The following books are available from our head office
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**The Christ of the Mount - (c)1931

**Abundant Living - ©1942 is being reprinted and up-date in a new format.

Christian Maturity - (c)1931

Conversion - (c)1957

The Divine Yes (Paper & Hardback) - (c)1975

Gandhi, Portrayal of a Friend - (c)1948

Growing Spiritually - (c)1953

**How to be a Transformed Person - (c)1951 In Christ -

 Mastery (c)1961-

Reconstruction of Church (Paper & Hardback) - (c)

A Song of Ascents - (c)1968

The Unshakable Kingdom and the Unchanging Person - (c)1972 (Reprinted 1995 in large print - $12.95)

**The Way - (c)1946

The Way to Power and Poise - (c)1949

The Word Became Flesh - (c)1963)

Selections from E. Stanley Jones (Hardback) - (c)1968

Other books possibly available from Seminary, Church or Personal libraries are Victory Thru Surrender (c)1966 The Christ of the American Road (c) 1944 The Christ of the Every Road (c)1930 The Christ of the Indian Road (c)? Abundant Living (c)?

For many other pamphlets and booklets go to  Resources
 

Tuesday - Week 11

EVERY FOE YOU FACE IS A 'DEFEATED' FOE

Scriptures: John 16:33;  1 John 5:4-5;  Isa. 41:10;  43:5

When you 'will to be well' the whole of the universe of reality is then behind your will.  And the whole of the universe of reality wills your release, and provides for that release.  This fact is summed up in the words of Jesus: "In the world you shall have tribulation; but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world."  Here is an open eyed frankness that does not deny the fact of a world of tribulation in which we must liv- this world of tribulation which lies around us and in us.  And yet, after looking at it, with all its brutality and its power to hurt, He says:  "Be of good cheer; I have overcome the world."  In other words: every foe you face is a defeated foe.

That brings us to the fourth step:
(4) Remember that every fear, every trouble, every sickness, every sin you may face has been and is defeated and overcome by the One you follow - Christ.

When fears and sicknesses and sins come upon you to overwhelm you and to beat you into submission by their very overbearing presence, just calmly look each one in the eye and say: "I am not afraid of you.  You have been and are decisively beat on by my Lord.  Will you bend your neck?  There, I knew it!  The footprint of the Son of God is upon your neck."

This confidence is your starting point:
    Nothing can touch you that hasn't touched Him, and that hasn't been         defeated by Him; and if you open your life to His power, every ill can be defeated again by you through His grace.

You need not be defeated by anything unless you consent to be.  If you throw your will on the side of victory, then the whole of the Universe of Reality throws itself behind your will, releases it, reinforces it, redeems it - and you!  You are caught up in a tide of victory, and nothing can stop it except YOUR refusal to co-operate.

Paul could say, "I do not frustrate the grace of God." - I do not block its redemption, nor frustrate its healing purposes.  Therefore and Almighty Will worked within His will, and he arose a rhythmical, harmonious, adequate person. YOU CAN BE THE SAME

Prayer: O God, my Father, I have closed my heart to They healing and to Thy deliverance.  I have wrapped myself within myself - afraid of salvation!  I have protected my lungs - from air! My heart - from love! My asthetic nature - from beauty! Myself - from Thee!  Forgive me.  Amen

Preface: Twenty-five selected men and women, (East) Indian and foreign, met during one summer for quiet prayer and serious thinking in regard to our Christian message.... then we asked ourselves whether in Christ we had a message that was vital and inescapable if were to find life and God.

Introduction: Men need nothing in these modern days (1931!!) so much as they need a working philosophy of life - an adequate way to live.
"The real concern and confusion of this age is not so much religious, or even intellectual, as MORAL." Man has 'loosed from the moorings that have held life, and many are now adrift. They claim to be free. They have thrown overboard the chart, the compass, the steering wheel, and the consciousness of destination. They are free from everything - everything except the ROCKS and the STORMS and the THE INSUFFERABLE INANITY OF BEING TOSSED FROM WAVE TO WAVE of mere meaningless emotion.
The modern 'person' is "left by science without a goal; by exploded humanitarianism without a hero; by logic with an impasse" - we need a way out.

Certainly, irreligion does not seem to have found the way to live.... The sense of futility, of meaningless striving, has settled upon many. It is so in the West; it is so in the EAST.
...a Hindu professor says, "I began to give up one thing after another and then I found that everything was gone, even my universe. ...My life is getting duller and duller every day.

...Another person said, "I am inwardly a chaos, full of clash and confusion."
"The greatest need of modern Christianity is the rediscovery of the Sermon on the Mount as the ONLY practical way to live." 
This book, by Dr. E. Stanley Jones is unique for him as it is a teaching about 'THE MAN ON THE MOUNT', 'The New Type of humanity' , THE NEW MORALS - BASED ON REVERENCE FOR PERSONALITY (PEOPLE) and finally, 'THE WAY OUT'. It is not a devotional book, but one that keeps you thinking. Even though written in the 1930's, its relevance to to-day's world is astounding.

The widespread breakdown in individual and collective life is due to a loss of confidence. Men are not sure that what they are doing has cosmic backing and support. That sense of uncertainty sends a quiver of hesitancy into all they do. Something has snapped and left life dangling at loose ends.
The Christian scheme, which has been the cement that has held civilization together, has broken down in many minds; hence life is left without guidance, because it is without goal. When God goes, GOAL goes. Life turns dead on our hands.
...Schopenhauer, the philosopher and apostle of pessimism, sat slumped on a park bench, deep in thought. A policeman, mistaking him for a tramp, said to him, "Who are you? And what are you here for?" Schopenhauer slowly replied, "I wish I knew." He held no key in his hand to unlock the meaning of life, and the uncertainty made him a pessimist.
Amid all this gloom and uncertainty there is one bright spot - the Christian Way. Here life lights up!!.... However it must not merely be a way - it must be the Way..

The devotions for atheists and agnostics have been taken in part from this book. We would encourage you to get a copy and read it for yourself if

From time to time we will be putting excerpts from the Introduction to each of the above books!! Please put a Bookmark here!

''The THESIS OF THIS BOOK IS SIMPLE:

and this includes men and women especially. It is not a question of whether you would be or would not be transformed - you are being transformed, for better or for worse. The life forces which flow from you and through you are transforming you into a pattern. You stand in the midst of those life forces and you decide the pattern. Even if you apparently do not decide anything, but allow those life forces free reign, yet in not deciding you decide not to decide.

Everything is being transformed into something else and every person into someone else. Of all the commonly accepted statements about man one of the most widely accepted is this: "Human nature never changes." This is completely false. It is the nature of human nature to change. The man who repeats that statement changes himself through that very statement into a more fixed type of person. The statement produces change - for the worse. In mentally shutting the door to change upward he opens the door to change downward.

The science of semantics is based on the fact that human nature is changing every moment. So when you use a word to describe a man, you must define which man - the man a year ago, a month ago, five minutes ago or the man now. You must therefore change your words to describe the changed man. Even if he is apparently not changed, you must heighten your words up and down to describe him accurately.

The story is told of the statue on top of New York's old Madison Square Garden, the beautiful statue of Diana. A lovely girl posed for the statue and became famous. But she became gay and then dissolute. Years later into a Salvation Army kitchen there stumbled an old battered woman begging for bread and soup. When the Salvation Army officer asked her name and was told, he in surprised said, "Why, you are Diana." A crooked smile twisted across her wretched face as she replied, "I was Diana." Every person can say concerning himself, for better or for worse, "I was that person. I am not now that person."

A man of forty pulled a picture out of his inside pocket, laid it before me and said with a sigh, "To think I was that." It was a picture of a handsome youth of twenty-one, so handsome and well built that he was an entrant in a world competition for the most perfect specimen of manhood. When he was not chosen, it so hurt his pride and wounded his ego that it started a chain reaction into conflicts and infirmities that left him a wreck at forty. Had he reacted rightly to that blow, he could have become handsome in character as well as in body, but

"A person who is himself a problem cannot deal with problems, for two problems never add up to a solution..."

"But much of religion is in the same boat. It is long on the exhortation to be transformed, but short on the HOW...

"This book tries to answer the how of being a transformed person, but it also tries to unfold the Meaning of transformation A content has to be put into the transformed life to make it desirable. The possibilities must be so alluring that the heart is set on fire to get it. We must see before we will seek. But in the seeing we must see that this has total relevance for the total life, individual and collective. We must see a total answer.''
................................................... E.Stanley Jones

With this introduction to the book, we hope you will be curious to read THE ANSWERS as Brother Stanley shows how you can
***gain a new life of serenity with roots in ultimate reality
***release tensions and grow in peace and confidence
***live purposefully and victoriously
***grow into greater spiritual maturity and be transformed in body, mind, will and emotions

"This book, I believe, comes nearer the Center and more nearly comprehends the Whole, gathering up the Christian faith into a total concept. .. the thing itself is the Center - the Word Became Flesh is the Center. this is it! and the circumference is the working out of the word Became Flesh in the sum total of life. 
"The most important verse in Scripture is 'And the word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth; we have beheld his glory, glory a of the only Son from the Father ... And from his fullness have we all received, grace upon grace. For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God; the only Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he has made him known. (John 1:14-18
"This verse - "The Word became flesh" - is the Great Divide. In all other religions it is Word became word - a philosophy, a moralism, a system, a technique, but for all time and all men everywhere, "the Word became flesh - the Idea became Fact."
"Then I got hold of this difference (between all world religions and Christianity) in all other religions it is the Word become word, but only in Jesus Christ, did the Word become flesh. Then (and only then) Everything fell into its place. I had the Key, and this Key fitted everything in East and West. ... Religions are man's search for God. The gospel is God's search for man. therefore, there are many religions, but only one gospel.

"Religions are the Word become word; the gospel is the Word become flesh."

Over the past nine months we have been using this book as a family devotional. It has made my Christian faith much stronger, my testimony much easier to share.