Category: Quote of the Day

In my early Christian experience I set out to read the Bible, taking the promises at face value, believing the Scriptures as I found them without benefit of footnotes or commentaries. I began with Genesis and was claiming everything for myself when I was informed that those promises were for the Jews! My ardor was dampened but I did not want to lay hold of anything that did not belong to me, so I moved into the New Testament and began to appropriate the blessings of the Sermon on the Mount when again I was interrupted and duly notified that all those things belonged to the Kingdom Age. Not wanting to trespass on the Kingdom Age, whatever that was, I started over in the Acts and was daring to claim some if not all the fruits of Pentecost when I was again reminded that the Acts covered a transitional period and that we were not to press those matters too literally! By then, I did not know which promises were mine nor could I stand with confidence on any passage of Scripture lest some divider of the Word might come along like a policeman to order me off private property. In desperation I said, “Lord, I’ve heard of a man without a country, and I’m becoming a Christian without a Bible. Give me a verse I can claim for my own.” He answered with one I have stood upon ever since: “. . .let God be true, but every man a liar .” (Romans 3:4)!

The first discovery a Christian needs to make is that he cannot of himself live the Christian life. “Christ liveth in me…” (Galatians 2:20). It has been said that living the Christian life is not so much our responsibility but our response to His ability. Paul did not say, “To me to live is Christ first.” It was Christ – period! Christ was first, last, and everything between. Christ is not a way to live, He is our life!