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| With All My Heart continued on page 75 |
EVERYDAY RELIGION
By The Rev. DAVID SHEPPARD
This is never more true than when the outsider tries to explain what makes the Christian 'tick': The difficulty is that the non- Christian has never tasted some of the vital ingredients of Christian living. Something altogether new and different, something miraculous, happens when a man truly opens his life to Christ:
NOWADAYS we like to analyse everything we are not humble enough to realize that we cannot describe everything that God does in human terms. We love to explain away the miraculous, rather as 'The Psychologist' does in Studdert-Kennedy's poem.
"I want to follow Christ. It's wonderful that I could be forgiven. But it wouldn't be any good: I should be just the same person and I should let Him down."
In the early centuries of the Church's life men who thought this would not be baptized until they were on their death-beds. They did not realize that Jesus would forgive again and again, even when they did let Him down.
The point is that if a man truly receives Christ and becomes His follower he is born again. A new life begins: one wants new things, one is able to do new things.
Throw a stone into the air. It comes down again, for it is dead. Throw a newly-born bird into the air: it flutters and struggles, comes down. But little by little it learns to fly, because it is alive.
By The Rev. DAVID SHEPPARD
What makes a new-born bird fly?AFTER I have been playing in a cricket match, I often find it interesting (and sometimes annoying) to read what the papers say about why we did this or how that happened. If you have ever been involved in something which has been reported in the papers you will know what I mean: it is hard for an outsider to understand.
This is never more true than when the outsider tries to explain what makes the Christian 'tick': The difficulty is that the non- Christian has never tasted some of the vital ingredients of Christian living. Something altogether new and different, something miraculous, happens when a man truly opens his life to Christ:
NOWADAYS we like to analyse everything we are not humble enough to realize that we cannot describe everything that God does in human terms. We love to explain away the miraculous, rather as 'The Psychologist' does in Studdert-Kennedy's poem.
He takes the saints to piecesTHIS is all important for the man on the brink of entering the Christian life. He says:
And labels all the parts,
He tabulates the secrets
Of loyal loving hearts . . .
His reasoning is perfect,
His proofs as plain as paint,
He has but one small weakness:
He cannot make a saint. *
"I want to follow Christ. It's wonderful that I could be forgiven. But it wouldn't be any good: I should be just the same person and I should let Him down."
In the early centuries of the Church's life men who thought this would not be baptized until they were on their death-beds. They did not realize that Jesus would forgive again and again, even when they did let Him down.
The point is that if a man truly receives Christ and becomes His follower he is born again. A new life begins: one wants new things, one is able to do new things.
Throw a stone into the air. It comes down again, for it is dead. Throw a newly-born bird into the air: it flutters and struggles, comes down. But little by little it learns to fly, because it is alive.
*From The Unutterable Beauty. by G. A. Studdert-Kennedy, published by Hodder and Stoughton.Next week: Another article by the Rev. David Sheppard.
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