Topic: Called To Be Saints
Contributor: Leong Chee Lu
Date: August 2008

Someone has described a saint as one whose life makes the belief in God that much easier. Such individuals help us God-ward and make us see through their lives the divine qualities of selflessness and humility of our Lord Jesus.

One such saint was the New Testament scholar, J.B. Philips, whom many respect.   The author of " Letters to Young Churches ", he was best known as a translator of New Testament Scriptures into everyday English, as well as a pastor with a big heart who never lost his longing to care for the souls of men.

  He was a giving man: he gave away not only his millions (from royalties from his many books) but also his whole life. According to one account, it worried him that he should have so much. So he asked the advice of his accountants as to how much to give away. He immediately doubled the figure suggested.  

His was not an easy life, however. He suffered a lot from clinical depression and severe migraines in his later years. Yet to his last days he defended the Word of God and 'weaker brethren' from liberal theologians who through their teachings undermined others' faith.

Such lives make us desire the source of power that makes their lives so focussed on things above. And what is the source of their power?

  The Apostle Paul tells us that we are those who are

  "...called into the fellowship with his Son Jesus Christ" (1 Cor 1:9)

Here then is their secret. A saint is one who has power to live above the 'philosophy of the age' and is able to persevere because of his constant unending fellowship and relationship with the Lord Jesus.

In the words of the monk Brother Lawrence (a saint himself), such people "practise the Presence of God" in every situation, in their work as well as play... Such is a saint.

           We too are called to be saints. And lest we stumble along the way, lest we despair of our own sinfulness and unfaithfulness, let us take courage and remember that it is our God who is faithful:

  " He will keep you strong to the end, so that you will be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. God, who has called you into fellowship with his Son Jesus Christ our Lord, is faithful " (1 Cor1:8-9)

 

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