PRACTICAL RESULTS IN THE DAILY WALK AND CONVERSATION
If all that has been said concerning the life hid with Christ in God be true,
its results in the practical daily walk and conversation ought to be very
marked, and the people who have entered into the enjoyment of it ought to be,
in very truth, a "peculiar people, zealous of good works."
My son at college once wrote to a friend to
this effect: that Christians are God's witnesses necessarily, because the world
will not read the Bible, but they will read our lives; and that upon the report
these give will very much depend their belief in the Divine nature of the
religion we profess. As we all know, this is an age of facts, and inquiries are
being increasingly turned from theories to realities. If our religion is to
make any headway now, it must be proved to be more than a theory, and we must
present, to the investigation of the critical minds of our age, the grand facts
of lives which have been actually and manifestly transformed by the mighty
power of God working in us all the good pleasure of His will. Give us "forms of
life," say the scientists, and we will be convinced. And when the Church is
able to present to them in all its members, the form of a holy life, their last
stronghold will be conquered.
I desire, therefore, before closing my book, to
speak very solemnly of what I conceive to be the necessary fruits of a life of
faith, such as I have been describing, and to press home to the hearts of every
one of my readers their responsibility to walk worthy of the high calling
wherewith they have been called.
And I would speak to some of you, at least, as
personal friends, for I feel sure we have not gone this far together through
this book without there having grown in your hearts, as there has in mine, a
tender personal interest and longing for one another, that we may in everything
show forth the praises of Him who has called us out of darkness into His
marvellous light. As a friend, then, to friends, I am sure I may speak very
plainly, and will be pardoned if I go into some particulars of life and
character which are vital to all true Christian development.
The standard of practical holy living has been so
low among Christians that any good degree of real devotedness of life and walk
is looked upon with surprise, and even often with disapprobation, by a large
portion of the Church. And, for the most part, the professed followers of the
Lord Jesus Christ are so little like Him in character or in action, that to an
outside observer there would not seem to be much harmony between them.
But we, who have heard the call of our God to a
life of entire consecration and perfect trust, must do differently from all
this. We must come out from the world and be separate, and must not be
conformed to it in our characters nor in our purposes. We must no longer share
in its spirit or its ways. Our conversation must be in Heaven, and we must seek
those things that are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God. We
must walk through the world as Christ walked. We must have the mind that was in
Him. As pilgrims and strangers we must abstain from fleshly lusts that war
against the soul. As good soldiers of Jesus Christ, we must disentangle
ourselves from the affairs of this life as far as possible, that we may please
Him who hath chosen us to be soldiers. We must abstain from all appearance of
evil. We must be kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another,
even as God, for Christ's sake, hath forgiven us. We must not resent injuries
or unkindness, but must return good for evil, and turn the other cheek to the
hand that smites us. We must take always the lowest place among our fellowmen;
and seek not our own honor, but the honor of others. We must be gentle, and
meek, and yielding; not standing up for our own rights, but for the rights of
others. All that we do must be done for the glory of God. And, to sum it all
up, since He which hath called us is holy, so we must be holy in a manner of
conversation; because it is written, "Be ye holy, for I am holy."
Now, dear friends, this is all exceedingly
practical and means, surely, a life very different from the lives of most
professors around us. It means that we do really and absolutely turn our backs
on self, and on self's motives and self's aims. It means that we are a peculiar
people, not only in the eyes of God, but in the eyes of the world around us;
and that, wherever we go, it will be known from our Christlike lives and
conversation that we are followers of the Lord Jesus Christ; and are not of the
world, even as He was not of the world. We shall no longer feel that our money
is our own, but the Lord's, to be used in His service. We shall not feel at
liberty to use our energies exclusively in the pursuit of worldly means, but,
seeking first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, shall have all needful
things added unto us. We shall find ourselves forbidden to seek the highest
places, or to strain after worldly advantages. We shall not be permitted to be
conformed to the world in our ways of thinking or of living. We shall feel no
desire to indulge in the world's frivolous pursuits. We shall find our
affections set upon heavenly things, rather than upon earthly things. Our days
will be spent not in serving ourselves, but in serving our Lord; and all our
rightful duties will be more perfectly performed than ever, because whatever we
do will be done "not with eye-service as men-pleasers, but as the servants of
Christ, doing the will of God from the heart."
Into all these things we shall undoubtedly be led
by the blessed Spirit of God, if we give ourselves up to His guidance. But
unless we have the right standard of Christian life set before us, we shall be
hindered by our ignorance from recognizing His voice; and it is for this reason
I desire to be very plain and definite in my statements.
I have noticed that wherever there has been a
faithful following of the Lord in a consecrated soul, several things have
inevitably followed, sooner or later.
Meekness and quietness of spirit become in time
the characteristics of the daily life; a submissive acceptance of the will of
God, as it comes in the hourly events of each day; pliability in the hands of
God to do or to suffer all the good pleasure of His will; sweetness under
provocation; calmness in the midst of turmoil and bustle; yieldingness to the
wishes of others, and an insensibility to slights and affronts, absence of
worry or anxiety; deliverance from care and fear: all these, and many other
similar graces are invariably found to be the natural outward development of
that inward life which is hid with Christ in God. Then as to the habits of
life: we always see such Christians sooner or later giving themselves up to
some work for God and their fellowmen, willing to spend and be spent in the
Master's service. They become indifferent to outward show in the furniture of
their houses and the style of their living, and make all personal adornment
secondary to the things of God. The voice is dedicated to God, to talk and sing
for Him. The purse is placed at His disposal. The pen is dedicated to write for
Him, the lips to speak for Him, the hands and the feet to do His bidding. Year
after year such Christians are seen to grow more unworldly, more
heavenly-minded, more transformed, more like Christ, until even their very
faces express so much of the beautiful inward Divine life, that all who look at
them cannot but take knowledge of them that they live with God, and are abiding
in Him.
I feel sure that to each one of you have come at
least some Divine intimations or foreshadowings of the life I here describe.
Have you not begun to feel dimly conscious of the voice of God speaking to you
in the depths of your soul about these things? Has it not been a pain and a
distress to you of late to discover how much there is wrong in your life? Has
not your soul been plunged into inward trouble and doubt about certain
dispositions and ways, in which you have been formerly accustomed to indulge?
Have you not begun to feel uneasy with some of your habits of life, and to wish
that you could do differently in these respects? Have not paths of devotedness
and of service begun to open out before you, with the longing thought, "Oh,
that I could walk in them"?
All these longings and doubts, and this inward
distress, are the voice of the Good Shepherd in your heart seeking to call you
out of all that is contrary to His will. Oh! let me entreat of you not to turn
away from His gentle pleadings. You little know the secret paths into which He
means to lead you by these very steps, nor the wonderful stores of blessedness
that lie at their end, or you would spring forward with an eager joy to yield
to every one of His requirements. The heights of Christian perfection can only
be reached by faithfully following the Guide who is to lead you there, and He
reveals your way to you one step at a time in the teachings and providences of
your daily lives, asking only on your part that you yield yourselves up to His
guidance. If, then, in anything you are convinced of sin, be sure that it is
the voice of your Lord, and surrender it at once to His bidding, rejoicing with
a great joy that He has begun thus to lead and guide you. Be perfectly pliable
in His wise hands, go where He entices you, turn away from all from which He
makes you shrink, obey Him perfectly; and He will lead you out swiftly and
easily into a wonderful life of conformity to Himself, that will be a testimony
to all around you, beyond what you yourself will ever know.
I knew a soul thus given up to follow the Lord
whithersoever He might lead her, who in three short months travelled from the
depths of darkness and despair into the realization and conscious experience of
the most blessed union with the Lord Jesus Christ. Out of the midst of her
darkness, she consecrated herself to the Lord, surrendering her will up
altogether to Him, that He might work in her to will and to do of His own good
pleasure. Immediately He began to speak to her by His Spirit in her heart,
suggesting to her some little acts of service for Him, and calling her out of
all un-Christlike dispositions and ways. She recognized His voice, and yielded
to Him each thing He asked for, following Him whithersoever He might lead her,
with no fear but the one fear of disobeying Him. He led her rapidly on, day by
day conforming her more and more to His will, and making her life such a
testimony to those around her, that even some who had begun by opposing and
disbelieving, were forced to acknowledge that it was of God, and were won to a
similar surrender. And, finally, after three short months of this faithful
following, it came to pass, so swiftly had she gone, that her Lord was able to
reveal to her wondering soul some of the deepest secrets of His love, and to
fulfil to her the marvellous promise of Acts 1:5, baptizing her with the Holy
Ghost. Think you she has ever regretted her wholehearted following of Him? Or
that aught but thankfulness and joy can ever fill her soul when she reviews the
steps by which her feet had been led to this place of wondrous blessedness,
even though some of them may have seemed at the time hard to take? Ah! dear
soul, if thou wouldst know a like blessing, abandon thyself, like her, to the
guidance of the Divine Master, and shrink from no surrender for which He may
call.
"The perfect way is hard to flesh,
It is not hard to love;
If thou wert sick for want of God,
How swiftly wouldst thou move."
Surely thou canst trust Him! And if some
things may be called for which look to thee of but little moment, and not
worthy thy Lord's attention, remember that He sees not as man seeth, and that
things small to thee may be in His eyes the key and the clue to the deepest
springs of thy being. In order to mould thee into entire conformity to His
will, He must have thee pliable in his hands, and this pliability is more
quickly reached by yielding in the little things than even by the greater. Thy
one great desire is to follow Him fully; canst thou not say then a continual
"Yes, Lord!" to all His sweet commands, whether small or great, and trust Him
to lead thee by the shortest road to thy fullest blessedness?
My dear friend, this, and nothing less than this,
is what thy consecration meant, whether thou knew it or not. It meant
inevitable obedience. It meant that the will of thy God was henceforth to be
thy will under all circumstances and at all times. It meant that from that
moment thou surrendered thy liberty of choice, and gave thyself up utterly into
the control of thy Lord. It meant an hourly following of Him whithersoever He
might lead thee, without any dream of turning back.
And now I appeal to thee to make good thy word.
Let everything else go, that thou mayest live out, in a practical daily walk
and conversation, the Divine life thou hast dwelling within thee. Thou art
united to thy Lord by a wondrous tie; walk, then, as He walked, and show to the
unbelieving world the blessed reality of His mighty power to save, by letting
Him save thee to the very uttermost. Thou needst not fear to consent to this,
for He is thy Saviour; and His power is to do it all. He is not asking thee, in
thy poor weakness, to do it thyself; He only asks thee to yield thyself to Him,
that He may work in thee to will and to do by His own mighty power. Thy part is
to yield thyself, His part is to work; and never, never will He give thee any
command which is not accompanied by ample power to obey it. Take no thought for
the morrow in this matter; but abandon thyself with a generous trust to thy
loving Lord, who has promised never to call His own sheep out into any path,
without Himself going before them to make the way easy and safe. Take each
onward step as He makes it plain to thee. Bring all thy life in each of its
details to Him to regulate and guide. Follow gladly and quickly the sweet
suggestions of His Spirit in thy soul. And day by day thou wilt find Him
bringing thee more and more into conformity with His will in all things;
moulding thee and fashioning thee, as thou art able to bear it, into a vessel
unto His honor, sanctified and meet for His use, and fitted to every good work.
So shall be given to thee the sweet joy of being an epistle of Christ known and
read of all men; and thy light shall shine so brightly that men seeing, not
thee, but thy good works, shall glorify, not thee, but thy Father which is in
Heaven.
We are predestined to be "conformed to the image"
of God's Son. This means, of course, not a likeness of bodily presence, but a
likeness of character and nature. It means a similarity of thought, of feeling,
of desire, of loves, of hates. It means, that we are to think and act,
according to our measure, as Christ would have thought and acted under our
circumstances.
A little girl was once questioned what it meant
to be a Christian. She replied, "It means to be just what Christ would be, if
He was a little girl and lived in my house."
The secret of Christ's life was the pouring out
of Himself for others; and if we are like Him, this will be the secret of our
lives also. He saved others, but Himself He could not save. He "pleased not
Himself," and therefore we are "not to please ourselves," but rather our
neighbor, when it is for his good.
A thoughtful Hindoo religionist, who visited
England and America lately to examine into Christianity, said, as the result of
his observations, "What Christians need is a little more of Christ's
Christianity, and a little less of man's."
Man's Christianity teaches sacrifice to save
ourselves; Christ's Christianity teaches sacrifice to save others. Man's
Christianity produces the fruitless selfishness of too much of our religion.
Christ's Christianity produces the blessed unselfishness of lives that are
poured out for others, as was His.
In short, then, the one practical outcome of all
that our book has been teaching us, is simply this, that we are to be
Christlike Christians. And all our experiences amount to nothing if they do not
produce this result. For "not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall
enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which
is in heaven."
