Fishrapper

The Body of Christ

I am dumbfounded.

I received this note yesterday from the church I led in Seattle for 12 years (I’ve now been away for more than nine):

Dear Van and Shirley,

We felt led this year to select you as our Christmas family, to bless you as God led individuals to respond. We trust that you were blessed by your Christmas celebration and we pray for a fruitful year to come.

                                Love in Christ,

                                Your brothers and sisters at Grace Fellowship

 I wrote back:

Thank you for the note, for the generous gift, but most of all for helping to restore my faith in the church.

I am grateful to God for what He has done at Grace Fellowship. God bless you all.

May He “enlarge the place of your tent; stretch out the curtains of your dwellings, spare not; lengthen your cords, and strengthen your pegs.”

It is one thing to be the pastor of a church, subject to both hiring and firing. It is quite another to be considered family.

Thank you Father for making us one with You, and one another.

God's Way of Dealing With a Hit and Run

But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil; but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also. Matthew 5:39, etc.

These verses reveal the humiliation of being a Christian. Naturally, if a man does not hit back, it is because he is a coward; but spiritually if a man does not hit back, it is a manifestation of the Son of God in him. When you are insulted, you must not only not resent it, but make it an occasion to exhibit the Son of God. You cannot imitate the disposition of Jesus; it is either there or it is not. To the saint personal insult becomes the occasion of revealing the incredible sweetness of the Lord Jesus.

The teaching of the Sermon on the Mount is not—Do your duty, but—Do what is not your duty. It is not your duty to go the second mile, to turn the other cheek, but Jesus says if we are His disciples, we shall always do these things. There will be no spirit of—‘Oh well, I cannot do any more, I have been so misrepresented and misunderstood.’ Every time I insist upon my rights, I hurt the Son of God; whereas I can prevent Jesus from being hurt if I take the blow myself. That is the meaning of filling up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ. The disciple realizes that it is his Lord’s honour that is at stake in his life, not his own honour.

Never look for right in the other man, but never cease to be right yourself. We are always looking for justice; the teaching of the Sermon on the Mount is—Never look for justice, but never cease to give it.

    Chambers, Oswald. (1993, c1935). My utmost for his highest : Selections for the year (July 14). Grand Rapids, MI: Discovery House Publishers.