grace by any trusting heart. If you claim to be a Christian, then be a real one! I don’t mean just a religious person. There are too many who go to church on Sunday and then Monday start cursing and swearing, and doing a lot of other things that a born-again believer would never do. I remember one Sunday when we had communion service. (I was also in the tent business.) A man came up to the Lord’s table, taking communion with some others. I knew this man was a rascal. He just pretended to be something on this occasion; the rest of the time he lived for the devil. This was just a big pretense. When he saw me, he turned deep red. He real ized that I knew the truth about him. He changed his direction right then. But there' are a lot of people who live a lie. It is too bad that they don’t realize that they are only fooling themselves. They will be the losers. What Paul meant was that he was what the Lord wanted him to be. How many of us could truthfully say this? Sometime ago newspapers carried the story about the death of a very prominent man who lived in one of our Western cities. He had big busi ness which he had built up by him self. He was as honest and straight forward as he could be. They later elected him president of the Chamber of Commerce. He was so well known that he became head of several big institutions. But when he died, they discovered he wasn’t even an Ameri can citizen. He came from a foreign country and never had taken out nat uralization papers. He left a fortune but his relatives couldn’t get it be cause he was a foreigner. He had been treated like a real citizen by the peo ple. Everyone had assumed that he was one, but he wasn’t. The revelation stunned all of the people in the area. Are we what we seem to be? If you claim to belong to the Lord Jesus Christ and have His nature in you, 13
O UT OF t h e many interesting testi monies in the Bible, the Apostle Paul makes a wonderful statement which few people today would be able to declare. It is only five words; how ever, it comes as a powerful sermon. In I Corinthians 15:10 we read his testimony, “I am what I am.” I remember a man who came to our town purporting to be a great doctor. Supposedly, he was able to cure any thing with his special “medicine.” It was purported to be wonderful. He made a great deal of money from sell ing it. Then some people began won dering and asking questions. One per son started by checking on the man’s degrees. What he found out was de vastating. The fellow had never been near a medical college. He had spent most of his time previously with a circus. He was all a hoax and his medicine nothing more than colored water. He had been able to fool peo ple for a long time simply because no body took the trouble to find out about him. In Paul’s declaration, “I am what I am” there is no pretense whatsoever. He was anything but a hypocrite. What would happen if I told you I was a watchmaker? I might hang out a sign in front of my shop and you could bring me your timepieces to be fixed. Yet, I couldn’t do it. I don’t know the inside of a watch from the inside of a threshing machine. You would soon find out that I was a fraud. Paul claimed to be a Christian; he was a man of God. He tells us he is the apostle to the Gentiles. In the Bible God says some interest ing t h i n g s about Himself. Moses asked Him, “Whom shall I say sent me?” The Lord told him, “I am that I am.” That may sound like an in complete statement. I t is that way, however, so that we can fill in the blank. Whatever need you may have, He will fill it. “I Am” is a blank check to be drawn on the bank of God’s
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