Whether it is the biblical record of divine revelations, or the stories of lives transformed by these biblical records, I want to state emphatically that my life has been changed by a combination of these two different levels of the printed page.
Let me refer to the example of the life of E. Stanley Jones, who was born in Baltimore on Jan. 3, 1884.
At one point in the early part of his Christian life, he was elected to the highest office of the Methodist Episcopal Church in the United States of America.
On the night after his election prior to assuming that position, he came to believe that God was calling him to decline that position and give himself to a worldwide mission.
If reconciliation is God's chief business, then it is ours - to bring about reconciliation, between man and God, between man and himself, and between man and man. This reconciliation brings a fulfillment of the words of Jesus in Matthew 22:36-40, so that man loves God with all his heart, soul and mind, as well as loving his neighbor as he loves himself.
As a result of Jones's call to work toward reconciliation among people of different nations, his work became interdenominational and worldwide.
Very early in his life and ministry, he wrote a report of these years of service and published it in a book titled The Christ of the Indian Road and it sold over a million copies.
Later in his life, he added 31 more books to his credit.
Late in the 1960s, it was my privilege to personally meet with Jones.
I now have copies of half of the books that he wrote.
In one of his books, Abundant Living, he makes this statement: "If we haven't that within us which is above us, we will soon yield to that which is around us."
To understand this more fully, I pose three questions:
1. Who is above us? God.
2. What is around us? Sin.
3. How can we acquire within us, that which is above us? In Revelation 3:20, Jesus said, "Behold I stand at the door, and knock; if anyone hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in..." That is how we can have within us, that which is above us. John 1:10-12 states, "Jesus was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not. But as many as received him, to them he gave power to become children of God, even to them that believe on his name."
Do you have within yourself that which is above you?
