Gandhi and the Christians

"Almost you persuade me to be a Christian." (Acts 26:28)

When Mahatma Gandhi was attending university in London, he became almost convinced of the validity of Christianity, seeing it as possibly the one true supernatural religion.

After graduation, he continued to seek evidence that would persuade him to become a committed Christian. When he accepted employment in East Africa, and lived with a family who were members of an evangelical Christian church, he believed this would be his greatest source of evidence for the Christian faith.

Gandhi lived with this family for seven months, but after seeing their causal attitude towards God, hearing them complain about making sacrifices for Christ, and becoming acutely aware of their religious apathy, he became disillusioned.

"No," he concluded, "Christianity is not the one true, supernatural religion I had hoped to find. A good religion, but just one more of the many religions in the world."

While the circumstances were vastly different between King Agrippa who heard Paul's testimony and rejected it, Gandhi, too, was almost persuaded to become a Christian, but didn’t become one because of a Christian's very poor testimony.

Dick Innes

A Polish Pastor, A Jewish Doctor and A Gestapo Officer

Gestapo Officer

From the pages of The Wall Street Journal comes the story of a Polish man named William E. Wallner who became a Lutheran minister in Prague. 

Author John Murray writes: "By 1939, Wallner was leading a Lutheran parish in Prague. Shortly after Hitler's invasion of Czechoslovakia, a doctor in Wallner's parish was sent to a Nazi concentration camp...The doctor, a Jewish convert to Christianity, encouraged his fellow prisoners 'to die bravely, with faith in their hearts.' As a result, the doctor became a target of Gestapo officers.

"Although struck with an iron rod until one of his arms had to be amputated, the doctor would not be quieted. Finally... 'one Gestapo officer beat the doctor's head against a stone wall until blood was streaming down his face.' Holding a mirror before the doctor, the Gestapo officer sneered: 'Take a look at yourself. Now you look like your Jewish Christ.'

"Lifting his remaining hand up, the doctor exclaimed, 'Lord [Jesus], never in my life have I received such honor—to resemble You.' Those would be his last words on Earth.

"Distraught by the doctor's proclamation, the Gestapo officer sought out Wallner that night. 'Could Pastor Wallner help him, free him from the terrible burden of his guilt?'

"After praying with him, Wallner advised, 'Perhaps God let you kill that good man to bring you to the foot of the Cross, where you can help others.' The Gestapo officer returned to the concentration camp. And through the aid of Wallner and the Czech underground, he worked to free many Jews over the years that followed." In fact, he helped save more than 350 Jewish children from death at Nazi hands."

The power of the risen Christ can transform lives -- a Polish minister, a Jewish doctor, a Gestapo officer. He can even change you and me.

Fixing Bicycles

I love stories. One of my favorites is about a little girl who was late coming home for supper. Her mother made the expected irate parent's demand to know where she had been.

The little girl replied that she had stopped to help Janie, whose bicycle was broken in a fall.

"But you don't know anything about fixing bicycles," her mother responded.

"I know that," the girl said. "I just stopped to help her cry."

Not many of us know anything about fixing bicycles, either. And when our friends have fallen and broken, not their bicycles but their lives, NONE of us knows how to fix that. We simply cannot "fix" someone else's life, even though that's what we would like most to do.

But like the little girl, we can stop to help them cry. That is the best we can do. And that is a lot!
- Murray Lancaster

Mirror Image

Ben Kinsley as Gandhi

"Instead, we will hold to the truth in love, becoming more and more in every way like Christ, who is the head of his body, the church."1

Dr. William Barker tells about the actor, Ben Kingsley who "starred as the main character in the motion picture GANDHI. He spent months preparing for the role, visiting the various Indian locales Gandhi had frequented. He even learned to spin cotton thread on a wooden wheel while holding conversations as Gandhi did. The physical resemblance between Gandhi and Kingsley was almost startling. After filming a scene in a village south of Delhi, Kingsley stepped out of a car, and an elderly peasant knelt to touch his feet. Embarrassed, Kingsley explained that he was merely an actor playing Gandhi. 'We know,' replied the villager, 'but through you he will surely live again.'"2

As Christians, if we truly follow and serve the Lord, we will become more and more in every way like Christ. May God help us to so live that others will see the likeness of Jesus in us—as this is by far the most powerful and effective witness of our Christian faith that any one of us could ever have.

1. Ephesians 4:15 (NLT).
2. Dr. William P. Barker, Tarbell's Teacher's Manual, (Elgin, Illinois: David C. Cook Church Ministries, 1994). Quoted in a sermon by Rev. Billy D. Strayhorn, "One in Christ" http://www.epulpit.net/billy112.htm
3. Thomas O. Chisholm.

<:))))><
By Dick Innes

Can An Egg Learn How To Fly?

Can An Egg Learn How To Fly?

It may be hard for an egg to turn into a bird: it would be a jolly sight harder for a bird to learn to fly while remaining an egg. 

We are like eggs at present. And you cannot go on indefinitely being just an ordinary, decent egg. 

We must be hatched or go bad.

C.S. Lewis 

Mere Christianity

Do People Mistaken You To Be Jesus?

A few years ago a group of salesmen went to a regional sales convention in Chicago. They had assured their wives that they would be home in plenty of time for Friday night's dinner. In their rush, with tickets and briefcases, one of these salesmen inadvertently kicked over a table that held a display of apples. Apples flew everywhere. Without stopping or looking back, they all managed to reach the plane in time for their nearly missed boarding.

All but one. He paused, took a deep breath, got in touch with his feelings, and experienced a twinge of compassion for the girl whose apple stand had been overturned. He told his buddies to go on without him, waved goodbye, told one of them to call his wife when they arrived at their home destination and explain his taking a later flight. Then he returned to the terminal where the apples were all over the terminal floor. He was glad he did.

The 16-year-old girl was totally blind! She was softly crying, tears running down her cheeks in frustration, and at the same time helplessly groping for her spilled produce as the crowd swirled about her, no one stopping and no one to care for her plight.

The salesman knelt on the floor with her, gathered up the applies, put them back on the table and helped organize her display. As he did this, he noticed that many of them had become battered and bruised; these he set aside in another basket. When he had finished, he pulled out his wallet and said to the girl, "Here, please take this $40 for the damage we did. Are you okay?" She nodded through her tears.

He continued on with, "I hope we didn't spoil your day too badly."

As the salesman started to walk away, the bewildered blind girl called out to him, "Mister..." He paused and turned to look back into those blind eyes. She continued, "Are you Jesus?" He stopped in mid-stride, and he wondered. Then slowly he made his way to catch the later flight with that question burning and bouncing about in his soul: "Are you Jesus?"

Do people mistake you for Jesus? Isn't that what a Christian's goal should be? To be so much like Jesus that people cannot tell the difference as we live and interact with a world (shopping, working, reacting to others that are serving us) that is blind to His love, life and grace. If we claim to know Him, we should live, walk and act as He would. Knowing Him is more than simply quoting Scripture and going to church. It's actually living the Word as life unfolds day to day.

You are the apple of His eye even though we, too, have been bruised by a fall. He stopped what He was doing and picked you and me up on a hill called Calvary and paid in full for our damaged fruit. Let us live like we are worth the price He paid.