1 JOHN 3:16-18 – By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers. But if anyone has the world’s goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God’s love abide in him? Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth.

THEME OF THE DAY. IS IT REAL? Francis A. Schaeffer (1912-1984) is long remembered as one of the intellectual and spiritual giants of our generation. His books, all of them, are “must reads” as he was a “voice in the wilderness” having keen discernment and applying Biblical truth in a time of moral breakdown in our world. Few individuals had and have the pulse of our godless society and its only cure like Dr. Schaeffer. Yet, this stalwart of the faith went through a significant spiritual crisis. We read of it from his book True Spirituality.

In a brutally transparent conversation with his wife, he said, “Edith, I feel really torn to pieces by the lack of reality, the lack of seeing the results the Bible talks about, which should be seen in the Lord’s people. I’m not talking only about people I’m working with, but I’m not satisfied with myself. It seems that the only honest thing to do is to rethink, reexamine the whole matter of Christianity.”

What prompted his anguish and self-examination over this lack of Biblical reality in his life and observed in others was written of in the introduction to True Spirituality by Jerram Barrs. He was not only Edith Schaeffer’s cook and gardener in the fall of 1967, but was radically transformed by Francis’ ministry at L’Abri in Switzerland. Barrs wrote . . .

By 1951 Schaeffer felt he had seen so much that was harsh and ugly within the separated movement (the church) that he was not sure he could in honesty be a Christian any longer. He saw so much that was negative, so much that defined Christian orthodoxy primarily in terms of what it was against. He saw so much infighting within the circles of which he was a part, in his own denomination and across large segments of the evangelical community. He saw men struggling for power and using unscrupulous methods to gain or to maintain control and positions of influence. He wondered what they were for and what affirmations there were to set alongside the negations. Where was the passion for evangelism that fills the pages of the New Testament? Where was the devotional literature expressing love for the Lord? Where were the hymns that would demonstrate that the imagination and the heart were being touched by God’s truth along with the mind? Where was the love for fellow believers and for one’s unbelieving neighbors that would show to the world that the Father sent the Son for our salvation? Where was the spiritual reality that fills the page of the book of Acts and of the New Testament?

Friends, the greatest impact we will have in our families, communities, and churches is a personal revival of Biblical Christianity. Not in mere profession but practice. And to get there, each of us should spend time in our Bibles, evaluating our lives, and asking the questions Schaeffer asked of himself – “Is this real to me? Am I experiencing and living what the Bible says should be evident in Christians?”

For the sake of our children, grandchildren, and hopeless world, why don’t we do this examination together? Seek the face of God and ask, “Lord, is my Christianity real as defined by the Bible or is it false defined by what I think being a Christian is?” And maybe, if we are honest and sincere, the Lord might send real revival!

PRAYER: “Father, I praise You for Your Word – living in Your Son and written in Your book – making Yourself knowable.”

QUOTE: “The greatest impact we will have in our families, communities, and churches is to live Biblical Christianity.”