ability to spot the customer who is going to buy and the fellow who's just there to waste your time ... and you gauge yourself accordingly.

You say to yourself, "I have only so much time ... why should I waste it on people who are never going to come to church anyway?" You start aiming at people who appear to be likely prospects and avoiding those who are only after the free samples.

Now you may say to me, "What's wrong with that? It's just common sense to cultivate those who are going to amount to something and to forget the rest."

And indeed it would make sense if our object were to build up a large, wealthy organization… if all we cared about were more numbers and a bigger budget. But God forbid that this should ever be our aim.

Now, indeed, if our churches continue to grow, may God be praised ... if our congregations should outgrow their buildings, may God be praised ... if multitudes should come from the east and west to sit down and partake of the blessings of God in our midst ... God be praised! BUT... our congregations are not here just to feed themselves and extend themselves and enlarge themselves and exalt themselves. Congregations are here to minister the healing grace of Jesus Christ to all men, whether they say "thank you" or not.

Yes, Jesus was disappointed with the response he got ... "Were not ten cleansed? Where are the nine? Are there not found any to return and give glory to God except this stranger?"

But suppose the next day our Lord meets ten more lepers who cry, "Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!" Do you think that now he's going to be more cautious? Do you think he'll say, "Listen you lepers... I had a bad experience yesterday. Before I heal you I want to know how many of you will promise to return and give thanks. If I heal you, will you be Christians and go to church?"

You know very well that Jesus never put strings on his healings or his feedings or his sermons ... these blessings were free to everybody whether they turned around and gave thanks or not.

And Jesus went on through his ministry giving healing and grace to anybody who asked, knowing full well that nine out of ten in the end would turn around and crucify him ... yet he loved them ... he blessed them ... he poured out his life for them. "I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance." He didn't come to give his blessings to a few good people, but to all.

What you and I have been trying to do all too often is to find that one grateful chap of the ten before we do anything. We say to ourselves, "Why waste time trying to bless all ten lepers when we know very well that only one of them will ever amount to anything? Let's narrow it down ... let's save our blessings for the people who look like they're going to come through."

But in the healing of the ten lepers Jesus shows us that if we are going to follow in his steps and do his will, we're going to have to get used to one thing ... we're going to have to get used to the idea that WE HAVE A MINISTRY TO THE UNGRATEFUL. Nine out of ten people to whom we minister the grace of God won't even so much as tip their hat. But we minister to them anyway ... and we go on ministering all our lives, spending ourselves, pouring out our very best, even if nobody falls down and gives God glory.

How many so‑called "Christian workers" become hard and cynical, whining and feeling sorry for themselves because nobody was grateful. "I gave those people the best years of my life and they never appreciated it!" Why the surprise? Didn't you learn years ago in your Bible that the bulk of our ministry is to the ungrateful?

If we serve as Christians merely to have people appreciate us we won't be Christians very long because everything God does in this universe is done on the principle of scattering the seed. Thousands of acorns hit the ground before one oak tree takes root and grows. Thousands of eggs are produced before one ever completes the cycle and becomes a butterfly. Look at the vast multitudes to whom Jesus preached the gospel of the kingdom ... yet when he was finished he had only a handful with him.

"And as he entered into a certain village there met him ten men who were lepers, who stood afar off and lifted up their voices and said, 'Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!"'

Nine of those men he's never going to see again ... nine of those ten won't even look back to say, "Thanks." ... nine may never enter the kingdom of heaven. But this made no difference to Jesus. He healed all ten. "Go show yourselves to the priests." And as they went they were cleansed.

This is how it must be done to this very hour. The congregation that gathers in your church building week‑by-week has a ministry ... not just to people with warm and tender hearts, not just to people who look like they might join, not just to the leper who is going to say, "Thanks," BUT TO ALL TEN LEPERS who are standing afar off crying for the grace of God, even though nine of them will soon forget.

Those ten lepers ... those people at a distance ... those people who have drifted away from Christ, or have never known him, or wouldn't be caught dead inside a church ARE YOUR MINISTRY. As you get to know them where you work or live or go to school, you find that their hearts are just crying for some kind of healing. And they're crying out to you.

They may not come up to you and cry, "Show me the way of salvation!" More often than not their cry is quite the opposite: "What do you go to church for? ... there is no God!" Or they may point to the Bible on your table and comment, "Do you really believe that stuff?" But what they're really trying to say is, "Where is God? ... Does he care about me? ... How can I find him?"

Once these people come to you and cry for help in whatever peculiar way they express it, you have no choice. Even if you know that they'll drop you like a hot potato when they're out of the mood or out of trouble ... THIS MAKES NO DIFFERENCE ... go to the ungrateful and minister to them with your best.

Go to the ungrateful, believing three things:

1. Go to the ungrateful believing, that you have been sent by Jesus Christ.

"As the Father hath sent me, even so send I you."

I don't know why God sent his Son to bow his sacred head and give his precious blood for unworthy, ungrateful creatures like you and me. I don't know why, in the Garden of Gethsemane, when everyone forsook him and fled, God didn't just take his Son back to heaven right then and leave us to suffer the consequences of our sin. I don't know why God drove his Son right on to the cross to suffer and die for a world that doesn't even know what the word gratitude means.

But I know this ... that the same Jesus who did these things now breathes on you as you read these words and says to you, "As the Father hath sent me, even so send I you. Freely ye have received, freely give. Never mind how they respond! Minister to them the grace which I have given you."

I'm not preaching because I hope that people will remember me in their wills. I'm preaching because I believe that Jesus Christ sent me. And when you go out and minister to others, you're not expecting bouquets and rewards from men ... you're going because Jesus Christ sent you!

2. Go to the ungrateful believing that you have the power to heal their sin.

The awful disease of leprosy, where the skin turns white and rots and falls off until the victim dies, is a picture of the sin which besets us all. The leper had to stand at a distance and say, "Unclean! 'Unclean!" so no one would come near.

So the sinner stands at a distance from God and from all men. The uncleanness in his heart walls him off in a world of his own no matter how extroverted he may appear. But if you are a disciple of Jesus Christ you've been cured. And you have the power that will cure them. The Christ in you can forgive that sin and remove that guilt and make that leper clean ... believe it!

There are people who believe they've been sent by Jesus Christ but they don't believe that they have any power. Friend, Jesus doesn't send you out without giving you power.

Then Jesus said to them again, "Peace be unto you. As the Father hath sent me, even so send I you." And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said unto them, "Receive ye the Holy Spirit. Whosoever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them, and whosoever sins ye retain, they are retained."

To whom did Jesus speak these blessed words? To preachers alone? Heaven forbid! ... to every disciple. If you are a disciple, you carry in you the power to forgive sin in the name of the Master. Jesus expects you to exercise this healing power. Why do you think he gave it to you? Don't be afraid to proclaim the fact of forgiveness to every tormented leper whose heart cries out for mercy to the Christ who lives in you.

3. Go to the ungrateful believing that there will always be that one‑out‑of‑ten (or one out of a hundred) who will turn and throw his life down at Jesus' feet, giving him thanks.

Somewhere among those ten lepers who will stand at a distance and cry to you tomorrow there is one ... which one only God knows ... who will surprise you. As you serve all ten this one person will begin to respond in a different way ... his life will change ... he will step out from the group and begin to give God glory. But that one person will never be found until, like our Lord, we minister to all, whoever they are, whether they say "Thank you" or not.

God, help us to do this ... God give us eyes to discern those ten lepers who are already waiting ... God give us the compassion of his Son to minister to them his healing and his forgiveness, no matter how ungrateful they may be.

The Healing Stream

The next time some famous healing evangelist comes to your town go and see what's happening. You may not enjoy the singing ... you may be unimpressed by the preaching ... the altar call may seem forced and the healing line may appear overdone. But look at the sea of faces gathered there; there may be thousands of them. Ask yourself, "What brought them here? Why did they come on their crutches and in their wheelchairs with their aches and pains and worries and fears?"

The magic word of course is healing ... they want to be healed or they want to see other people healed.

The healing evangelist knows, and we know, that most of the people who go limping up the ramp for the laying-on‑of‑hands are going to go limping down again. Many of those who praise the Lord that their headache is gone will find, when the excitement is over, that the pain is still there. Yet the healing evangelist, and the vast crowds that follow him, and the fantastic sums of money that flow into his elaborate organization, are living proof of the deep hunger in the hearts of all men for the healing of Christ.

People are still looking for the Christ "who went about doing good and healing all that were oppressed of the devil, for God was with him." People are looking for men who have God with them and who manifest God's goodness by healing the sick. And they have a perfect right to look for this healing Christ ... and to feel cheated when they are offered an emaciated substitute Christ who never does anything but hang in a picture frame and look piously upward while studio lights play softly upon his freshly shampooed tresses.

The Christ who came from the wilderness into Galilee preaching the kingdom of God manifested the kingdom by healing the sick. And the Christ who went forth in the bodies of the disciples on the Day of Pentecost manifested the kingdom of God by healing the sick. Wherever Jesus Christ really lives there is a stream which flows out and heals all who touch it.

And he showed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb.

There is a river, the streams whereof shall make glad the City of God.

Perhaps in the age to come this river of life will be a visible, physical thing ... we may be able to reach down and touch it or drink it or bathe in its waters. But right now the river of life which flows through the world is not like the Mississippi or the Danube. This river is nothing other than a stream of human beings ... people. The river that is meant to flow out from beneath the altar of your church (see Ezekiel 47), and heal the world around it, is the stream of people that will pass through its doors at the end of the service. You and your brothers and sisters are the healing river, for we can each be instruments if the Holy Spirit who indwells and flows forth from those whom he has filled.

God may be pleased to use famous healing evangelists from time to time to answer the heart‑cries of some poor thirsting souls who have never been shown the healing side of Christ. But the real healers are not the chaps who blast away at the devil in front of microphones and video cameras and glaring lights. The real healers are the disciples who leave the gathered fellowship on Sunday morning filled with the Holy Spirit and quietly and confidently go back into the world with power to forgive sins in Jesus' name.

Then said Jesus to them again, "Peace be unto you. As the Father hath sent me, even so send I you." And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said unto them, "Receive ye the Holy Spirit. Whosoever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them, and whosoever sins ye retain, they are retained."

This is where the healing stream begins… in this blessed twentieth chapter of John where Jesus appeared to the disciples alive from the dead and told them four things:

1. Peace be unto you. (Your sins are forgiven, you have peace

with God.)

2. As the Father hath sent me even so send I you.

3. Receive ye the Holy Spirit.

4. Whosoever sins ye remit they are remitted unto them and whosoever sins ye retain they are retained.

These four things are Jesus' "sending forth" message to his disciples today. With these four statements Jesus transforms them into "a river, the streams whereof shall make glad the City of God."

Peace be unto you. Perhaps in the pressure of daily living you often lose the peace of God ... your mind becomes tense and uneasy ... you get so worked up about your problems that you forget where you are going. Then Sunday comes and you gather with fellow believers ... you pray for his peace to return to you.

At last the Lord begins to speak. As always his first word is, "Peace." He says it with authority as if he were addressing the stormy Galilee ... "Peace, be still!" And even as he speaks the words peace descends upon you ... peace you do not have in yourself ... God's peace ... holy peace.

"Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you. Not as the world giveth give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid ... "

Your sins are forgiven ... God holds nothing against you ... you are safe. And as that peace begins to sink in you, yourself are healed. Your mind and spirit are healed and many times your body.

But now that you have this peace, what are you going to do with it? Are you going to sit down and bask in it? Are you going to lie down and sleep with it? Or wrap it in a napkin and tuck it in a drawer for safekeeping? Not God's peace. There is only one way to keep it ... spread it ... give it to others. "Blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called the children of God."

Hence Jesus' second word to you. As the Father hath sent me even so send I you. You are the healing stream. "Behold, I send you forth," says the Lord Jesus.

What makes your church a church? Certainly not the bells in the tower or the organ or the preacher or the choir or the altar or the candles. It becomes a church when the people carry the healing of Jesus Christ to their brothers and sisters in the world… when they live like men and women who have been sent to heal the brokenhearted and deliver the captives... when they flow out of the building Sunday‑by‑Sunday as a river of healing water.

Perhaps you are saying that you don't feel like a healer. You feel that your own life is too full of wounds and stains to bring healing to someone else. Then listen to Jesus' third word to you. Receive ye the Holy Spirit. There's the power. Not your wisdom or your love or your anything ... God's. The healing water is the Spirit of God and you are the channel.

But you have to receive the Holy Spirit. If someone were to walk up to you today and tell you to purchase the Empire State Building you'd shake your head. But if he held out a check for three billion dollars and said, "Here, buy it with this," that would be quite different. Of course, you still couldn't buy the Empire State Building unless you reached out and received the check. Even so the Holy Spirit of God has to be received ... taken. "Have ye received the Holy Spirit since ye believed?" said Paul to the men at Ephesus.

I can remember my reaction the first time someone asked me whether I had ever received the Holy Spirit."... I was insulted. What do you mean, receive the Holy Spirit? Don't I have the Holy Spirit? "If any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his," wrote Paul. How could I believe in Christ if I didn't have the Holy Spirit? And yet, receiving the Holy Spirit is not a once-and-done thing, as we discover as we read the fourth chapter of Acts.

Whenever Jesus sends us forth to heal, he breathes over us again just as he breathed over the disciples and says, "Receive the Holy Spirit." Then it is up to us to open our hearts and breathe in what our Lord has breathed upon us, letting the Spirit possess us wholly ... he must be allowed to have full control.

Now you emerge from your church filled with the Holy Spirit. What do you do with this gift? How do you bring healing to the world? Very simple ... you heal by making real to those wounded souls out there that God has forgiven their sins. What healing there is in knowing this forgiveness!

Now, in what ways can you make this forgiveness real?

1. You can forgive sins in the Lord Jesus' name through intercession. When people are sinning against you, pray for them that they may be forgiven. When men put our Lord on the cross, his first words were, "Father, forgive them for they know not what they do." When they began to stone Stephen to death, he cried, "Lord, lay not this sin to their charge." There is a healing which flows every time you pray for the forgiveness of those who are wronging you.

You have many opportunities to impart forgiveness through intercession.

There are people who hurt you, neglect you, take advantage of you ... pray their forgiveness and you become their healer under God.

2. You can forgive sins in Jesus' name by pointing to his cross. When someone comes to you all tangled up in guilt, driving himself to death on the treadmill of dead works, you can point to the cross and say, "Look ... see what Jesus has already done for you ... trust him that the price has already been paid."

Most people, even church‑going people, still don't realize that they've been forgiven. They don't understand what the cross means or how to enter into the forgiveness purchased for them there. So they are driving themselves… or running away from themselves ... or trying to hide from God. What healings will occur when you tell those troubled souls that they are now forgiven if they will only accept the gift. Their sins are now covered ... the war is over ... Christ has conquered.

3. And after they have told you their burdens, and you have prayed with them, you can forgive sins (hold on to your seat) by saying directly to this person as if you were the priest in the confessional ... "In the name of Jesus Christ, your sins are forgiven."

There are times when it is impossible to explain the facts of the gospel to a person when you have to stand up in the name of Jesus and speak with no "ifs" or "buts" directly to that troubled conscience, "Be clean! You are forgiven!"

When some tormented brother comes to you and confesses a sea of filth and ugliness it is best not to say very much ... it is best just to listen. When he's finished don't give him a lot of advice ... pray with him and at the end of your prayer, in the name of Christ, declare him absolved of all the sins he confessed ... and he will be healed.

"Whosesoever sins ye remit they are remitted unto them and whosesoever sins ye retain they are retained." This does not mean that we are to go strutting through the world arbitrarily marking this man for heaven and that man for hell. God have mercy on all who play the role of judge, which belongs only to God. The Lord Jesus simply commands us to impart the forgiveness of the cross to all who will accept it, leaving those who insist on retaining their sins to the mercy of God. Jesus gives us authority as his disciples to impart his blood‑bought forgiveness to any man or woman who will receive it. If a man or woman is confronted with God's grace and rejects it with their eyes open then their sins are retained … but this is their choice and never ours.

Our task is to make forgiveness real to those around us ... not just to mouth the words of the gospel. The world is sick of hearing Christian Pharisees telling them that "Jesus died for your sins," while resentment is written all over their own faces.

If I'm going to heal others by imparting the forgiveness of Christ I've got to practice forgiveness down to the tip of my toes. It won't do to repress the grudge or squelch the bitterness or grit my teeth as my enemy passes by. I must forgive.

You will make the forgiveness of the cross real to men and women around you by incarnating that forgiveness yourself ... by being a living embodiment of it … by letting Christ in you move you to practice forgiveness utterly in your daily life toward the very people who hurt you and neglect you and take advantage of you.

Now the healing stream will begin to flow. The Lord himself will work with you confirming your words and following it with signs. Through you and all who follow him, Jesus will continue what he began so long ago ... "to preach the gospel to the poor ... to heal the brokenhearted ... to preach deliverance to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind ... to set at liberty them that are bruised..." This is Vital Christianity.

Remember that soon ... sooner than you can imagine ... your day in the Vineyard will be over. A new day will dawn. The kingdom of God which once lived invisibly in your heart will then burst forth in indescribable glory and you will be, at last, at your journey's end ... heaven … where;

"…eye hath not seen nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man the things which God hath prepared for them that love him."

Maranatha Mirror Messages

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VITAL CHRISTIANITY

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