You yourselves are our letter, written on our hearts,
known and read by everybody. You show that you
are a letter from Christ, the result of our ministry,
written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living
God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human
hearts. 2 Corinthians 3:2,3
The Christian life can only be explained in terms of
Jesus Christ, and if your life as a Christian can still
be explained in terms of you--your personality, your
will-power, your gift, your talent, your money, your
courage, your scholarship, your dedication, your sacri-
fice, or your anything--then although you may have
the Christian life, you are not yet living it!
If the way you live your life as a Christian can be ex-
plained in terms of you, what have you to offer to the
man who lives next door? The way he lives his life
can be explained in terms of him, and so far as he is
concerned, you happen to be "religious"--but he is
not! Christianity may be your hobby, but it is not his,
and there is nothing about the way you practice it
which strikes him as at all remarkable. There is
nothing about you which leaves him guessing, and
nothing commendable of which he does not feel him-
self equally capable without the inconvenience of
becoming a Christian.
It is only when your quality of life baffles the neigh-
bors that you are likely to impress them. It has to to
be patently obvious to others that the kind of life you
are living is not only highly commendable, but that it
is beyond all human explanation. That it is beyond the
consequences of man's capacity to imitate, and how-
ever little they may understand this, clearly the conse-
quence only of God's capacity to reproduce Himself
in you.
In a nutshell, this means your fellow-men must become
convinced that the Lord Jesus Christ of whom you
speak, is essentially Himself the ingredient of the Life
you live. Major Ian Thomas 191402007
Reader, this is a tough one. Only God can show me
how I am living my life. He wants me to tap into His
power in the inner man, So, when I realize that I am
functioning out of myself instead of from Him, I confess
it, and then give Him back the freedom to be the motor
within. So much more restful that way...
I have dug into the life of Major Ian Thomas and found
enough things to make this blog into two. Below is a
short video of part of a sermon which tugged at my heart.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ekghF0lQyds
known and read by everybody. You show that you
are a letter from Christ, the result of our ministry,
written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living
God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human
hearts. 2 Corinthians 3:2,3
The Christian life can only be explained in terms of
Jesus Christ, and if your life as a Christian can still
be explained in terms of you--your personality, your
will-power, your gift, your talent, your money, your
courage, your scholarship, your dedication, your sacri-
fice, or your anything--then although you may have
the Christian life, you are not yet living it!
If the way you live your life as a Christian can be ex-
plained in terms of you, what have you to offer to the
man who lives next door? The way he lives his life
can be explained in terms of him, and so far as he is
concerned, you happen to be "religious"--but he is
not! Christianity may be your hobby, but it is not his,
and there is nothing about the way you practice it
which strikes him as at all remarkable. There is
nothing about you which leaves him guessing, and
nothing commendable of which he does not feel him-
self equally capable without the inconvenience of
becoming a Christian.
It is only when your quality of life baffles the neigh-
bors that you are likely to impress them. It has to to
be patently obvious to others that the kind of life you
are living is not only highly commendable, but that it
is beyond all human explanation. That it is beyond the
consequences of man's capacity to imitate, and how-
ever little they may understand this, clearly the conse-
quence only of God's capacity to reproduce Himself
in you.
In a nutshell, this means your fellow-men must become
convinced that the Lord Jesus Christ of whom you
speak, is essentially Himself the ingredient of the Life
you live. Major Ian Thomas 191402007
Reader, this is a tough one. Only God can show me
how I am living my life. He wants me to tap into His
power in the inner man, So, when I realize that I am
functioning out of myself instead of from Him, I confess
it, and then give Him back the freedom to be the motor
within. So much more restful that way...
I have dug into the life of Major Ian Thomas and found
enough things to make this blog into two. Below is a
short video of part of a sermon which tugged at my heart.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ekghF0lQyds
No comments:
Post a Comment