Close to 100 years ago the great American evangelist, D. L. Moody, was preaching in Lanarkshire, Scotland. A Scottish gentleman from The Brethren Church came to him and said, "I'm coming to America
and I would like to visit you there." Politely, Mr. Moody responded,
"Certainly, I would love to see you there." However, he really thought
that he would never hear from the gentleman again.
Nearly
2000 years ago, Paul, one of the giants of the Christian faith and
author of several books of the New Testament, said, "I am not ashamed
of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of
everyone who believes..." (Rom. 1:16). This one time persecutor of Christians had become one the most
vocal and influential voices of Christianity. His conversion was
unexplainable, except in terms of the supernatural. But his courage was
even more amazing. How could the greatest hater of Christianity become
the foremost proponent of the Christian faith?
Several years ago a little lady who had been a missionary for many years was visiting a pastor in a city in the United States
that had many street gangs. It was a dangerous place to live and
minister. Consequently, the pastor was taking a karate course to learn
how to defend himself. When the little missionary lady discovered what
the pastor was doing, she was shocked.
A friend of mine once asked a Christian leader from Romania
why the church in the Western world had lost its power with God and
with man. The Romanian Christian leader answered with what I believe is
one of the great root problems within the church. He firmly stated,
"The church has substituted commitment for surrender." He was right.
There are many hard working and committed Christians in the church
today, but few surrendered ones.
