Today I want to read you a few words of W.E.Sangster when he was speaking about C.T.Studd, that astonishing Missionary.
Before he had his encounter with Christ, he was thinking of being a lawyer but within a month of that he gave up his plans for a legal career and offered himself for missionary work in China. He lingered long enough in England just to address a series of meetings and tell people why he was going, and then, he went directly to the heart of China to share with others the great secret he’d found.
Two years after he arrived in China he reached his 25th birthday and inherited £29,000 from his father. Within a week or two he’d given it away, although not sure that everyone should do the same, but he felt he must. He feared that money might make a home in his heart.
What a pacemaker! What an ‘out and outer’! He was a veteran in five years; few people could stay the pace he set.
Contrast that way of life with thousands of people who claim to be in this ‘Christian way of life’ and who are, in some way, but then after thirty years of discipleship are still peevish, petty, mean, gossipy and selfish and fall into the same sins which so easily trapped them before they’d any personal encounter with Christ at all.
Now honestly, doesn’t that say something to you? We are all in this Christian race together and we ought to try and keep a little bit nearer to the pacemakers who are walking so near to Christ.
For today, read Hebrews, chapter 12, verses 1 and 2.