"Thus by the age of nineteen, I had been reduced to a state of complete exhaustion spiritually….
"Then, one night… just at midnight, in my room at home, I got down on my knees before God, and I just wept in sheer despair. I said, 'Oh, God, I know that I am saved. I love Jesus Christ. I am perfectly convinced that I am converted. With all my heart I have wanted to serve Thee. I have tried to my uttermost and I am a hopeless failure! So far as doing anything more, I am finished. I am not going to be a missionary. It is useless for me to continue like this. I hate this double life!'
“God, that night, simply focused upon me the Bible message of Christ Who is our Life. This was the moment He had been waiting for; seven weary years He had watched me running round and round in the wilderness! He had been waiting for the time when at last I would fall down in hopeless despair. I heard His voice: 'To me to live is Christ.... I am the way, the truth, and the life. . . . If, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son, much more being reconciled, we shall be saved by His life.... When Christ who is our life shall appear, then shall we appear with Him in glory.' Life!
"Very lovingly the Lord seemed to make it plain to me that night, through my tears of bitterness: 'You see, for seven years, with utmost sincerity, you have been trying to live for Me, on My behalf, the life that I have been waiting for seven years to live through you. I have been there the whole time. All the things you have been pleading for, all the things for which you have been asking, have been yours since the day seven years ago, at your request and invitation, I came into your heart at that Crusader boys' camp; but you see, although you have given mental consent to the truth that I have been in your heart, and have accepted it as a theory, you have lived totally ignoring the fact. You have been busy trying to do for Me all that only I can do through you.
Now supposing I am your life, and you begin to accept it as a fact, then I am your strength! … I am the One to whom it is perfectly natural to go out and win souls; and I know precisely where to go to find them. Why don't you begin to reckon upon Me and say 'Thank you.’
I simply said to the Lord Jesus Christ that night, ‘Well, it is that or nothing! If this is true, then I am going to thank Thee for it in sheer cold-blooded faith….
"I got up the next morning to an entirely different Christian life…. with a new song in my heart. I was saying, 'Lord Jesus, I thank Thee that for the first time in my life, this is Thy day! I no longer have the burden of running my own life. At last I have a Governor capable of governing!'
"I can remember that on my way down to the university, I said, 'Well now, Lord, Thou art going to speak to that boys' class, isn't it wonderful? Yesterday I thought I was going to, but Thou art going to now! I thank Thee, dear Lord, for the boys that Thou art going to save.' I did not know how many boys there were in that Bible class, but I began to dream dreams, and I thought, 'Well, maybe thirty will be converted.' Not bad for a start! 'For the first time in my life, I'll dare to invite boys, at the end of that meeting, to come and see me if they want to accept Jesus Christ as their Savior.' Now I had never done that in my life, and for a very good reason—I had not expected them to come…. The following weekend, up I went, and found there about ninety boys in the class. I just spoke simply about the Lord Jesus Christ and at the end I said, 'If any of you chaps want to receive Jesus Christ as your Savior this afternoon, I am going to be here. Just come and talk to me afterwards.' Thirty boys came and talked to me afterwards!
"So for the next meeting, I thought, 'Well, it worked last time, I wasn't quite sure that it would work, but it did; and so I will reckon upon Him again for this meeting.' I thanked the Lord again for the folk who were going to be saved, and I gave the invitation to meet me afterwards, and others were converted. When I bumped into folk on the street, I seemed always to be bumping into the right people! 'This is an extraordinary thing,' I thought, 'For seven years I was always bumping into the wrong people, and now, I can't help bumping into the right people!' For five weeks, almost every day, people were converted."
"At the end of five weeks God made it very plain to me He had something more to say. He had just begun to whet my appetite. He said, 'That is My life. You know perfectly well that it has nothing to do with you, because it happened overnight! It is not a new method. It is not a new technique that you have learned. It is simply My life: being what I am, doing the inevitable. This is now the thing you have got to realize; you cannot have My life for your program. You can only have My life for My program!
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Major Ian Thomas (1914 - 2007)
Evangelical writer, theological teacher and founder of the Torchbearers bible schools. These schools are now world-wide in many countries and provide a teaching base on the person of Christ in the believer and basic Biblical exposition of Bible books.Among the many books that he wrote, the most influential have been: "The Saving Life Of Christ" , "The mystery of godliness" and "If I perish, I Perish." His burden in ministry was to express and show the indwelling life of Christ in believers and the rest and power that life will have in us as we trust and have faith.
Recommends these books by Major Ian Thomas:
The Indwelling Life of Christ: All of Him in All of Me by Major Ian Thomas
If I Perish, I Perish by Major Ian Thomas
The Mystery of Godliness: Experiencing Christ in Us by Major Ian Thomas
W Ian Thomas was a writer and theological teacher. Thomas is probably best known as an author and as the founder of both Torchbearers International and Capernwray Missionary Fellowship of Torchbearers.
His book, "The Saving Life of Christ", seems to have had a profound affect on Bert Harned, M.D., and the many individuals he has discipled in his lifetime.
Major W. Ian Thomas was born in London, England of middle class parents and was converted at the age of twelve in a Boy's Camp. With the intention of becoming a missionary in Africa, he studied medicine at London University for two years, where as a student of nineteen, in deep discouragement about his Christian life, he discovered the life-transforming secret of the indwelling life of the risen, living Lord Jesus Christ in the life of the believer. This discovery precipitated him almost immediately into an evangelistic and Bible teaching ministry which has spread around the world.
Arising from this world wide-ministry, there came into being a Young Peoples Christian Conference Center and Bible School at Capernwray Hall, Carnforth, in the North West of England and from this beginning there developed the Capernwray Missionary Fellowship of Torchbearers, of which Major Thomas is the Founder and General Director.
There are now Conference Centers and Bible Schools beyond the British Isles in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Spain, Sweden, Canada, the U.S.A., Australia, New Zealand, India, Indonesia, Japan, Costa Rica and additional Headquarters established in the Sudan, Micronesia, Malaysia and the Philippines.
Major W. Ian Thomas was born in London, England of middle class parents and was converted at the age of twelve in a Boy's Camp. With the intention of becoming a missionary in Africa, he studied medicine at London University for two years, where as a student of nineteen, in deep discouragement about his Christian life, he discovered the life-transforming secret of the indwelling life of the risen, living Lord Jesus Christ in the life of the believer. This discovery precipitated him almost immediately into an evangelistic and Bible teaching ministry which has spread around the world.
Arising from this world wide-ministry, there came into being a Young Peoples Christian Conference Center and Bible School at Capernwray Hall, Carnforth, in the North West of England and from this beginning there developed the Capernwray Missionary Fellowship of Torchbearers, of which Major Thomas is the Founder and General Director.
There are now Conference Centers and Bible Schools beyond the British Isles in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Spain, Sweden, Canada, the U.S.A., Australia, New Zealand, India, Indonesia, Japan, Costa Rica and additional Headquarters established in the Sudan, Micronesia, Malaysia and the Philippines.