George Whitefield

George Whitefield

Lady Huntingdon, a member of the aristocracy in eighteenth-century England, was a zealous Evangelical Christian who heartily supported the ministry of George Whitefield.  She regularly had him speak to aristocratic audiences in the drawing room of her estate mansion.

Two women of the nobility, after hearing Whitefield preach in a certain chapel, reported to Lady Huntingdon that he had declared the love of Christ was so strong “He would accept even the Devil’s castaways.”  The ladies questioned the wisdom of such a statement, so Lady Huntingdon brought them to Whitefield and asked about the matter.

Selina Hastings, Countess of Huntingdon

Selina Hastings, Countess of Huntingdon

Whitefield affirmed having made that remark.  He then told them that after that particular message an elderly woman had called on him.  She had been passing the door of the chapel just as he declared, “Christ would receive even the devil’s castaways.”

“Such am I,” she confessed to the evangelist.  “Do you think He will receive me?”

“He most certainly will,” Whitefield responded, “if you are but willing to go to Him.”

Their conversation ended in the woman’s thorough conversion.  Lady Huntingdon afterward learned that this poor woman’s subsequent life was remarkable for its purity.  At the time of her death she clearly testified that Christ had indeed washed away her crimson stains.

Young Ruth Bell Graham

Young Ruth Bell Graham

When Ruth Bell Graham was growing up as a missionary kid in China, one of the native servants who worked for their family was her amah Wang Nai Nai.  She lived in a small room in the Bells’ house.  Barely five feet tall and weighing less than a hundred pounds, cheerful wrinkles radiated from her small dark eyes.  She faithfully served the family, and her Christian life had a strong impact on the Bell children.

Only after the children were grown were they told the evil life Wang Nai Nai had led before becoming a Christian.  She and her husband were engaged in procuring “little flowers,” young girls to be used in prostitution in Shanghai.

Chinese nanny

Chinese nanny

After her conversion Wang Nai Nai taught herself how to read the Bible, and she loved the hymn “There Is a Fountain Filled with Blood.”  After Ruth learned of her past, she understood the nanny’s deep appreciation for the hymn’s final verse:

The dying thief rejoiced to see

That Fountain in his day.

And there may I, though vile as he,

Wash all my sins away.

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No matter how serious our sins, they can be forgiven through personal faith in Christ and His substitutionary death on the cross to receive the judgment that our transgressions deserve. Having experienced this forgiveness ourselves, we should readily help others to discover the solution for their guilt through a saving relationship with Jesus.

My book Timeless Stories, God’s Incredible Work in the Lives of Inspiring Christians contains a whole chapter of incidents, including the two related above, on the theme of “Forgiveness.” The examples in that chapter illustrate how we can receive personal forgiveness from God and, in turn, forgive others their offenses against us with the Lord’s help.

Copyright 2014 by Vance E. Christie

Books and CoffeeJust days after having tea with the royal family in Buckingham Palace in June of 1961, Ruth Graham was in Belfast, Ireland, for her husband Billy’s evangelistic crusade at Saint Andrew’s Hall. While there Ruth visited a former missionary to China whom she remembered from her own childhood on the mission field. The woman lived in a small apartment in a nearby rest home.

A quilt made of Chinese silk scraps covered her bed. Favorite well-worn volumes lined her bookshelves, and yellowed photographs of her family were neatly pasted on the walls. The packing crates that had carried her belongings back from China now served as furniture. On her desk – a card table – were carefully stacked boxes which would soon be shipped to missionaries in Africa to distribute to needy children. She was packing the boxes with empty plastic bottles, note pads made from greeting cards and paper, cans and trinkets.

“You certainly manage to keep busy and get a lot done!’ Ruth remarked.

The old missionary straightened proudly, looked Ruth directly in the eye and declared, “I don’t belong to meself.”

Ruth and Billy GrahamThat night Ruth wrote in her diary: “I couldn’t help remembering another room just five days before. It also had family pictures all around the wall, books, and a desk. And boxes piled on boxes. Red dispatch boxes. They were a world apart. But for all the royal elegance of one and simple poverty of the other, there was a similarity. And I couldn’t help but feel I had had tea with royalty twice in one week.”

The retired missionary’s statement, “I don’t belong to meself,” reminds me (Vance) of truths from the Apostle Paul’s letters to the Corinthians: “You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body” (1 Cor. 6:19b-20); “For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. And He died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for Him who died for them and was raised again” (2 Cor. 5:14-15).

We Christians do not belong to ourselves and we are not to live for ourselves. Rather, we belong to Christ who gave His very life to redeem us from our sin and the eternal judgment it deserves. It’s our great privilege and honor to expend our lives in loving obedience and service to Him.

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My book Timeless Stories: God’s Incredible Work in the Lives of Inspiring Christians contains a whole chapter of instructive true stories (including this one) on various aspects of Christian service. I think you’ll find encouragement and guidance in your own service for the Lord if you’re able to read it.

Copyright 2014 by Vance E. Christie