Saints

"To all...who are loved by God and called to be saints..." (Romans 1:7); "As for the saints in the land, they are the noble, in whom is all my delight" (Psalm 16:3 RSV).

What is a saint?

A JEWEL in disguise.
A PRINCE in peasant's garbs.
An immortal LIFE in dying flesh.
An AMBASSADOR of the King Eternal, detained on foreign soil.
A MONARCH at the foot of the throne, waiting for his crown.
A ROYAL SLAVE in a prison of clay, preparing for a mansion.
A TRAVELER on a rocky road, bound for the streets of gold.
A WATCHMAN of the midnight hills, to greet the everlasting Day.
A DIAMOND in the rough, being polished to shine as the stars.
A NUGGET of gold in the crucible, to be refined from its dross.
A PEARL in the oyster, to be delivered from the body of flesh.
A LAMP in a dark, dark night, soon to blaze forth with everlasting light.
A STRANGER in the midst of enemies, hurrying on to live in everlasting fellowship.
A FLOWER in a garden of briars, soon to unfold its petals where the Rose of Sharon blooms.
- Unknown.

Saints are persons who are sanctified, not sanctimonious. They walk and talk and live a practical life. Saints are willing to get hands dirty and hearts broken, as our Jesus did. Oswald Chambers tells us, "A saint is a bundle of specially qualified reactions. For every possible circumstance in life, there is a line of behavior marked out in advance for us; it is not stated in black and white, we have to be so familiar with God's Book that when we come to a crisis the Spirit of God brings back to our memory the things we had read but never understood, and we see what we should do. God is making characters, not mechanisms."