"Here, then, is the crucial question which we have been leading up to. Have we ever opened our door to Christ? Have we ever invited him in? This was exactly the question which I needed to have put to me. For, intellectually speaking, I had believed in Jesus all my life, on the other side of the door. I had regularly struggled to say my prayers through the key-hole. I had even pushed pennies under the door in a vain attempt to pacify him. I had been baptized, yes and confirmed as well. I went to church, read my Bible, had high ideals, and tried to be good and do good. But all the time, often without realising it, I was holding Christ at arm's length, and keeping him outside. I knew that to open the door might have momentous consequences. I am profoundly grateful to him for enabling me to open the door. Looking back now over more than fifty years, I realise that that simple step has changed the entire direction, course and quality of my life."
--
John Stott, quoted in Timothy Dudley-Smith,
John Stott: The Making of a Leader (Inter-Varsity Press: Leicester, 1999), p. 95
2 comments:
I'd heard about Stott, of course, but being a rather conservative United Methodist have never read any of his work. That quote is intriguing, though.
I have no doubt that John Stott and John Wesley would get along perfectly. Or rather, are getting along perfectly.
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