Sunday entries are taken from the classic devotional series In Christ by E. Stanley Jones.
CONSIDER THIS
Yesterday we saw the triumph of the silk manufacturer. He triumphed because he was in Christ. Here was a similar story with a different ending because this man was out of Christ. In Osaka, Japan, a wealthy man gave a check to build a new city hall. The next day the stock market crashed, and he was left penniless. Friends urged that he call back the gift. “No,” he replied, “since a promise is made it must be kept.” Then he went out and shot himself. The endings of these two men were different because their beginnings were different. One began from the basis of being in Christ and worked out from that to victory—every real thing intact. The other began from the basis of a stoical self—“a promise . . . must be kept”—noble, but this side of life, hence he went down in death.
The leading Christian layman of India holds the finance portfolio of the Railway Board, which manages all the railways of India. His elder brother brought him to one of my meetings in Madras in 1924, where he was converted. “As I sat in the tram car going home, Christ sat beside me and I knew we belonged to each other.” From that moment, he knew he was in Christ. Working out from that basis, his life has been a continuing miracle. He will probably take over the Sat Tal Ashram if and when I should drop out. If I had combed India I could not have found a better man. His brother, who insisted on his going to that decisive meeting, is a very brilliant professor doing research in pure mathematics. When I asked him what “pure mathematics” meant, he replied: “Mathematics unrelated to anything.” He has spent his life researching in pure, unrelated abstractions. His life has become as empty as his research; he is a half man, touching nothing and nobody. He is in himself. His brother, starting with being in Christ, is alive to his finger tips and touching all India. Both equally able, with equal opportunities, but one is fruitful, the other futile.
THE PRAYER
O Jesus, my Lord, if I withhold from Thee I withhold from me. If I withhold I impoverish myself—and others. I would give to Thee with both hands my all. It is little, but Thou has it. I am at peace. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY
If my life and possessions are related to the Eternal, they will be eternal.
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