February 19 Daily Devotional

"I will believe in your Redeemer when I see the redeemed" (Nietzsche)

A one-time Law Minister in the Indian Government was a great man called Dr Ambedkar, an out-caste himself and a leader of the out-castes in India. At the time of which I am speaking, he was taking a great interest in the teachings of Buddhism and attended a great Conference of twenty-seven countries in Ceylon which had met together to inaugurate a world fellowship of Buddhists…. He said at the Conference, "I am here to find out to what extent there is dynamic in the Buddhist religion so far as the people of this country are concerned."

There was the leader of the out-castes turning to Buddhism and examining it. He said, "...Has it something to give to these masses of my fellow out-castes?" ... But the real tragedy about this able, learned man is that he had already spent much time in America and Great Britain studying Christianity. And it was because he had found it was not a live thing, because he had found an absence of dynamic in it, that he was now turning to Buddhism….

That is the challenge that comes to you and to me. We know Buddhism is not the answer. We claim to believe that the Son of God has come into the world and has sent His own Holy Spirit into us, His own absolute power that will reside in men and make them live a quality of life like His own....

If only all of us were living the Sermon on the Mount, men would know that there is dynamic in the Christian gospel; they would know that this is a live thing; they would not go looking for anything else. They would say, "Here it is." ... It has always been when men and women have taken this Sermon seriously, and faced themselves in the light of it, that true revival has come. And when the world sees the truly Christian man, it not only feels condemned, it is drawn, it is attracted.

Studies in the Sermon on the Mount, i, pp. 19-20

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“Text reproduced from ‘A First Book of Daily Readings’ by Martyn Lloyd-Jones, published by Epworth Press 1970 & 1977 © Trustees for Methodist Church Purposes. Used with permission.”

Comments on D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, A First Book of Daily Readings

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