Whose Body?

Whose Body?

For years he labored without results.

GOD GAVE Dr. Walter L. Wilson, a Kansas City physician, a deep love for the Scriptures. After his conversion in 1896, Wilson diligently studied the Bible and applied himself to doing everything he found in God’s Word. Yet it bothered him that his life did not seem to bear spiritual fruit. But others reassured him “not to look for results, but only to be busy at seed sowing.”

So Wilson pressed on in his work as a physician and lay preacher. Then in 1913 a missionary from France visiting in his home challenged him with the question “What is the Holy Spirit to you?”

No stranger to theology, Wilson answered, “He is one of the persons of the Godhead, a Teacher, a Guide; the third person of the Trinity.”

“He is just as great,” the missionary said, “just as precious, just as needful as the other two Persons of the Trinity. But still you have not answered my question, What is He to you?”

“He is nothing to me,” Wilson said, surprised at his own candor. “I have no contact with Him, no personal relationship, and could get along quite well without Him.”

His visitor replied, “It is because of this that your life is so fruitless even though your efforts are so great. If you will seek personally to know the Holy Spirit, he will transform your life.”

The missionary’s words haunted Wilson into the next year. He wanted to bear the fruit of the Spirit but feared becoming a fanatic, giving an inferior place to Jesus Christ by overly exalting the Holy Spirit. A trusted Christian friend reassured him from the Bible that only by the Holy Spirit could Christ be made known to him and others.

Then on the evening of January 14, 1914, everything changed. Wilson heard Dr. James Gray, later the president of Moody Bible Institute, preach a sermon on Romans 12:1. Gray asked, “Have you noticed that this verse does not tell us to whom we should give our bodies? It is not the Lord Jesus. . . . He has his own body. It is not God the Father. . . . He remains upon His throne. Another has come to earth without a body. . . . God gives you the privilege and the indescribable honor of presenting your bodies to the Holy Spirit, to be His dwelling place on earth.”

Wilson reported later that he said to the Holy Spirit, “My Lord, I have mistreated You all my Christian life. I have treated You like a servant. . . . I shall do so no more. Just now I give You this body of mine; from my head to my feet. I give You my hands, my limbs, my eyes and lips, my brain; all that I am within and without, I hand over to You for You to live in it the life that You please. You may send this body to Africa, or lay it on a bed with cancer. . . . It is Your body from this moment on. Help yourself to it. Thank You, my Lord, I believe You have accepted it, for in Romans twelve You said, ‘acceptable unto God.

The next morning two women came to his office, as they had done before, selling advertising. Although he had never spoken to them about Christ before, that day he did, and both put their trust in him that morning. This was only the beginning of how mightily God used Dr. Walter Wilson. He went on to pastor Central Bible Church in Kansas City and cofounded and served as first president of Kansas City Bible College, now Calvary Bible College.

Walter Wilson, the “beloved physician,” often testified, “With regard to my own experience with the Holy Spirit, I may say the transformation in my own life on January 14, 1914, was greater, much greater than the change that took place when I was saved December 21, 1896.”

Reflection

What is your reaction to the story of Dr. Walter Wilson? Do you agree with Dr. Gray’s sermon? Have you ever specifically given your body to God as a living sacrifice? God may use you in surprising ways just as he did Dr. Wilson.

Dear brothers and sisters, I plead with you to give your bodies to God. Let them be a living and holy sacrifice—the kind he will accept. When you think of what he has done for you, is this too much to ask?

Romans 12:1