TRUE Christianity is a life. A life grows. True Christianity is not a simple change of opinion; the adoption of a creed; the taking of a name; a profession: it is the receiving of a life. And where there is life there must be growth.
“Christ in you” is a great accomplished fact in reference to every believer. Christ is the life of the renewed soul, and a question for each of such, and one of the utmost importance, is this, “Am I giving that life fair opportunity for development?” I am afraid the spirit of the world is invading many Christian homes and churches, and that instead of the development of life into all the holy and beautiful features of the character of Jesus the Lord, it is too often buried under a mass of worldliness.
This life will not develop in the air of the godless convivial circle. The Christian must keep himself unspotted from the world—must keep on Christ’s side of the dividing line.
“Grow up”! The growth which Jesus gives is a growth into higher motives, purer thoughts, nobler aims; a growth that takes one further and further still from earth. A man of God once prayed, “Lord, grant that every day I live I may be less like what I used to be, and more like that which I shall be when Christ comes.” This is what we need―what some of us long for and pray for; a growth that increasingly leaves the world beneath.
“Such a life is worth living.” “Grow up into Him.” Oh, to be lost in Him! so that, like Paul, we may each say, “I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me.”
It is only as we grow up into Him that we can have any real spiritual influence over others. The measure of our power to be a help or blessing to others, is the measure in which we are filled with Christ.
The New Testament abounds in proofs that the only source of permanent spiritual life in the Christian is found in his vital inward union with Christ. Christ is in him his hope of glory. As no branch beareth fruit except it abide in the vine, neither will the Christian bear fruit unless he abides in Christ; but abiding in Him we grow in love, humility, and knowledge.
The watchman who discovered on a bitter night, in a fireless house, a poor dead mother with a hungry infant toiling in vain at the pale, cold bosom to which it clung, found a touching emblem of a starving soul struggling to thrive and grow of itself. Thank God, the bosom of Infinite Love will never be frozen. “Because I live ye shall live also.”
May the Lord Jesus, by His omnipotent grace, help all His people to live in His power, for His glory, until He comes.
“Thou of life the fountain art,
Freely let me take of Thee;
Spring Thou up within my heart,
Rise to all eternity.”