Powerful Christian witness stories about faith, love, forgiveness, courage, evangelism, suffering, and the true mission of the Church—real stories that challenge how Christians live and share the Gospel.
When Faith Became a Refuge for the Hunted
There are two things, it has often been
said, that human beings cannot gaze at directly without going mad – the glory
of God and the darkness of human evil.
After years of studying human cruelty,
Philip Hallie, professor of philosophy at Wesleyan University and a veteran of
World War II, must have felt close to madness. Working on a project on Nazi
cruelty, he focused on the medical experiments Nazi doctors conducted on Jewish
children in the death camps.
“Across all these studies,” Hallie wrote
later, “the pattern of the strong crushing the weak kept repeating itself and
repeating itself, so that when I was not bitterly angry, I was bored at the repetitions
of the patterns of persecution…. My study of evil incarnate had become a prison
whose bars were my bitterness toward the violent, and whose walls were my
horrified indifference to slow murder. Between the bars and the walls I
revolved like a madman … over the years I had dug myself into Hell.”
During this time Hallie came across a short
article about a small town of three thousand in the mountains of southern
France, which was the only safe haven for Jews in all of German-occupied
Europe. Reading with academic objectivity in his effort to classify types of
cruelty and forms of resistance to it, he was about halfway down the third page
of the story when he became “annoyed by a strange sensation on my cheeks.”
Reaching up to wipe away a piece of dust,
he felt tears – “Not one or two drops; my whole cheek was wet.” Those tears,
Hallie wrote, were an instinctive “expression of moral praise.”
What Hallie was reading was his
introduction to the citizens of Le Chambon and their heroic rescue of more than
five thousand Jewish children in the Second World War.
Later written up in his modern
classic Lest Innocent Blood Be Shed, Hallie came to realize the
rightness of a summary by one of his readers: “The Holocaust was storm,
lightning, thunder, wind, rain, yes. And Le Chambon was the rainbow.” Yes, he
concluded, “I realized that for me too the little story of Le Chambon is
grander and more beautiful than the bloody war that stopped Hitler.”
What emerges in his story is the strands of
the stubborn courage of the Chambonnais. They were Huguenots, French
Protestants fired by their faith in Christ and the experience of three hundred
years of persecution following the revocation of the Edict of Nantes.
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| Pastor Trocme |
And they were led, taught, and encouraged
by their indomitable pastor, Andre Trocme, and his equally heroic wife, Magda.
But what comes across repeatedly is their character and the down-to-earth,
no-nonsense quality of their faith.
Many French let themselves be deceived by
the infamous “night and fog” propaganda with which the Germans concealed the
death camps.
But the Chambonnais simply did what had to
be done, what they’d been taught to do, what Christ would have expected them to
do – they sheltered and saved their neighbors, the Jews, who were in danger.
The evening Pastor Trocme himself was arrested illustrates the whole story. The pastor and his wife had been invited to dinner by church members who, knowing they often forgot such invitations, sent their daughter to remind them.
But when she entered the dining room, she
saw the police arresting her pastor. So the word flew around the village: Andre
Trocme had been arrested.
Typically, however, Magda Trocme invited
the two policemen to have dinner with them. Friends were later incredulous and
upset with her. “How could you bring yourself to sit down to eat with these men
who were there to take your husband away, perhaps to his death? How could you
be so forgiving, so decent to them?”
Madame Trocme always gave the same answer:
“What are you talking about? It was dinner-time; they were standing in my way;
we were all hungry. The food was ready. What do you mean by such foolish words
as ‘forgiving’ and ‘decent’?”
Such a response was typical. The
Chambonnais shrugged off praise again and again. They would look Hallie in the
eye and say, “How can you call us ‘good’? We were doing what had to be done.
Things had to be done, that’s all, and we happened to be there to do them.
You must understand that it was the most
natural thing in the world to help these people.” An outsider’s words of moral
praise, Philip Hallie concluded, are “like a slightly uncomfortable wreath laid
upon a head by a kind but alien hand.”
Source: Os Guinness. The Call: Finding and Fulfilling the Central Purpose of Your Life (Kindle edition. Locations 1092-1095).
How Christian Love Changed the Ancient World
Many historians believe that central to the
rise of Christianity was the simple fact that Christians generously loved each
other and their neighbours.
They point out that in the ancient world
mercy was widely seen as a character defect that ran counter to justice.
Justice demanded people get what they deserved and was seen as appropriate,
where mercy extended grace, love, and kindness to people who had done nothing
to deserve it. Yet the Christians valued mercy.
Christian communities became places where
people tended to live longer and healthier lives, for when they suffered
sickness, poverty or mishap they had brothers and sisters in Christ who
provided for their need. And Christians extended love way beyond the boundaries
of family and congregation to their pagan neighbours.
In 251 A.D. for example, a great plague
struck the Greco-Roman world. Memories were revived of a plague a century
earlier in which more than a third of the population died. Fear was everywhere.
Those who could afford it fled to the countryside.
Those who could not remained in the cities.
When they went to the temples they found them empty, the priests having fled.
The streets were filled with those who had become infected, their families left
with no option but to push them out the door.
Christian communities however took an
entirely different approach. They saw it as their responsibility to love the
sick and dying, so they took them into their homes and nursed them. This action
meant that many people recovered who otherwise would have died.
Historians suggest that elementary nursing
could have reduced the mortality rate by as much as two thirds, but it also
cost a number of Christian carers their lives.
In The Early Church, Henry
Chadwick comments:
The practical application of charity was
probably the most potent single cause of Christian success. The pagan comment
‘see how these Christians love one another’ (reported by Tertullian) was not
irony. Christian charity expressed itself in care for the poor, for widows and
orphans, in visits to brethren in prison or condemned to the living death of
labour in the mines, and social action in time of calamity like famine,
earthquake, pestilence, or war.
So striking was the Christian commitment to
generous love that when the fourth century Emperor Julian sought to restore
paganism to the Empire he instructed the pagan priesthood to follow the example
of the Christians:
Why, then, do we think that this is enough,
why do we not observe that it is their [Christians] benevolence to strangers,
their care for the graves of the dead and the pretended holiness of their lives
that have done most to increase atheism [Julian’s word for Christianity]?
I believe that we ought really and truly to
practise every one of these virtues… For it is disgraceful that, when no Jew
ever has to beg, and the impious Galilaeans support not only their own poor but
ours as well, all men see that our people lack aid from us.
Source: Historical data derived from Henry Chadwick, The Pelican History of The Early Church and Rodney Stark, the Triumph of Christianity
The Forgiveness That Saved a Guilty German Soldier
It was 1945, World War II had drawn to a
close, and a young man sat broken inside a POW camp. He had been a reluctant
soldier in Hitler’s army and here, inside a prison in Scotland, he had months
to contemplate what had been and what was to come.
The cities of his homeland had been reduced
to rubble and the people impoverished. His sleep was filled with repeating
nightmares in which the terrors of warfare were lived over and over.
And then came what was for me the worst of
all.
In September 1945, in camp 22 in Scotland,
we were confronted with pictures of Belsen and Auschwitz. They were pinned up
in one of the huts, without comment… Slowly and inexorably the truth filtered
into our awareness, and we saw ourselves mirrored in the eyes of the Nazi
victims. Was this what we had fought for?
Had my generation, as the last, been driven
to our deaths so that the concentration camp murderers could go on killing, and
Hitler could live a few months longer?… The depression over the wartime
destruction and a captivity without any apparent end was exacerbated by
feelings of profound shame and having to share in this disgrace.
That was undoubtedly the hardest thing, a
stranglehold that choked us.
An unshakeable shame saturated his being
and the only future he could see stretching out before him was one that filled
him with despair.
Yet it was in the midst of this shame and
despair that God found him. A visiting chaplain gave the soldier a Bible and,
with little else to do, he began reading it. In the lament Psalms he heard
resonant voices, the agony of people who felt God had abandoned them.
In the story of Christ crucified he
encountered a God who knew what it was to experience suffering, abandonment,
and shame. Feeling utterly forsaken himself, the German soldier found a friend
in the One who cried “my God my God why have you forsaken me”.
In 1947 he was given permission to attend a Christian conference that brought together young people from across the world. The Dutch participants asked to meet with the German POWs who had fought in the Netherlands. The young soldier was one of them.
He went to the meeting full of
fear, guilt and shame, feelings that intensified as the Dutch Christians spoke
of the pain Hitler and his allies had inflicted, of the dread the Gestapo bred
in their hearts, of the family and friends they had lost, of the disruption and
damage to their communities.
Yet the Dutch Christians didn’t speak out
of a spirit of vindictiveness, but came to offer forgiveness. It was completely
unexpected. These Dutch Christians embodied the love the German soldier had
read about in the story of Christ and it turned his life upside down.
He discovered despite all that had passed
“God looked on us with ‘the shining eyes’ of his eternal joy”, that there was
hope for the future.
That German soldier was Juergen Moltmann,
who would go on to become one of the greatest theologians of the twentieth
century. Years later, with the message of the loving, crucified God still
indelibly printed on his heart, he penned these beautiful words.
But the ultimate reason for our hope is not
to be found at all in what we want, wish for and wait for; the ultimate reason
is that we are wanted and wished for and waited for. What is it that awaits us?
Does anything await us at all, or are we alone?
Whenever we base our hope on trust in the
divine mystery, we feel deep down in our hearts: there is someone who is
waiting for you, who is hoping for you, who believes in you. We are waited for
as the prodigal son in the parable is waited for by his father.
We are accepted and received, as a mother
takes her children into her arms and comforts them. God is our last hope
because we are God’s first love.
Source: Moltmann’s writings. Quotes from The Source of Life. The Holy Spirit and the Theology of Life. Fortress Press 1977
The Preacher Who Kept Witnessing as the Titanic Sank
The most famous ship of all time is
possibly the Titanic, the supposedly unsinkable ship that went down
on its maiden voyage. Many movies have been made and many books written about
the fateful journey. Few will include the story of Scottish evangelist John
Harper. Harper was a passenger on the Titanic.
In 1912 Harper was travelling to Chicago to
take up his appointment as Pastor of Moody Church. He had his daughter Nana on
board with him. His wife had died a few years earlier.
When the Titanic struck
the iceberg and began to sink he put Nana into a lifeboat and then ran
throughout the ship yelling “Women, children, and unsaved into the lifeboats!”
When the ship finally went down he had already given his lifejacket to another
passenger.
Survivors report that to the very end
Harper was witnessing to anyone who would listen. One survivor recalls clinging
to one of the ships spars when Harper floated near him.
“Man, are you saved?” cried Harper.
“No I’m not” replied the man.
“Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you
shall be saved” pleaded Harper.
The waves carried Harper away and brought
him back a little later. “Are you saved now?” asks Harper.
“No, I cannot honestly say that I am” says
the man.
Again Harper pleads with him, “Believe in
the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved”.
Shortly afterward Harper went down. The man
who survived was one of only six people rescued, but in a public meeting four
years later, recounting this episode he said “There, alone in the night, and
with two miles of water under me, I believed. I am John Harper’s last convert.”
Source: Reported by Elesha Coffman, Christianity Today, August 7,200. The story is told in The Titanic’s Last Hero (Moody Press, 1997)
When the Church Forgot Why It Existed
On a dangerous seacoast where shipwrecks
often occur there was once a crude little life-saving station. The building was
just a hut, and there was only one boat but the few devoted members kept a
constant watch over the sea, and with no thought for themselves went out day
and night tirelessly searching for the lost.
Some of those who were saved, and various
others in the surrounding area, wanted to become associated with the station
and give of their time and money and effort for the support of its work. New
boats were bought and new crews trained. The little life-saving station grew.
Some of the members of the life-saving
station were unhappy that the building was so crude and poorly equipped. They
felt that a more comfortable place should be provided as the first refuge of
those saved from the sea.
They replaced the emergency cots with beds
and put better furniture in the enlarged building. Now, the life-saving station
became a popular gathering place for its members, and they decorated it
beautifully and furnished it exquisitely, because they used it as a sort of
club. Fewer members were now interested in going to sea on lifesaving missions,
so they hired life-boat crews to do this work.
The life-saving motif still prevailed in
this club’s decoration, and there was a symbolic life-boat in the room where
the club initiations were held. About this time a large ship was wrecked off
the coast, and the hired crews brought in boat loads of cold, wet and
half-drowned people.
They were dirty and sick and some of them
had black skin and some had yellow skin. The beautiful new club was in chaos.
So the property committee immediately had a shower house built outside the club
where victims of shipwreck could be cleaned up before coming inside.
At the next meeting, there was a split in
the club membership. Most of the members wanted to stop the club’s life-saving
activities as being unpleasant and a hindrance to the normal social life of the
club. Some members insisted upon life-saving as their primary purpose and
pointed out that they were still called a life-saving station.
But they were finally voted down and told
that if they wanted to save lives of all the various kinds of people who were
shipwrecked in those waters, they could begin their own life-saving station
down the coast. They did.
As the years went by, the new station
experienced the same changes that had occurred in the old. It evolved into a
club, and yet another life-saving station was founded. History continued to
repeat itself, and if you visit that sea coast today, you will find a number of
exclusive clubs along that shore. Shipwrecks are frequent in those waters, but
most of the people drown.
Source: unknown
When Christians Talked About Mission but Stopped Doing It
There was a group called ‘The Fisherman’s
Fellowship’. They were surrounded by streams and lakes full of hungry fish.
They met regularly to discuss the call to fish, and the thrill of catching
fish. They got excited about fishing!!
Someone suggested that they needed a
philosophy of fishing, so they carefully defined and redefined fishing, and the
purpose of fishing. They developed fishing strategies and tactics. Then they
realized that they had been going at it backwards.
They had approached fishing from the point
of view of the fisherman, and not from the point of view of the fish. How do
fish view the world? How does the fisherman appear to the fish? What do fish
eat, and when? These are all good things to know.
So they began research studies, and
attended conferences on fishing. Some travelled to far away places to study
different kinds of fish, with different habits. Some got PhD’s in fishology.
But no one had yet gone fishing.
So a committee was formed to send out
fishermen. As prospective fishing places outnumbered fishermen, the committee
needed to determine priorities.
A priority list of fishing places was
posted on bulletin boards in all of the fellowship halls. But still, no one was
fishing. A survey was launched, to find out why… Most did not answer the
survey, but from those that did, it was discovered that some felt called to
study fish, a few to furnish fishing equipment, and several to go around
encouraging the fisherman.
What with meetings, conferences, and
seminars, they just simply didn’t have time to fish.
Now, Jake was a newcomer to the Fisherman’s
Fellowship. After one stirring meeting of the Fellowship, Jake went fishing. He
tried a few things, got the hang of it, and caught a choice fish. At the next
meeting, he told his story, and he was honoured for his catch, and then
scheduled to speak at all the Fellowship chapters and tell how he did it.
Now, because of all the speaking
invitations and his election to the board of directors of the Fisherman’s
Fellowship, Jake no longer has time to go fishing.
But soon he began to feel restless and
empty. He longed to feel the tug on the line once again. So he cut the
speaking, he resigned from the board, and he said to a friend, “Let’s go fishing.”
They did, just the two of them, and they caught fish.
The members of the Fisherman’s Fellowship
were many, the fish were plentiful, but the fishers were few.
Source: unknown
A Christian Witness Compared With a Political Campaign
Jimmy Carter is a former President of the
United States. He is also a committed Christian. Every year Carter’s home
church of Plains Baptist Church would have a week of mission in which
congregation members would go out into the community inviting unchurched people
to attend the church’s revival meetings.
Once Carter was asked to speak at another church in Georgia on the topic of “Christian Witnessing”. In his preparation he decided he would share about his involvement in his home church’s mission week. He began to note down that in 14 years he had managed to visit over 140 home sin the local community.
Carter felt quite proud of his achievement, until he
compared his witness for Christ with his witness for political office. Carter realised
that in his 1966 campaign for Governor of Georgia he had gone out and met at
least 300,000 people in an attempt to convince them to vote for him. “The
comparison struck me – 300,000 visits for myself in three months, and 140
visits for God in fourteen years!”
Source: reported in Jimmy Carter Why Not the Best?
The Atheist Who Was Finally Convinced by a Christian’s
Life
John Shelby Spong is the controversial
former Episcopalian Bishop of Newark, USA. In his autobiography he tells of his
days as a student at the University of North Carolina.
There he met a man who had a large
influence on his life, David Watt Yates, rector of the university Episcopalian
church, the Chapel of the Cross. Spong describes him as “a unique human being,
and a single man in every sense of the word.
A militant low churchman, a courageous, if
not always inspiring, preacher, and a man of deep convictions, he was a total
abstainer form alcoholic beverages and a dedicated pacifist.” When WW2 ended
churches across the country were filled with people giving thanks.
Reverend Yates led his congregation not in
a service of thanksgiving but in prayers of repentance for having taken
up arms against fellow human beings. Spong comments, “Some people came that
night with gratitude in their hearts and left with enormous hostility. David
Yates, however, was undeterred.”
Yates’ ferocious integrity also led him to
publicly and frequently speak against the evils of racial segregation. This
often upset members of his congregation – at that time many churches in America
preached that racial segregation was the will of God.
Another influential figure in Spong’s
university years was his professor in philosophy, Louis Katsoff. Katsoff was a
committed atheist.
When Spong told him he had taken philosophy
to help prepare him for his goal of becoming a priest Kastoff “conveyed to me
that Christianity was a helpless hangover from another age and that I should
not waste my life”.
Years later Spong, now an ordained priest,
returned to the Chapel of the Cross to speak to a men’s meeting. To his great
surprise he saw Professor Katsoff there – no longer an atheist but a baptised
and committed Christian.
He went to visit Katsoff at the Professor’s
home and during conversation asked how it was he’d been converted. “David Yates
finally got to me” Kastoff replied. Now Spong was even more surprised. “How
could that be?” he asked. “You can think rings around him.”
“David didn’t outthink me” Professor Katsoff replied, “he just outlived me.”
Source: reported in John Shelby Spong, Here I Stand (HarperCollins, 2000), pp49-52.
The Old Christian Who Would Not Deny Christ
In the year 156 an 86 year old man was brought
before a Roman official and asked to renounce his atheism. He was no atheist by
our standards. Rather he was the devout Christian bishop Polycarp. To the
Romans however he was an atheist, for he refused to worship the emperor as a
god along with the other gods of Rome.
Polycarp knew denial would mean a painful
death – either being thrown into the arena with a wild animal or burned alive
on a pyre.
Three times he was questioned, three times
invited to renounce his “atheism”, but no renunciation of Christ would he make.
“Swear and I release; curse Christ” urged the Roman official, to which Polycarp
replied “Eighty-six years have I served him (Christ), and he has done me no
wrong: how then can I blaspheme my King who saved me?”
Polycarp was not spared.
A pyre was built and he was burned alive, but his words echo down through time to us: “Eighty-six years have I served him (Christ), and he has done me no wrong: how then can I blaspheme my King who saved me?”
Source: Based on a text from Lightfoot, Apostolic Fathers cited in A New Eusebius. Documents Illustrating the History of the Church to AD 337.
The Honest Christian Answer to Why God Allows Suffering
Gabrielle Carey is an Australian author
most widely known for the movie Puberty Blues, based upon the book
of the same title. In a later book, In My Father’s House Carey
relates an incident that led to her conversion to Christ. Carey was raised in
an atheist humanist household.
Her father was a university lecturer with a
passionate commitment to the left side of politics. Throughout her upbringing
he railed against oppression, capitalism and was a key figure in the anti-war
movement during the Vietnam years.
Being against religious instruction Carey’s
father wouldn’t allow her to attend Scripture classes at school, but he did
allow her to attend Sunday School with her friends at the local Baptist Church.
He had just one piece of advice: “Just remember to ask the teacher a question.
Ask her why God doesn’t stop the war in Vietnam.”
Gabrielle did so but didn’t get an answer.
The teacher, obviously embarrassed by the question, excused her self to go to
the bathroom, and didn’t return to answer the question.
The experience convinced Carey that her
father was right, that there was no God.
Years later Carey was living in Ireland. A
music program she was listening to on the radio ended, to be followed by an
interview with a Benedictine abbot.
Gabrielle was about to turn the radio off
when the interviewer asked the question her father had always used in debates
with religious leaders. “If there is a God why is there so much injustice in
the world.”
Gabrielle paused to hear the Abbot’s reply,
expecting the same old line about it being God’s will. The Abbot’s reply
stunned her. “I don’t know” he said. “Sometimes being married to God is a bit
like being married to Jack the Ripper. You just don’t know what he’s doing.”
Gabrielle says “It was the best and most
honest answer I’d ever heard to that question.” She began a correspondence with
the Abbot that eventually led her to convert to Catholicism.
The Abbot’s answer is honest. At the end of
the day we don’t know why God allows suffering and evil. Sure, we can develop
philosophically rigorous responses, but in the end they usually seem inadequate
in the face of evil.
Source: Scott Higgins, based on Gabrielle Carey’s In My Father’s House (Pan MacMillan, 1992)
The Girl Who Came to Church Looking for Love
A high school girl wrote the following
letter to a friend:
I attended your church yesterday. Although
you had invited me, you were not there. I looked for you, hoping to sit with
you. I sat alone.
A stranger, I wanted to sit near the back
of the church but those rows were all packed with regular attenders. An usher
took me to the front. I felt as though I was on parade.
During the singing of the hymns I was
surprised to note that some of the church people weren’t singing. Between their
sighs and yawns, they just stared into space. Three of the kids that I had
respected on campus were whispering to one another throughout the whole
service. Another girl was giggling. I really didn’t expect that in your church.
The pastor’s sermon was very interesting,
although some members of the choir didn’t seem to think so. They looked bored
and restless.
One kept smiling at someone in the
congregation. There were several people who left and then came back during the
sermon. I thought, “How rude!” I could hear the constant shuffling of feet and
doors opening and closing.
The pastor spoke about the reality of
faith. The message got to me and I made up my mind to speak to someone about it
after the service.
But utter chaos reigned after the
benediction. I said good morning to one couple, but their response was less
than cordial. I looked for some teens with whom I could discuss the sermon, but
they were all huddled in a corner talking about the newest music group.
My parents don’t go to church. I came alone
yesterday hoping to find a place to truly worship and feel some love. I’m
sorry, but I didn’t find it in your church. I won’t be back.
Source: Author unknown
Why Gandhi Said Christians Were Unlike Christ
Mahatma Gandhi is one of the most respected
leaders of modern history. A Hindu, Ghandi nevertheless admired Jesus and often
quoted from the Sermon on the Mount.
Once when the missionary E. Stanley Jones
met with Ghandi he asked him, “Mr. Ghandi, though you quote the words of Christ
often, why is that you appear to so adamantly reject becoming his follower?”
Ghandi replied, “Oh, I don’t reject your
Christ. I love your Christ. It’s just that so many of you Christians are so
unlike your Christ.”
Apparently Ghandi’s rejection of
Christianity grew out of an incident that happened when he was a young man
practising law in South Africa. He had become attracted to the Christian faith,
had studied the Bible and the teachings of Jesus, and was seriously exploring
becoming a Christian.
And so he decided to attend a church
service. As he came up the steps of the large church where he intended to go, a
white South African elder of the church barred his way at the door. “Where do
you think you’re going, kaffir?” the man asked Ghandi in a belligerent tone of
voice.
Ghandi replied, “I’d like to attend worship
here.”
The church elder snarled at him, “There’s
no room for Kaffirs in this church. Get out of here or I’ll have my assistants
throw you down the steps.”
From that moment, Ghandi said, he decided to adopt what good he found in Christianity, but would never again consider becoming a Christian if it meant being part of the church.
The Aroma
To just come right out and ask somebody what they think you smell like might be offensive to them (or to you-if they give you a candid answer). But most people care deeply about what others think of their particular odor.
Americans spend zillions of dollars every year on perfumes (Obsession-$50 for 4 ounces) and cologne (quality gentlemen’s foo-foo sells for about $10 an ounce, too). But those products just fix you from the neck up.
Deodorants, special soaps, body splashes and powders, breath mints and mouthwashes are also big ticket items for the socially conscious.
If you need a good excuse to buy products that make you smell pleasant, here it is. Now there is a new branch of scientific research called “odor engineering.” So far the researchers have tried odor engineering only in the work place.
According to the publication Communication Briefings, one Japanese firm reports that air scented with lavender cut keypunching errors by 21 percent. Jasmine-scented air dropped errors by 33 percent and lemon in the air was even better-this cut errors by 54 percent.
They determined that lavender reduces stress, jasmine relaxes and lemon stimulates. Odors do make a difference. This gives new significance to a Scripture that has always intrigued me. “For we are to God the aroma of Christ among those who are being saved and those who are perishing.
To the one we are the smell of death; to the other, the fragrance of life” (2Co 2:15-16). The odor engineers have not done any research as to what happens to people (or a community) when a true believer comes around and gives everybody a whiff of Christ.
But Paul says this odor does make a difference. The believer, with the knowledge and life of Christ, emits (in a figurative way) the very smell of Christ’s sweet sacrifice (note Ephesians 5:2).
We cannot buy it in a bottle. It does not ooze out of our pores. It comes out in our attitudes, actions and words. That sweet smell affects everybody around us. So it might not be a bad idea to ask yourself, “What do I really smell like?”
If you know Christ your life smells good. And you will naturally make a difference in all those around you.
Who Changed Tom Brown?
The book Tom Brown’s School Days contains a story about a boy who had the courage to stand up to ridicule. Tom Brown was a student at Rugby Boys School when a new boy enrolled. On his first night in a room with 12 beds and 11 other boys, he knelt to say his evening prayers.
Tom turned his head just in time to see a heavy slipper flying through the air toward the head of the new boy. When the lights went out a little later, Tom Brown thought of his mother, and the prayers she had taught him to say, which he had never done since he came to Rugby. He decided that the next time he went to bed, he, too, would say his prayers.
The next night, the other boys in the room, ready to laugh and scoff at the newcomer who said his prayers, were amazed to see Tom Brown, whom they all respected and feared, kneel down at the side of his bed and pray. That boy’s courageous prayer, in spite of the ridicule, won him the respect of all his companions.
He later became one of the most distinguished men of the Church of England. “Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God” (Phi 4:6).
The Real Proof of God
Keith Robinson, in The Encourager, writes: “When God wanted to authenticate Himself to the ancient world, He called His nation Israel as witness. ‘You are my witnesses,’He said, testimony that ‘I am He. Before Me there was no God formed, and there will be none after Me. I, even I, am the Lord’ (Isa 48:10).
The people of God served as the undeniable proof of God. “God’s people still offer the most basic and best proof of God.
A changed life is still the best testimony of God’s power. Divine love reflected in a Christian heart which accepts, forgives and loves the unlovable is still the best witness of the nature of God. Hope that will not die is still the best proof of eternal life.
Faith which cannot be shaken even in the face of death is still the best demonstration of the immutability of God’s promises. “We who have been granted the imponderable privilege of partaking in the divine nature (2Pe_1:4), are the witnesses, the demonstration, the proof of the divine presence in the world.
Books and lessons and sermons and reason may have their place, but the real test is in the lives of God’s chosen people. If that proof is not clear and constant, everything else is just hearsay.”
Which Am I?
A strong horseshoe magnet may be held over an old rust-eaten, shapeless nail without meeting any response. A bright, ringing nail will leap to the magnet, attract another, and through it draw yet another, until several are attracted.
That is how Christians are. A really genuine, active, shining Christian has a tremendous attraction to Christ, is magnetized by His love and purity, attracted by His power.
And through that Christian, Christ can draw others to Him to share the same power and attraction. But a rusty, unpolished, corroded Christian, cranky, defiled and selfish, has very little attraction, and through him the power of Christ to win the world cannot flow. God has enough power to wipe out every vice and every evil doctrine in this world, but first of all, there must be conductors.
And rusty, untaught, unprepared, and unpracticed church members neither draw others near to God nor are drawn near themselves. Our religion must be intensive before it can be extensive.
Every Christian Is a Missionary
One day, Mr. Wilfred Grenfell, medical missionary to Labrador, was guest at a dinner in London together with a number of socially prominent British men and women.
During the course of the dinner, the lady seated next to him turned and said, “Is it true, Dr. Grenfell, that you are a missionary?” Dr. Grenfell looked at her for a moment before replying, “Is it true, madam, that you are not?”
Example and Teaching What ingredients go into creating the environment of a truly Christian home? Some would say it is teaching our children right from wrong, belief in God, and respect for their fellowman. But can one truly “teach” such fundamental truths as these?
Rather we must live these truths each and every day so that our children are irresistibly drawn to the right and the good life by our continual example.
The Wife’s Example Made the Difference
A young man finally came to Christ and was baptized after years of indifference.
Many talked to him about the Lord, but were not able to sway him. It is not known what finally moved him, but for years his faithful wife went to every service of the church, Sunday morning and evening, Bible Study on Wednesday night. Sometimes he went with her.
Sometimes he was working or out of town, but she went. They had one, then two and finally three children. She went on with her children rain or shine. On one instance, it was raining so hard that one could hardly see. The wind was blowing.
This good Christian mother drove up, got out of her car and carried one baby into the church building and then started back for another one when a man came forward to help her out on that last trip. It was her husband who was baptized, and we all probably know the sermon that converted him.
Let It Shine
Benjamin Franklin wanted to interest the people in Philadelphia in street lighting.
He did not call a town meeting nor try to persuade the people by talking about it. He acted upon what he considered a good idea. He hung a beautiful lantern on a long bracket in front of his house.
He kept the glass polished and carefully trimmed and lit the wick every evening at the approach of dusk. The lamp helped the people see the pavement ahead; made them feel more secure at night. Others began placing lights in front of their houses. Soon Philadelphia recognized the need for street lights. Be the one today to light up your neighborhood with the light of life. Let it shine.
Let your light shine TODAY!
Salt Creates Thirst
At a missionary meeting some young people were discussing the text, “Ye are the salt of the earth.”
One suggestion after another was made as to the meaning of “salt” in this verse. “Salt imparts a desirable flavor,” said one. “Salt preserves from decay,” another suggested. Then at last a Chinese Christian girl spoke out of an experience none of the others had.
“Salt creates thirst,” she said, and there was a sudden hush over the room. Everyone was thinking, “Have I ever made anyone thirsty for the Lord Jesus Christ?”
Does Your Behavior Make Others Behave?
In a cemetery, a little white stone marked the grave of a dear little girl. On the stone were chiseled these words: A child of whom her playmates said, “It was easier to be good when she was with us.” It was one of the most beautiful epitaphs ever heard of.
Godly Influence
Around the turn of the century in rural Tennessee an old man crippled with arthritis was very faithful in his assembling with the saints.
Twice on Sunday and on Wednesday nights a little girl watched from her window as the old man with his cane painfully made his way down to the little church on the corner.
One Sunday morning following a snow storm, the little girl ran to her window and looking out exclaimed, “Surely the old man will not go to church this morning.”
But there he was, right on schedule, plodding very cautiously through the snow. The little girl could not contain herself any longer. She just had to visit the little church to see what possibly could be there that would bring the old man out on such an inclement morning.
The rest is history.
The little girl was impressed by the services there that morning and a short time later became a Christian. After high school she enrolled in a Christian college and while there she met a fine young Christian boy whom she later married. To this union a son was born who was to become one of the finest gospel preachers.
This brother during his ministry has literally led thousands to Christ. The old man went to his reward never realizing just what an impact he had made for the cause of Christ. Because of his godly influence many will go into heaven with him.
There can be no greater joy than to reach heaven and to her someone say, “I am here because you have shown me the way.”
“Thou Shalt Not Steal”
A young man, employed by a Sunday school board, was invited at the last minute to preach at a church in Nashville.
On a sudden impulse he used as his text, “Thou shalt not steal.” The next morning he stepped on the bus and handed the driver a dollar bill. The driver handed him back his change. He stood in the rear of the bus and counted the change. There was a dime too much. His first thought was, “The bus company will never miss this dime.”
Then quickly came the realization that he could not keep money that did not belong to him.
He made his way to the front and said to the driver, “You gave me too much change.” Imagine his surprise when the driver replied, “Yes, a dime too much. I gave it to you on purpose. You see, I heard your sermon yesterday, and I watched in my mirror as you counted your change. Had you kept the dime, I would never again have had any confidence in preaching.”
The Power of a Smile
One day as a woman was crossing a street at
London station, an old man stopped her and said, “Excuse me, Ma’am, but I want
to thank you.” “Thank me?” she exclaimed. “Yes’m. I used to be a ticket
collector, and whenever you went by, you always gave me a cheerful smile and a
good morning. I knew that smile must have come from inside somewhere. Then one
morning I saw a little Bible in your hand. So I bought one too, and I found
Jesus.”
Let There Be Light
A young girl once consulted with her minister. “I cannot stick it out any longer. I am the only Christian in the factory where I work. I get nothing but taunts and sneers. It is more than I can stand. I am going to resign.”
“Will you tell me,” asked the minister, “where lights are placed?” “What has that to do with it?” the young Christian asked him rather bluntly.
“Never mind,” the minister replied. “Answer my question: ‘Where are lights placed?’” “I suppose in dark places,” she replied. “Yes, and that is why you have been put in that factory where there is such spiritual darkness and where there is no other Christian to shine for the Lord.”
The young Christian realized for the first time the opportunity that was hers. She felt she could not fail God by allowing her light to go out.
She went back to the factory with renewed determination to let her light shine in that dark corner. Before long, she was the means of leading nine other girls to the Light.
The Chameleon
Some of you have seen a lizard called the chameleon. Certain chameleons can quickly change color, and even develop spots and streaks that seem to be part of their background.
They can turn green, gray or brown if they are standing on a green, gray or brown background. Those of us who love the Lord Jesus should “show our colors”-let others know you belong to the Lord. Do not be like the chameleon who changes color with his surroundings.
If you have to be with unsaved girls and boys at school and in other places, do not act as they do and do naughty things. Let others know you are different because you have a new life!
The Christian’s Gauge
If you visit any large foundry where the boilers are kept going at full force, you would never be able to look into a boiler to tell how much water there is in it, but you would be able to tell how much water the boiler contains by an instrument which is attached to the side of the boiler.
Alongside is a small glass tube which has some fluid in it. If this glass tube is half full of liquid, then there is an indication that the boiler is half full of water; if the glass gauge indicated that there is no water in the glass, then we can depend that there is no water in the boiler.
The little glass gauge is the indicator for the large boiler. How can people tell whether we love God, our fellowman, or even ourselves? They can never look within our hearts and get the answer; it is only by our outward actions, the works that we do as Christians that people are able to tell how much or how little our religion amounts to.
Our love for God is indicated by the works of love in which we engage. There are people who are constantly looking at the Christian’s gauge.
A Youth’s One-Time Visit
“I refused a date to the movies, choosing rather to go to the Wednesday night prayer meeting. “When I arrived, I looked for several people who were important to me. “I looked for my Sunday school teacher-but he was not there.
I looked for the familiar faces of a couple of deacons whom I knew-but they were not there.
I looked for several of the members who seemed to be spiritually real and who had greeted me warmly at the Sunday morning services-but they were not there. “Perhaps, these Christian friends do not think the Wednesday night services are so very important.
I guess next Wednesday night I will go to the movies.” Was this young man from your church?
The Way Your Child Should Go
Abraham Lincoln’s comment, made when talking to a father who was chagrined and embarrassed because his 17-year-old son had begun to indulge in liquor, is most convincing: “Well, there is just one way to bring up a child in the way he should go, and that is to travel the way yourself.”
A Christian’s Reputation
The story is told of Gordon Maxwell, missionary to India, that when he asked a Hindu scholar to teach him the language, the Hindu replied: “No, Sahib, I will not teach you my language. You would make me a Christian.” Gordon Maxwell replied, “You misunderstand me. I am simply asking you to teach me your language.”
Again the Hindu responded, “No, Sahib, I will not teach you. No man can live with you and not become a Christian.” Gordon Maxwell’s reputation as a Christian preceded him. His very lifestyle attracted people to Christ.
And so it was with the Apostle Paul and his two missionary companions, Silas and Timothy. Saint Francis of Assisi captured their philosophy of evangelism when he said, “It is no use walking anywhere to preach unless we preach as we walk!”
A Drunkard Speaks to a Drinking Christian
A young lady went to a rescue mission to help out with the inquirers who would respond to the Gospel. As she approached one derelict in order to help him make a decision for Christ, he said to her, “Do you play cards, or dance, or go to the theater, or drink socially?”
“No, not now,” she replied. “Well, then you may talk to me; but I will not listen to one word from you fine Christian folks who are doing on a small scale the very things that brought me a poor wretch to where I am.” This young Christian woman later confessed that she had greater joy in leading that young man to Christ than the exercise of all the pleasures that many Christians hold on to simply because they have not yet been ruined by them.
Little Things Mean a Lot
Dr. W. H. Lax was a Methodist minister in the East End of London for 38 years. He learned that an old man was gravely ill, and Dr. Lax called on him.
However, he was an unwelcome visitor, for as soon as the sick man caught sight of Lax’s clerical collar, he turned his head and refused to utter a word. While trying to sustain a conversation, Dr. Lax noted the dreariness of the room and the pitifully small fire; he suspected that provisions had run low.
When he left the patient, Dr. Lax stopped at a butcher shop and had two lamb chops sent to the house.
He called again a few days later, and though the old man was still far from talkative, he was a little more friendly. On the way home another order was left with the butcher. By the third visit, there was a pronounced change in the patient.
He was congenial and even outgoing, and before leaving, Dr. Lax was even able to pray with the man. A preaching engagement took Dr. Lax out of London for a few days, and when he got back he was informed that the old gentleman had died.
At the end when he was hardly able to speak, the patient had gasped, “Tell Dr. Lax it is all right now. I am going to God; but be sure to tell him that it was not his preaching that changed me. It was those lamb chops.”
Who Wants to Be a Square?
In Mark Twain’s day, “square” was one of the best words in the language.
You gave a man a square deal if you were honest. You gave him a square meal when he was hungry. When you got out of debt, you were square with the world. And that was when you could look your fellow man square in the eye.
Then a lot of characters ran down the word. Result: A square today is a man who never learned to get away with it; a Joe who volunteers when he does not have to; a guy who gets his kick from trying to do something better than anyone else can; a boob who gets lost in his work.
This country was discovered, put together, fought for and saved by “squares”-Nathan Hale, Patrick Henry, Paul Revere, George Washington, Benjamin Franklin. We need to get back to this nation’s old beliefs in such things as ideas, pride, patriotism, loyalty, devotion-even hard work.
The Gift He Never Received
Billy Graham relates the story of a wealthy father who provided well for his only son. One day, the boy came to his father and said he was dropping out of school and leaving home. Asked why, the son said, “Well, Dad, the truth of it is, I hate you.”
The father was stunned and demanded, “Why, son, why? I have given you everything, have I not?” “Well, that is just it. You have not. You may have thought you bought me everything, but you have not given me anything to believe in.”
I Saw God Today
I saw God today As a tearful child found comfort in your arms. I saw God today As an old man’s face was lit with hope by the grasp of your hand. I saw God today As a smile etched the lips of the stranger you greeted on the street. I saw God today As you stopped in the midst of a busy schedule to listen to a burdened soul.
I saw God today As I spent the day with you, my friend, and Though the hours have flown and night draws near, Today will linger on, with memories so dear, For as we shared each hour’s array, I met God through you today.
If Christ Has Really Done Something for Us, We Should Tell
Others
A little fellow in the hospital had had a piece of deformed bone removed from his arm. He got well, but before he left the place he sent for the doctor. “You wish to see me, Willie?” asked the doctor. The little fellow reached up his hand and laid it on the doctor’s shoulder and said, “My mama will never hear the last about you.” I think that if we fully realized what Christ has done for us, we would say to Him, “My friends will never hear the last about You.”
How One Life Affects Others
The unfilled spiritual tank is an invitation to disaster, and many of us have known that awful moment when, like a car out of gas, we seem to cough and sputter and pull over to the shoulder, out of service, not able to go any farther.
We have all seen the car out of gas in a long tunnel or on a narrow bridge at rush hour. Thousands of people are potentially affected by the clogged-up mess that follows. And it can happen in spiritual life also. One empty spiritual tank can affect a score of other people. It has happened more than once.
Reputation
What kind of reputation do you have? When people speak of you, are they saying kind things? Jesus honored that unselfish woman who anointed him with perfume by including mention of her good deed in the gospels. She was well thought of by her Lord.
She had a good reputation. How others perceive us is usually established by our consistent behavior. We need to live such honorable lives that even when someone speaks ill of us, others will not believe it of us. We also need to conduct our lives in such a manner that it will be easy for others to say kind words to us. There are people who make life difficult for others.
One such a person lives such a life that it will be hard for the speaker at his funeral to find something about his life worthy of mentioning. Sad. Even Christians can live such distraught lives that they are looked on as trouble makers, boat rockers and negative knells.
Though we study our Bibles, worship our God, and pray fervently, just how do neighbors and friends consider us? Are we known for being faithfully involved and supportive of the church’s work, or do we have the reputation of being hard to please and a terror to live with?
If someone were asked to deliver a eulogy for you, what could easily be told “in your memory”? “He (or she) was a warm, gracious, faithful, zealous, dedicated, caring, thoughtful Christian,” or “He (or she) was anxious, unhappy, critical, selfish, uninvolved, bitter, unloving, opinionated and socially obnoxious”?
One cannot build a noble reputation on what he intends to do some day. One’s reputation is affirmed and established daily.