X Marks His Spot
Theme of the Week: Selling Out
Ray Stedman
Tuesday, May 28, 2002
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X Marks His Spot
Theme of the Week: Selling Out
Tuesday, May 28
Key Bible Verse: "Look how far you have fallen from your first love! Turn back to me again … " (Revelation 2:5). Bonus Reading:Philippians 3:7–11
I will never forget an illustration Robert Boyd Munger, then pastor of the University Presbyterian Church of Seattle, used during a pastors' conference at the Mt. Hermon conference center near Santa Cruz, California.
Dr. Munger drew a great circle on the blackboard, put a big X in the middle, then turned to us and said, "As I look back on my pastoral ministry there were many years when Christ was here, like this X, at the center of my endeavors. The Lord Jesus was real and vital to me. But in these past few years, I feel I've drifted."
He turned and drew another X on the edge of the circle. "I've drifted," he said, "so that the Lord is no longer at the center but at the periphery. I want you all to know that I'm praying God will enable me to put Jesus back here," he tapped the center of the circle, "where He belongs. I ask you to pray to that end for me."
It was a moving and challenging experience to hear this man of God open his heart to us, and ask us to pray for him. He was doing what the Lord calls each and every one of us to do: repent and return to where Christ is the center of our lives.
—Ray Stedman in God's Final Word
My Response: I'll draw a circle and honestly place the "X" where it now belongs.
Thought to Apply: Let Him make our lives narrow; let Him make them intense; let Him make them absolutely His!
—Oswald Chambers (British teacher, chaplain, 20th century)
Adapted from: God's Final Word (Discover, 1991).
Copyright © 2002 by the author or Christianity Today International/Men of Integrity magazine.
Click here for reprint information on Men of Integrity.
May/June 2002,Vol. 5,No. 3
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