 25th day of Like Christ by Andrew Murray, this LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Like Christ giving his life for men. Whosoever will be great among you, let him be your servant. And whosoever will be chief among you, let him be your slave. Even as the son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many. Matthew chapter 20 verses 26, 27 and 28. Hereby know we love, because he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. First John chapter 3 verse 16. In speaking of the likeness of Christ's death, and of being made conformable to it, of bearing the cross, and being crucified with him, there is one danger to which even the earnest believer is exposed, and that is of seeking after these blessings for his own sake, or, as he thinks, for the glory of God in his own personal perfection. The error would be a fatal one. He would never attain the close conformity to Jesus' death he hoped for, for he would be leaving out just that which is the essential element in the death of Jesus, and in the self-sacrifice it inculcates. That characteristic is its absolute unselfishness, its reference to others. To be made conformable to Christ's death implies a dying to self, a losing sight of self altogether in giving up and laying down our life for others. To the question how far are we to go in living for, in loving, in serving, in saving men, the scriptures do not hesitate to give the unequivocal answer. We are to go as far as Jesus, even to the laying down of our life. We are to consider this so entirely as the object for which we are redeemed, and are left in the world, the one object for which we live, that the laying down of the life in death follows as a matter of course. Like Christ the only thing that keeps us in this world is to be the glory of God in the salvation of sinners. Scripture does not hesitate to say that it is in his path of suffering as he goes to work out atonement and redemption that we are to follow him. How clearly this comes out in the words of the Master himself, whoever will be chief among you, let him be your bond-servant, as the Son of Man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many. The highest in glory will be he who was lowest in service, and likeest to the Master in his giving his life a ransom. And so again, a few days later, after having spoken of his own death in the words, the hour is come that the Son of Man should be glorified. Verily, verily I say unto you, except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone, but if it die it bringeth forth much fruit. He at once applied to his disciples what he had said by repeating what they had already heard spoken to themselves. He that loveth his life shall lose it, and he that hateeth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal. The corn of wheat dying to rise again, losing its life to regain it, multiplied manifold, is clearly set forth as the emblem not only of the Master, but of each one of his followers. Loving life, refusing to die, means remaining alone in selfishness. Losing life to bring forth much fruit in others is the only way to keep it for ourselves. There is no way to find our life but as Jesus did, in giving it up for the salvation of others. Herein is the Father, herein shall we be glorified. The deepest underlying thought of conformity to Christ's death is giving our life to God for saving others. Without this, the longing for conformity to that death is in danger of being a refined selfishness. How remarkable the exhibition we have in the apostle Paul of this spirit, and how instructive the words in which the Holy Spirit in him expressed to us its meaning. To the Corinthians he says, Always bearing about the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body. For we which live are always delivered to death for Jesus' sake, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our mortal flesh. So then death worketh in us but life in you. Though he was crucified through weakness, yet he liveth by the power of God. For we also are weak in him, but we shall live with him by the power of God toward you. 2 Corinthians chapter 4 verses 10 to 12 and chapter 13 verse 4. I now rejoice in my sufferings for you and fill up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh for his body's sake, which is the church. Colossians chapter 1 verse 24. These passages teach us how the vicarious element of the suffering that Christ bore in his body on the tree to a certain extent still characterizes the sufferings of his body, the church. Believers who give themselves up to bear the burden of the sins of men before the Lord, who suffer reproach and shame, weariness and pain in the effort to win souls, are filling up that which is lacking of the afflictions of Christ in their flesh. The power and the fellowship of his suffering and death work in them, the power of Christ's life through them in those for whom they labour in love. There is no doubt that in the fellowship of his sufferings and the conformity to his death in Philippians chapter 3, Paul had in view not only the inner spiritual but also the external bodily participations in the suffering of Christ. And so it must be with each of us in some measure. Self-sacrifice not merely for the sake of our own sanctification but for the salvation of our fellow men is what brings us into true fellowship with the Christ who gave himself for us. The practical application of these thoughts is very simple. Let us first of all try and see the truth the Holy Spirit seeks to teach us. Is the most essential thing in likeness to Christ, is likeness to his death, so the most essential thing in likeness to his death is the giving up of our life to win others to God. It is a death in which all thought of saving self is lost in that of saving others. Let us pray for the light of the Holy Ghost to show us this, until we learn to feel that we are in the world just as Christ was, to give up self, to love and serve, to live and die, even as the Son of man came not to be ministered unto but to minister and to give his life a ransom for many. Oh, that God would give his people to know their calling, that they do not belong to themselves but to God and to their fellow men, that even as Christ they are only to live to be a blessing to the world. Then let us believe in the grace that is waiting to make our experience of this truth a reality. Let us believe that God accepts of our giving up of our whole life for his glory in the saving of others. Let us believe that conformity to the death of Jesus in this, its very life principle, is what the Holy Ghost will work out in us. Let us, above all, believe in Jesus. It is he himself who will take up every soul that in full surrender yields itself to him into the full fellowship of his death, of his dying, in love to bring forth much fruit. Yes, let us believe and believing seek from above as the work and the gift of Jesus, likeness to Jesus in this too. Let us at once begin and act this faith. Let us put it into practice. Looking upon ourselves now as holy given up, just like Christ, to live and die for God in our fellow men, let us with New Zeal exercise the ministry of love in winning souls. As we wait for Christ to work out his likeness, as we trust the Holy Spirit to give his mind in us more perfectly, let us in faith begin at once to act as followers of him who only lived and died to be a blessing to others. Let our love open the way to the work it has to do by the kindness and gentleness and helpfulness with which it shines out on all whom we meet in daily life. Let it give itself to the work of intercession and look up to God to use us as one of his instruments in the answering of those prayers. Let us speak and work for Jesus as those who have a mission and a power from on high which makes us sure of a blessing. Let us make soul-winning our object. Let us band ourselves with the great army of repose the Lord is sending out into his harvest. And ere we thought of it we shall find that giving our life to win others for God is the most blessed way of dying to self, of being even as the Son of Man was, a servant and a saviour of the lost. O most wonderful and inconceivably blessed likeness to Christ! He gave himself to men, but could not really reach them until, giving himself a sacrifice to God for them, the seed corn died, and the life was poured out, then the blessing flowed forth in mighty power. I may seek to love and serve men. I can only really influence and bless them as I yield myself unto God and give up my life into his hands for them. As I lose myself as an offering on the altar I become in his spirit and power in very deed a blessing. My spirit given into his hands he can use and bless me. O most blessed God, dost thou in very deed ask me to come and give myself, my very life, holy, even unto death, to thee for my fellow men? If I have heard the words of the Master aright, thou dost indeed seek nothing less. O God, wilt thou indeed have me? Wilt thou in very deed in Christ permit me, like him, as a member of his body, to live and die for those around me? To lay myself, I say it in deep reverence, beside him, on the altar of death, crucified with him, and be a living sacrifice to thee for men? Lord, I do praise thee for this most wonderful grace, and now I come, Lord God, and give myself. O, for the grace of thy holy spirit, to make the transaction definite and real. Here I am, given up to thee, to live only for those whom thou art seeking to save. Blessed Jesus, come thyself and breathe thine own mind and love within me. Take possession of me, my thoughts to think, my heart to feel, my powers to work, my life to live, as given away to God for men. Write it in my heart. It is done. I am given away to God. He has taken me. Keep thou me each day, as in his hands, expecting and assured that he will use me. On thy giving up thyself followed the life in power, the outbreaking of the blessing in fullness and power. It will be so in thy people, too. Glory be to thy name. Amen. End of twenty-fifth day, twenty-sixth day of Like Christ by Andrew Murray. This LibriVonc recording is in the public domain. Like Christ in his meekness. Behold, thy King cometh, meek. Matthew chapter twenty-one, verse five. Learn of me, for I am meek and lowly of heart, and ye shall find rest for your soul. Matthew chapter eleven, verse twenty-nine. It is on his way to the cross that we find the first of these two words written of our Lord Jesus. It is in his sufferings that the meekness of Jesus is specially manifested. Follower of Jesus, who art so ready to take thy place under the shadow of his cross, there to behold a lamb slain for thy sins, is it not a precious thought that there is one part of his work as the suffering lamb of God, in which thou mayest bear his image and be like him every day. Thou canst be meek and gentle even as he was. Meekness is the opposite of all that is hard or bitter or sharp. It has reference to the disposition which animates us towards our inferiors. With meekness ministers must instruct those that oppose themselves, teach and bring back the earring, Galatians six, verse one, second Timothy two, verse twenty-five. It expresses our disposition towards superiors. We must receive the word with meekness, James one, twenty-one. If the wife is to be in subjection to her husband, it must be in a meek and quiet spirit which is in the sight of God of great price. First Peter three, verse four. First one of the fruits of the spirit, meekness ought to characterise all our daily intercourse with fellow Christians and extend to all with whom we have to do. Ephesians chapter four, verse two, Galatians five, twenty-two, Colossians three, twelve, Titus three, two. It is mentioned in scripture along with humility because that is the inward disposition concerning oneself out of which meekness towards others springs. There is perhaps none of the lovely virtues which adorn the image of God's Son which is more seldom seen in those who ought to be examples. There are many servants of Jesus in whom much life to souls, much service for the salvation of others and much zeal for God's will are visible and yet who continually come short in this. Now often when offence comes unexpectedly whether at home or abroad they are carried away by temper and anger and have to confess that they have lost the perfect rest of soul in God. There is no virtue perhaps for which some have prayed more earnestly. They feel they would give anything if in their intercourse with partner or children or servants in company or in business they could always keep their temper perfectly and exhibit the meekness and gentleness of Christ. Unspeakable is the grief and disappointment experienced by those who have learned to long for it and yet have not discovered where the secret of meekness lies. The self-command needed for this seems to some to be so impossible that they seek comfort in the belief that this blessing belongs to a certain natural temperament and is too contrary to their character for them ever to expect it. To satisfy themselves they find all sorts of excuses. They do not mean it so ill. Though the tongue or the temper be sharp there is still love in their hearts. It would not be good to be too gentle. Evil would be strengthened by it. And thus the call to entire conformity to the holy gentleness of the Lamb of God is robbed of all its power. And the world is strengthened in its belief that Christians are after all not very much different from other people because though they do indeed say they do not show that Christ changes the heart and life after his own image. And the soul suffers itself and causes unspeakable harm in Christ's church through its unfaithfulness in appropriating this blessing of salvation, debaring the image and likeness of God. This grace is of great price in the sight of God. In the Old Testament there are many glorious promises for the meek which were by Jesus gathered up into this one. Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. In the New Testament its praise consists in this, that it is his meekness that gives its supernatural incomparable beauty to the image of our Lord. A meek spirit is of great price in God's sight. It is the choicest ornament of the beloved Son. The Father could surely offer no higher inducement to his children to seek it above all things. For everyone who longs to possess this spirit Christ's word is full of comfort and encouragement. Learn of me that I am meek. And what will it profit us to learn that he is meek? Will not just the experience of his meekness make the discovery of our want of it all the more painful? What we ask, Lord, is that Thou shouldest teach us how we may be meek. The answer is again, learn of me that I am meek. We are in danger of seeking meekness and the other graces of our Lord Jesus as gifts of which we must be conscious before we practice them. This is not the path of faith. Moses knew not that his face shone. He had only seen the glory of God. The soul that seeks to be meek must learn that Jesus is meek. We must take time to gaze on his meekness until the heart has received the full impression. He only is meek. With him alone can meekness be found. When we begin to realise this, we next fix our hearts upon the truth. The meek one is Jesus the Saviour. All he is, all he has, is for his redeemed ones. His meekness is to be communicated to us, but he does not impart it by giving, as it were, from himself something of it away to us. No, I must learn that he alone is meek and that only when he enters and takes possession of heart and life he brings his meekness with him. It is with the meekness of Jesus that we can be meek. We know how little he succeeded in making his disciples meek and lowly while on earth. It was because he had not yet obtained the new life and could not yet bestow through his resurrection the Holy Spirit, but now he can do it. He has been exalted to the power of God from thence to reign in our hearts to conquer every enemy and continue in us his own holy life. Jesus was a visible example on earth that we might see in him what like the hidden life is that he would give us from heaven that he himself would be within us. Learn of me, for I am meek and lowly of heart. Without ceasing the word sounds in our ears as the Lord's answer to all the sad complaints of his redeemed ones as to the difficulty of restraining temper. Oh, my brother, why is Jesus your Jesus, your life and your strength? Why is he the meek and lowly one, if it be not to impart to you to whom he so wholly belongs, his own meekness? Therefore, only believe. Believe that Jesus is able to fill your heart with his own spirit of meekness. Believe that Jesus himself will, through his own spirit, accomplish in you the work that you have in vain endeavoured to do. Behold, thy King cometh to thee, meek. Welcome him to dwell in your heart. Expect him to reveal himself to you. Everything depends on this. Learn of him that he is meek and lowly of heart, and you shall find rest to your soul. Precious Saviour, grant me now, under the overshadowing of thy holy spirit, to draw near unto thee, and to appropriate thy heavenly meekness as my life. Lord, thou hast not shown me thy meekness as a Moses who demands but does not give. Thou art Jesus who savest from all sin, giving in its stead thy heavenly holiness. Lord, I claim thy meekness as a part of the salvation that thou hast given me. I cannot do without it. How can I glorify thee if I do not possess it? Lord, I will learn from thee that thou art meek. Blessed Lord, teach me. And teach me that thou art always with me, always in me as my life. Abiding in thee, with thee abiding in me, I have the meek one to help me, and make me like thyself. O holy meekness, thou art not come down to earth only for a short visit, then to disappear again in the heavens, thou art come to seek a home. I offer thee my heart. Come and dwell in it. Thou blessed Lamb of God, my Saviour and Helper, I count on thee. Thou wilt make thy meekness to dwell in me. Through thy indwelling thou dost conform me to thy image. O come, and as an act of thy rich free grace, even now, as I wait on thee, reveal thyself as my king, meek and coming in to take possession of me for thyself. Precious, gentle, holy Jesus, blessed bridegroom of my heart, in thy secret inner chamber, thou wilt show me what thou art. Amen. End of 26th day. Like Christ Abiding in the Love of God Even as the Father hath loved me, so have I loved you, abide in my love. If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love, even as I have kept my Father's commandments, and abide in his love. John chapter 15, verses 9 and 10. Our blessed Lord not only said, Abide in me, but also, Abide in my love. Of the abiding in him the principal part is the entering into and dwelling and being rooted in that wonderful love with which he loves us and gives himself to us. Love seeketh not its own. It always goes out of itself to live and be at one with the beloved. It ever opens itself and stretches its arms wide to receive and hold fast the object of its desire. Christ's love longs to possess us. The abiding in Christ is an intensely personal relationship, the losing ourselves in the fellowship of an infinite love, finding our life in the experience of being loved by him, being nowhere at home but in his love. To reveal this life in his love to us in all its divine beauty and blessedness, Jesus tells us that this love of his to us in which we are to abide is just the same as the Father's love to him in which he abides. Surely, if anything were needed to make the abiding in his love more wonderful or detractive, this ought to do so. One as the Father loved me, so have I loved you, abide in my love. Our life may be Christlike, unspeakably blessed in the consciousness of an infinite love embracing and delighting in us. We know how this was the secret of Christ's wonderful life and his strength in prospect of death. At his baptism the voice was heard, the divine message which the Spirit brought and unceasingly maintained in living power. This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased. More than once we read the Father loveth the Son, John 3.35 and 5.20. Christ speaks of it as his highest blessedness, that the world may know that Thou hast loved them even as Thou hast loved me, Thou lovest me before the foundation of the world, that the love wherewith Thou lovest me may be in them. Just as we day by day walk and live in the light of the Son shining around us, so Jesus just lived in the light of the glory of the Father's love shining on him all the day. It was as the beloved of God that he was able to do God's will and finish his work. He dwelt in the love of the Father. And just so we are the beloved of Jesus, even as the Father loved him, he loves us. And what we need is just to take time and shutting our eyes to all around us, to worship and to wait until we see the infinite love of God in all its power and glory streaming forth upon us through the heart of Jesus, seeking to make itself known and to get complete possession of us, offering itself to us as a home and resting place. Oh, if the Christian would but take time to let the wondrous thought fill him, I am the beloved of the Lord. Jesus loves me every moment just as the Father loved him, how the faith would grow that one who is loved as Christ was must walk as he walked. But there is a second point in the comparison. Not only is the love we are to abide in like that in which he abode, but the way to our abiding is the same as his. As Son, Christ was in the Father's love when he came into the world, but it was only through obedience he could secure its continued enjoyment, could abide in it. Nor was this an obedience that cost him nothing. No, but it was in giving up his own will and learning obedience by what he suffered in becoming obedient unto the death, even the death of the cross, that he kept the Father's commandments and abode in his love. Therefore, doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life. This commandment have I received of my Father. The Father hath not left me alone, for I do always those things that please him. And having thus given us his example, and proved how surely the part of obedience takes us up into the presence and love and glory of God, he invites us to follow him. If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love, even as I kept my Father's commandments and abide in his love. Christ-like obedience is the way to a Christ-like enjoyment of love divine. How it secures our boldness of access into God's presence. Let us love indeed and in truth, hereby we shall assure our hearts before him. Beloved, if our heart condemn us not, then have we confidence towards God, and whatever we ask we receive of him because we keep his commandments and do those things that are pleasing in his sight. How it gives us boldness before men, and lifts us above their approval or contempt, because we move at God's bidding and feel that we have but to obey orders. And what boldness too, in the face of difficulty or danger, we are doing God's will and dare leave to him all responsibility as to failure or success. The heart filled with the thought of direct and entire obedience to God alone rises above the world into the will of God, into the place where God's love rests on him. Like Christ he has his abode in the love of God. It has seeked to learn from Christ what it means to have this spirit of obedience ruling our life. It implies the spirit of dependence, the confession that we have neither the right nor the desire in anything to do our own will. It involves teachableness of spirit, conscious of the blinding influence of tradition and prejudice and habit, it takes its law not from men, but from God himself, conscious of how little the most careful study of the word can reveal God's will in its spiritual power, it seeks to be led, and for this end, to be entirely under the rule of the Holy Spirit. It knows that its views of truth and duty are very partial and deficient, and counts on being led by God himself to deeper insight and higher attainment. It has marked God's word, if thou wilt diligently hearken to the voice of the Lord thy God, and wilt do that which is right in his sight, and understood that it is only when the commands do not come from conscience or memory or the book, but from the living voice of the Lord, heard speaking through the spirit, that the obedience will be possible and acceptable. It sees that it is only as a following out of the Father's personal directions, and as a service rendered to himself, that obedience has its full value and brings its full blessing. Its great care is to live on the altar, given up to God, to keep eye and ear open to God for every indication of his blessed will. It is not content with doing right for its own sake, it brings everything in personal relation to God himself, doing it as unto the Lord. It wants every hour and every step in life to be a fellowship with God. It longs in little things and daily life to be consciously obeying the Father, because this is the only way to be prepared for higher work. Its one desire is the glory of God in the triumph of his will. Its one means for obtaining that desire with all its heart and strength to be working out that will each moment of the day. And its one but sufficient reward is this. It knows that through the will of God lies the road, opened up by Christ himself, deeper into the love of God. If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love. O this blessed Christ-like obedience leading to a Christ-like abiding in the divine love. To attain it we must just study Christ more. He emptied himself and humbled himself and became obedient. May he empty us and humble us too. He learned obedience in the school of God, and being made perfect became the order of eternal salvation to all that obey him. We must yield ourselves to be taught obedience by him. We just need to listen to what he has told us, how he did nothing of himself but only what he saw and heard from the Father, how entire dependence and continual waiting on the Father was the root of implicit obedience, and this again the secret of ever-growing knowledge of the Father's deeper secrets. John chapter 5, verses 19 and 20, see fifteenth day. God's love and man's obedience are there as the lock and key fitting into each other. It is God's grace that has fitted the key to the lock. It is man who uses the key to unlock the treasures of love. In the light of Christ's example and words what new meaning comes to God's words spoken to his people from of old. In blessing I will bless thee, and in multiplying I will multiply thee, because thou hast obeyed my voice. If ye will indeed obey my voice ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto me. The Lord shall greatly bless thee, if thou only carefully hearken unto the voice of the Lord thy God to observe to do all these commandments. Love and obedience indeed become the two great factors in the wonderful intercourse between God and man, the love of God giving himself and all he has to man, the obedience of the believer in that love giving himself and all he has to God. We have heard a good deal in these later years of full surrender and entire consecration, and thousands praise God for all the blessing he has given them through these words. Only let us beware that we be not led too much in connection with them to seek for a blessed experience to be enjoyed or a state to be maintained while the simple downright doing of God's will to which they point is overlooked. Let us take hold and use this word which God loves to use, obedience. To obey is better than sacrifice. Self-sacrifice is nothing without, is nothing but obedience. It was the meek and lowly obedience of Christ as of a servant and a sum that made his sacrifice such a sweet smelling savor. It is humble, childlike obedience, first hearkening gently to the Father's voice, and then doing that which is right in his sight that will bring us the witness that we please him. Dear reader, shall not this be our life, so simple and sublime, obeying Jesus and abiding in his love? O my God, what shall I say to the wonderful interchange between the life of heaven and the life of earth thou hast said before me? Thy Son, our Blessed Lord, has shown and proved to us how it is possible on this earth of ours, and how unspeakably blessed for a man to live with the love of God always surrounding him, by just yielding himself to obey thy voice and will. And because he is ours, our head and life, we know that we can indeed in our measure live and walk as we see him do, our souls every moment abiding and rejoicing in thy divine love, because thou acceptest our feeble keeping of thy commandments for his sake. O my God, it is indeed too wonderful that we are called to this Christlike dwelling in love through the Christlike obedience thy spirit works. Blessed Jesus, how can I praise thee for coming and bringing such a life on earth and making me a sharer in it? O my Lord, I can only yield myself afresh to keep thy commandments as thou didst keep the Father's. Lord, only impart to me the secret of thine own blessed obedience, the open air, the watchful eye, the meek and lowly heart, the childlike giving up of all as the beloved Son to the beloved Father. Saviour, fill my heart with thy love. In the faith and experience of that love I will do it too. Yes, Lord, this only be my life, keeping thy commandments and abiding in thy love. Amen. End of twenty-seventh day, twenty-eighth day of Like Christ by Andrew Murray. This Librivox recording is in the public domain. Like Christ led by the spirit. And Jesus, being full of the Holy Spirit, returned from Jordan and was led by the spirit into the wilderness, Luke chapter four verse one. Be filled with the spirit, Ephesians chapter five verse eighteen. For as many as are led by the spirit of God, they are the sons of God. Romans chapter eight verse fourteen. From his very birth the Lord Jesus had the spirit dwelling in him. But there were times when he needed special communications of the spirit from the Father. Thus it was with his baptism. The descent of the Holy Spirit on him, the baptism of the spirit given in the baptism with water, was a real transaction. He was filled with the Holy Spirit. He returned from the Jordan full of the Holy Spirit and experienced more manifestly than ever the leading of the spirit. In the wilderness he wrestled and conquered, not in his own divine power but as a man who was strengthened and led by the Holy Spirit. In this also he was in all things made like unto his brethren. The other side of the truth also holds good. The brethren are in all things made like unto him. They are called to live like him. This is not demanded from them without their having the same power. This power is the Holy Spirit dwelling in us whom we have of God. Even as Jesus was filled with the spirit and then led by the spirit so must we also be filled with the spirit and be led by the spirit. More than once in our meditations on the different traits of Christ's character it has seemed to us almost impossible to be like him. We have lived so little for it. We feel so little able to live thus. Let us take courage in the thought Jesus himself could only live thus through the spirit. It was after he was filled with the spirit that he was led forth by that spirit to the place of conflict and of victory. And this blessing is ours as surely as it was his. We may be filled with the spirit. We may be led by the spirit. Jesus who was himself baptized with the spirit to set us an example how to live has ascended into heaven to baptize us into the likeness with himself. He who would live like Jesus must begin here. He must be baptized with the spirit. What God demands from his children he first gives. He demands entire likeness to Christ because he will give us as he did Jesus the fullness of the spirit. We must be filled with the spirit. We have here the reason why the teaching of the imitation and likeness to Christ has so little prominence in the Church of Christ. Men sought it in their own strength with the help of some workings of the Holy Spirit. They did not understand that nothing less was needed than being filled with the spirit. No wonder that they thought that real conformity to Christ could not be expected of us because they had mistaken thoughts about being filled with the spirit. It was thought to be the privilege of a few and not the calling and duty of every child of God. It was not sufficiently realized that being filled with the spirit is a command to every Christian. Only when the Church first gives the baptism of the spirit and Jesus as the Saviour who baptizes with the spirit each one who believes in him their right place only then will likeness to Christ be sought after and attained. People will then understand and acknowledge to be like Christ we must be led by the same spirit and to be led by the spirit as he was we must be filled with the spirit. Nothing less than the fullness of the spirit is absolutely necessary to live a truly Christian Christ-like life. The way to arrive at it is simple. It is Jesus who baptizes with the spirit. He who comes to him desiring it will get it. All that he requires of us is the surrender of faith to receive what he gives. The surrender of faith. What he asks is whether we are indeed in earnest to follow in his footsteps and for this to be baptized of the spirit. Do not let there be any hesitation as to our answer. First look back on all the glorious promises of his love and of his spirit in which the blessed privilege is set forth. Even as I ye also. Remember that it was of this likeness to himself in everything he said to the Father the glory which thou gavest me have I given them. Think how the love of Christ and the true desire to please him how the glory of God and the needs of the world plead with us not through our sloth to despise this heavenly birthright of being Christ-like. Acknowledge the sacred right of ownership Christ has in you his blood-bought ones and let nothing prevent your answering. Yes, dear Lord, as far as is allowed to a child of dust I will be like thee. I am entirely thine. I must, I will in all things bear thy image. It is for this that I ask to be filled with the spirit. The surrender of faith. Only this but nothing less than this he demands. Let us give what he asks. If we yield ourselves to be like him in all things let it be in the quiet trust that he accepts and at once begins in secret to make the spirit work more mightily in us. Let us believe it although we do not at once experience it. To be filled with the Holy Spirit we must wait on our Lord in faith. We can depend upon it that his love desires to give us more than we know. Let our surrender be made in this assurance. And let this surrender of faith be entire. The fundamental law of following Christ is this. He who loses his life shall find it. The Holy Spirit comes to take away the old life and to give in its place the life of Christ in you. Renounce the old life of self-working and self-watching and believe that as the air you breathe renews your life every moment so naturally and continually the Holy Spirit will renew your life. In the work of the Holy Spirit in you there are no breaks or interruptions. You are in the spirit as your vital air. The spirit is in you as your life breath. Through the spirit God works in you both to will and to do according to his good pleasure. O Christian have a deep reverence for the work of the spirit who dwells within you. Believe in God's power which works in you through the spirit to conform you to Christ's life and image moment by moment. Be occupied with Jesus and his life, that life which is at the same time your example and your strength in the full assurance that the Holy Spirit knows in deep quiet to fulfill his office of communicating Jesus to you. Remember that the fullness of the spirit is yours in Jesus, a real gift which you accept and hold in faith even when there is not such feeling as you could wish and on which you count to work in you all you need. The feeling may be weakness and fear and much trembling and yet the speaking and working and living in demonstration of the spirit and of power. 1 Corinthians chapter 2 verses 3 and 4 Live in the faith that the fullness of the spirit is yours and that you will not be disappointed if looking unto Jesus you rejoice every day in the blessed trust that the care of your spiritual life is in the hands of the Holy Spirit, the Comforter. Thus with the loving presence of Jesus in you the living likeness to Jesus will be seen on you. The spirit of life in Christ Jesus dwelling within the likeness of the life of Jesus will shine around. And if it do not appear that sin thus believing and obeying your desires are fulfilled remember that it is in the fellowship with the members of Christ's body and in the full surrender to Christ's service in the world that the full power of the spirit is made manifest. It was when Jesus gave himself to enter into full fellowship with men around him and like them to be baptised with water that he was baptised with the Holy Ghost. And it was when he had given himself in his second baptism of suffering a sacrifice for us that he received the Holy Spirit to give us. Seek fellowship with God's children who will with thee plead and believe for the baptism of the Spirit. The disciples received the Spirit not singly but when they were with one accord in one place. Band thyself with God's children around thee to work for souls. The Spirit is the power from on high to fit for that work. The promise will be fulfilled to the believing servants who want him not for their enjoyment but for that work. Christ was filled with the Spirit that he might be fitted to work and live and die for us. Give thyself to such a Christ-like living and dying for men that thou mayest depend on it a Christ-like baptism of the Spirit a Christ-like fullness of the Spirit will be thy portion. Blessed Lord, how wondrously thou has provided for our growing likeness to thyself in giving us thine own Holy Spirit. Thou has told us that it is his work to reveal thee to give us thy real presence within us. It is by him that all that thou hast won for us all the life and holiness and strength we see in thee is brought over and imparted and made our very own. He takes of thine and shows it to us and makes it ours. Blessed Jesus, we do thank thee for the gift of the Holy Spirit. And now we beseech thee, fill us. O fill us full with thy Holy Ghost. Lord, nothing less is sufficient. We cannot be layered like thee. We cannot fight and conquer like thee. We cannot love and serve like thee. We cannot live and die like thee. Unless, like thee, we are full of the Holy Ghost. Blessed, blessed be thy name. Thou hast commanded, thou hast promised it. It may, it can, it shall be. Holy Saviour, draw thy disciples together to wait and plead for this. Let their eyes be opened to see the wondrous unfulfilled promises of floods of the Holy Spirit. Let their hearts be drawn to give themselves like thee to live and die for men. And we know it will be thy delight to fulfill thine office as he that baptizes with the Holy Ghost and with fire. Glory be to thy name. Amen. End of 28th day. 29th day of Like Christ by Andrew Murray. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Like Christ in his life through the Father. Even as I live by the Father, so he that eateth me, even he shall live by me. John chapter 6 verse 57. Every contemplation of a walk in the footsteps of Christ and in his likeness reveals anew the need of fixing the eye on the deep living union between the forerunner and his followers. Like Christ, the longer we meditate on the word, the more we realize how impossible it is without that other, in Christ. The outward likeness can only be the manifestation of a living inward union. To do the same works as Christ I must have the same life. The more earnestly I take him for my example, the more I am driven to him as my head. Only an inner life essentially like his can lead us to a visible walk like his. What a blessed word we have here to assure us that his life on earth and ours are really like each other. Even as I live by the Father, so he that eateth me, even he shall live by me. If you desire to understand your life in Christ, what he will be for you and how he will work in you, you have only to contemplate what the Father was for and how he worked in him. Christ's life in and through the Father is the image and the measure of what your life in and through the Son may be. Let us meditate on this. As Christ's life was a life hidden in God in heaven, so must ours be. When he emptied himself of his divine glory, he laid aside the free use of his divine attributes. He needed thus as a man to live by faith. He needed to wait on the Father for such communications of wisdom and power as it pleased the Father to impart to him. He was entirely dependent on the Father. His life was hid in God. Not in virtue of his own independent Godhead, but through the operations of the Holy Spirit he spoke and acted as the Father from time to time taught him. Exactly so, believer, must your life be hid with Christ in God. Let this encourage you. Christ calls you to a life of faith and dependence because it is the life he himself led. He has tried it and proved its blessedness. He is willing now to live over again his life in you, to teach you also to live in no other way. He knew that the Father was his life and that he lived through the Father and that the Father supplied his need moment by moment. And now he assures you that as he lived through the Father, even so you shall live through him. Take this assurance in faith. Let your heart be filled with the thought of the blessedness of this fullness of life which is prepared for you in Christ and will be abundantly supplied as you need it. Do not think any more of your spiritual life as something that you must watch over and nourish with care and anxiety. Rejoice every day that you need not live on your own strength but in your Lord Jesus even as he lived through his Father. Even as Christ's life was a life of divine power, although a life of dependence, so ours will also be. He never repented having laid aside his glory to live before God as a man upon earth. The Father never disappointed his confidence. He gave him all he needed to accomplish his work. Christ experienced that, blessed as it was to be like God in heaven and to dwell in the enjoyment of divine perfection, it was no less blessed to live in the relation of entire dependence on earth and to receive everything day by day from his hands. Believer, if you will have it so, your life can be the same. The divine power of the Lord Jesus will work in and through us. Do not think that your earthly circumstances make a holy life to God's glory impossible. It was just to manifest in the midst of earthly surroundings which were even more difficult the divine life that Christ came and lived on earth. As he lived so blessed an earthly life through the Father, may ye also live your earthly life through him. Only cultivate large expectations of what the Lord will do for you. Let it be your sole desire to attain to an entire union with him. It is impossible to say what the Lord Jesus would do for a soul who is truly willing to live as entirely through him as he through the Father. Because just as he lived through the Father made that life with all its work so glorious so will you experience in all your work how entirely he has undertaken to work all in you. As the life of Christ was the manifestation of his real union with the Father, so ours also. Christ says, even as the Father has sent me and I live by the Father. When the Father desired to manifest himself on earth in his love he could entrust that work to no one less than his beloved Son who was one with him. It was because he was some that the Father sent him. It was because the Father had sent him that it could not be otherwise, but he must care for his life. In the union upon which the mission rested rested the blessed certainty that Jesus would live on earth through the Father. Even so Christ said, he that eateth me, liveth by me. He had said before, he that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood, dwelleth in me and I in him. In death he had given his flesh and blood for the life of the world. Through faith the soul partakes of the power of his death and resurrection and receives its right to his life as he had a right to his Father's life. In the words who so ever eateth me is expressed the intimate union and unbroken communion with the Lord Jesus which is the power of a life in him. The one great work for the soul who truly longs to live entirely and only by Christ is to eat him, daily to feed on him, to make him his own. See note. To attain this seek continually to have your heart filled with a believing and a lively assurance that all Christ's fullness of life is truly yours. Rejoice in the contemplation of his humanity in heaven and the wonderful provision God has made through the Holy Spirit for the communication of this life of your head in heaven to flow unbroken and unhindered down upon you. Thank God unceasingly for the redemption in which he opened the way to the life of God and for the wonderful life now provided for you in the sun. Offer yourself unreservedly to him with an open heart and consecrated life that seeks his service alone. In such trust and consecration of faith in the outpouring of love and cultivation of communion with his words abiding in you let Jesus be your daily food. He who eateth me shall live by me. Even as the Father has sent me and I live by the Father. Beloved Christian what think you? Does not the imitation of Christ begin to seem possible in the light of this promise? He who lives through Christ can also live like him. Therefore let this wonderful life of Christ on earth through the Father be the object of our adoring contemplation until our whole heart understands and accepts the word even so he who eateth me shall live through me. Then we shall dismiss all care and anxiety because the same Christ who set us the example works in us from heaven that life which can live out the example and our life will become a continual song to him who lives in us in order that we might live like him be the love and praise of our hearts. Amen. Oh my God! How shall I thank thee for this wonderful grace? Thy Son became man to teach us the blessedness of a life of human dependence on the Father. He lived through the Father. It has been given us to see in him how the divine life can live and work and conquer on earth. And now he is ascended into heaven and has all power to let that life work in us. I call to live even as he did on earth. We live through him. Oh God! Praise be thy name for this unspeakable grace. Lord, my God! Hear the prayer that I now offer to thee. If it may be show me more, much more of Christ's life through the Father. I need to know it, oh my God, if I am to live as he did. Oh, give me the spirit of wisdom in the knowledge of him. Then shall I know what I might expect from him, what I can do through him. It will then no longer be a struggle and an effort to live according to thy will and his example. Because I shall then know that this blessed life on earth is now mine according to the word even as I through the Father so ye through me. Then shall I daily feed upon Christ I live through him. Oh, my Father, grant this in full measure for his namesake. Amen. Note though the words of our Lord Jesus in the sixth of John were not spoken directly of the Lord's Supper they are yet applicable to it because they set forth that spiritual blessing of which the Holy Supper is the communication in a visible form. In eating the bread and the wine our spiritual life is not only strengthened because therein the pardon of our sins is signified and sealed to us but because the Holy Spirit does indeed make us partakers of the very body and blood of our Lord Jesus as a spiritual reality. So one of our reformed church catechisms the Heidelberg puts it what is it then to eat the broken body and drink the shed blood of Christ? It is not only to embrace with a believing heart the sufferings and deaths of Christ and so to obtain the pardon of sin and eternal life but moreover also that we are united to his sacred body by the Holy Ghost who dwells both in Christ and in us so that we though Christ be in heaven and we on earth are nevertheless flesh of his flesh and bones of his bones. It is known that we are in our Protestant churches three views of the Lord's Supper on the one hand the Lutheran with its consubstantiation teaching that the body of our Lord is so present in the bread that even an unbeliever eats no longer only bread but the body of the Lord on the other the Zwinglian view according to which the effect of the sacrament is a very impressive exhibition of the truth that the death of Christ is to us what wine and bread are to the body and a very expressive confession of our faith in this truth and so of our interest in the blessings of that death as the Holy Spirit in the word speaks to us through the ear so in the sacrament through the eye Midway between these views is that of Calvin who strongly urges that there is in it a mysterious blessing not well to be expressed in words that it is not enough to speak of the life which the Spirit gives to our Spirit through faith but that there is a real communication by the Holy Spirit of the very flesh and blood of Jesus in heaven to our very body so that in virtue of this we are called members of his body and have his body in us as the seed of the spiritual body of the resurrection while avoiding on the one hand the sacramentarian view of a change in the bread it seeks to hold fast on the other the reality of a spiritual substantial participation of the very body and blood of our Lord Jesus this is not the place to enter on this more fully but I am persuaded that when a more scriptural view prevails as to the relation between body and Spirit it will not be thought strange to believe that without anything like a real presence in the bread itself we are indeed fed with the very body and blood of our Lord Jesus the body of our Lord is now a spiritual body transfigured and glorified into the spirit life of the heavenly world the spirit and the body in perfect unity and harmony so that now the Holy Spirit can freely dispense and communicate that body as he will our body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which dwelleth in us our bodies are members of Christ our mortal bodies are even now being quickened and prepared by the indwelling Spirit for the resurrection Romans 8 verse 11 why should it be thought strange that by the Holy Spirit the communion of the body of Christ so distinctly promised should be not an Old Testament symbol or shadow but a blessed heavenly reality Calvin's words are as follows I am not satisfied with the view of those who while acknowledging that we have some kind of communion with Christ only make us partakers of the Spirit omitting all mention of flesh and blood in his humanity also the fullness of life resides so that everyone who communicates in his flesh and blood at the same time enjoys the participation of life the flesh of Christ is like the male fountain which transfuses into us the life flowing forth from the Godhead into itself the communion of the flesh and blood of Christ is necessary to all who aspire to the Christian life hence these expressions the church is the body of Christ our bodies are the members of Christ we are members of his body of his flesh and his bones what our mind does not comprehend let faith receive that the Spirit unites things separated by space that sacred communion of flesh and blood by which Christ transfuses his life into us just as if it penetrated our bones and marrow he testifies and seals in the supper not by representing a vain or empty sign but by these exerting an efficacy of the Spirit by which he fulfills what he promises I willingly admit anything to express the true and substantial communication of the body and blood of the Lord as exhibited to believers under the sacred symbols of the supper understanding that they are not received by the imagination or the intellect merely but are enjoyed in reality as the food of eternal life we say that Christ descends to us as well by the external simple as by his Spirit that he may truly quicken our souls by the substance of his flesh and blood such as the corporal presence which the sacrament requires and which we say is here displayed in such power and efficacy that it not only gives our minds undoubted assurance of heavenly life but also secures the immortality of our flesh end of quote from Calvin to the soul who seeks fully to live by Christ as he did by the Father the sacrament is a real spiritual blessing something more than what faith in the word gives let all the praying and believing and living in which we seek to realize the wonderful blessing of living just as Christ did by the Father ever culminate in our communion of the body and blood at the Lord's table and let us go forth from each such celebration with new confidence that what has been given and confirmed on the great day of the feast Jesus himself be maintained in power in the daily life through the more ordinary channels of his grace the blessed fellowship with himself in the word and prayer end of 29th day 30th day of like Christ by Andrew Murray this LibriVox recording is in the public domain like Christ in glorifying the Father Father the hour is come glorify thy son that thy son also may glorify thee I have glorified thee on the earth John chapter 17 verses 1 and 4 herein is my Father glorified that ye bear much fruit so shall ye be my disciples John chapter 15 verse 8 the glory of an object is that in its sort its intrinsic worth excellence answers perfectly to all that is expected of it that excellence or perfection may be so hidden or unknown that the object has no glory to those who behold it to glorify is to remove every hindrance and so to reveal the full worth and perfection of the object that its glory is seen and acknowledged by all the highest perfection of God and the deepest glory of Godhead is his holiness in it righteousness and love are united as the Holy One he hates and condemns sin as the Holy One he also frees the sinner from its power and raises him to communion with himself his name is the Holy One of Israel Thy Redeemer the song of redemption is great is the Holy One of Israel of the to the blessed spirit whose special work is to maintain the fellowship of God with man the title of Holy in the New Testament belongs more than to the Father or the Son it is this holiness judging sin and saving sinners which is the glory of God for this reason the two words are often found together so in the song of Moses who is like the glorious in holiness so in the song of the seraphim holy, holy, holy Lord God of hosts the whole earth is full of his glory and so in the song of the Lamb who shall not glorify Thy name for Thou only art holy as has been well said God's glory is his manifested holiness God's holiness is his hidden glory when Jesus came to earth it was that he might glorify the Father that he might again show forth in its true light and beauty that glory which sin had so entirely hid from man man himself had been created in the image of God that God might lay of his glory upon him to be shown forth in him that God might be glorified in him the Holy Ghost says man is the image and glory of God Jesus came to restore man to his high destiny he laid aside the glory which he had with the Father and came in our weakness and humiliation that he might teach us how to glorify the Father on earth God's glory is perfect and infinite man cannot contribute any new glory to God above what he has serve as a glass in which the glory of God is reflected God's holiness is his glory as the holiness of God is seen in him God is glorified his glory as God is shown forth Jesus glorified God by obeying him in giving his commandments to Israel God continually said be ye holy for I am holy in keeping them they would be transformed into a life of harmony with him they would enter into fellowship with him as the holy one in his conflict with sin and Satan in his sacrifice of his own will in his waiting for the Father's teaching in his unquestioning obedience to the word Christ show that he counted nothing worth living for but that men might understand what a blessed thing it is to let this holy God his will alone acknowledged and obeyed because he alone is holy his will alone should be done and so his glory be shown in us Jesus glorified God by confessing him he not only in his teaching made known the message God had given him and showed us who the Father is there is something far more striking he continually spoke of his own personal relation to the Father he did not trust to the silent influence of his holy life he wanted men distinctly to understand what the root and aim of that life was time after time he told them that he came as a servant sent from the Father that he depended upon him and owed everything to him that he only sought the Father's honor and that all his happiness was to please the Father his love and favor Jesus glorified God by giving himself for the work of his redeeming love God's glory is his holiness and God's holiness is his redeeming love love that triumphs over sin by conquering the sin and rescuing the sinner Jesus not only told of the Father being the righteous one whose condemnation must rest on sin by the one who saves everyone who turns from his sin but he gave himself to be a sacrifice to that righteousness a servant to that love even unto the death it was not only in acts of obedience or words of confession that he glorified God but in giving himself to magnify the holiness of God to vindicate at once his law and his love by his atonement he gave himself whole life and being himself holy to show how the Father loved and longed to bless how the Father must condemn the sin and yet would save the sinner he counted nothing too great a sacrifice he lived and died only for this that the glory of the Father the glory of his holiness of his redeeming love might break through the dark veil of sin and flesh as he himself expressed it in the last week of his life when the approaching anguish began to press in upon him now is my soul troubled and what shall I say Father, save me from this hour but for this came I into the world Father, glorify thy name and the assurance came that the sacrifice was well pleasing and accepted in the answer I have both glorified it and will glorify it again it was thus Jesus as man was prepared to have part in the glory of God he sought it in the humiliation on earth he found it on the throne of heaven and so he has become our forerunner leading many children to glory he shows us that the shoreway to the glory of God in heaven is to live only for the glory of God on earth yes, this is the glory of a life on earth glorifying God here we are prepared to be glorified with him forever beloved Christian is it not a wonderful calling blessed beyond all conception like Christ to live only to glorify God to let God's glory shine out in every part of our life let us take time to take in wondrous thought our daily life down to its most ordinary acts may be transparent with the glory of God oh, let us study this trait as one that makes the wondrous image of our Jesus especially attractive to us he glorified the Father let us listen to him as he points us to the high aim that your Father in heaven may be glorified and as he shows us the way Father glorified let us remember how he told us that when in heaven he answers our prayer this would still be his object and let in every breathing of prayer and faith it be our object too that the Father may be glorified in the Son let our whole life like Christ be animated by this as its ruling principle growing stronger until in a holy enthusiasm each word has become all, all to the glory of God and let our faith hold fast to confidence that in the fullness of the Spirit there is the sure provision for our desire being fulfilled know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit which is in you therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit if we want to know the way let us again study Jesus he obeyed the Father let simple downright obedience mark our whole life let a humble childlike waiting for direction a soldier like looking for orders a Christ like dependence on the Father showing us his way be our daily attitude let everything be done to the Lord according to his will for his glory in direct relationship to himself let God's glory shine out in the holiness of our life he confessed the Father he did not hesitate to speak often of his personal relationship and intercourse just as a little child would do of an earthly parent it is not enough that we live rights before men how can they understand if there be no interpreter they need not as a matter of preaching but as a personal testimony to hear that what we are and do because we love the Father and are living for him the witness of the life and the words must go together see note and he gave himself to the Father's work so he glorified him he showed sinners that God has a right to have us holy and only for himself that God's glory alone is worth living and dying for and that as we give ourselves to this God will most wonderfully bless us in leading others to see and confess his glory too it was that men might glorify the Father in heaven might find their blessedness also in knowing and serving this glorious God that Jesus lived and that we must live too oh let us give ourselves to God for men let us plead and work and live and die that men, our fellow men may see that God is glorious that the whole earth may be filled with his glory believer, the spirit of God and of glory the spirit of holiness rests upon you Jesus delights to do in you his beloved work of glorifying the Father fear not to say oh my Father in thy Son like thy Son I will only live to glorify thee oh my God show me thy glory I feel deeply how utterly impossible it is by any resolution or effort of mine to lift myself up or bind myself to live for thy glory alone but if thou wilt reveal unto me thy glory if thou wilt make all thy goodness past before me and show me how glorious thou art how there is no glory but thine if oh my Father thy glory shine into my heart and take possession of my inmost being I never will be able to do anything but glorify thee but live to make known what a glorious holy God thou art Lord Jesus who did come to earth to glorify the Father in our sight and ascend to heaven leaving us to do it now in thy name and stead oh give us by thy Holy Spirit a sight of how thou didst it teach us the meaning of thy obedience to the Father thine acknowledgement that at any cost his will must be done teach us to mark thy confession of the Father and how thou didst in personal testimony tell men of what he was to thee and what thou didst feel for him and let our lips too tell out what we taste of the love of the Father that men may glorify him and above all oh teach us that it is in saving sinners that redeeming love has its triumph and its joy that it is in holiness casting out sin that God has his highest glory and do thou so take possession of our whole hearts that we may love and labour live and die for this one thing that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father oh my Father let the whole earth let my heart be filled with thy glory amen note from a chapter on the example left us by Christ in a little book containing many precious thoughts steps on the upward path or holiness unto the Lord by A. M. James let us begin by considering what was the groundwork of the whole beauty and harmony of our blessed Saviour's character love to the Father was the ruling motive of his life it so pervaded his nature as to find expression directly or indirectly in every word as well as every action it will be well if we try to realise something of the perfect simplicity with which that love was so continually shown forth in daily life we especially need to remind ourselves of how entirely religious was the case because in these days of artificial manners and of false shame we are so frequently tempted to conceal our true motives and to think it a disgrace if we are led into any sign of betraying our deepest religious feelings we conceal them from those who would not understand them less per chance they should scorn our judgment and wound our self-respect and we too frequently even hide them from those who take mind with ourselves less they too might think us lacking in good taste self fears the slightest rebuke the merest breath of disapproval so long as our love to God is weak enough to allow of its being hidden self will carefully hide it rather than run the least risk of being considered deficient in discretion of true discretion which is a quite different thing we shall find abundant examples in our master's life but that false discretion which strives to divert notice not from ourselves but from the deepest principles of our conduct and in order to save our own selfish feelings from being wounded finds no counterpart whatever in the life of our Lord in his earthly nature as man Christ loved the Lord his God with all his heart and with all his strength and this all pervading love but not but assert itself continually our Lord simply and unhesitatingly referred to it as a simple fact whenever the slightest occasion for doing so arose it was his avowed object that the world should know that he loved the Father he frequently and emphatically alluded to his personal connection with the Father as the means by which he lived it was his consciousness of that union with him unfailing support Jesus Christ made known the Father's love he was sent that he might reveal the deep blessedness of belonging wholly to God even so we are sent each one of us into the world in order that we may make the Saviour known to those around us through our own intimate and personal connection with himself we are each one of us to reveal the Son even as he revealed the Father and this we can only do by acting as he did by continually proving how all sufficient is the sense of union with himself End of 30th day 31st day of Like Christ by Andrew Murray this LibriVox recording is in the public domain Like Christ in his glory we know that when he shall appear we shall be like him for we shall see him as he is and every man that hath this hope in him purifies himself even as he is pure 1st John chapter 3 verses 2 and 8 and I appoint unto you a kingdom even as my Father hath appointed unto me Luke chapter 22 verse 29 God's glory is his holiness to glorify God is to yield ourselves that God in us may show forth his glory it is only by yielding ourselves to be holy to let his holiness fill our life that his glory can shine forth from us the one work of Christ was to glorify the Father to reveal what a glorious holy God he is our one work is like Christ's so by our experience and testimony and life to make known our God as glorious in holiness that he may be glorified in heaven and earth when the Lord Jesus had glorified the Father on earth the Father glorified him with himself in heaven this was not only his just reward it was a necessity in the very nature of things there is no other place for a life given up to the glory of God as Christ was than in that glory the Lord holds good for us too a heart that yearns and thirsts for the glory of God that is ready to live and die for it becomes prepared and fitted to live in it living to God's glory on earth is the gate to living in God's glory in heaven if with Christ we glorify the Father the Father will with Christ glorify us too yes we shall be like him in his glory we shall be like him in his spiritual glory the glory of his holiness in the union of the two words in the name of the Holy Spirit we see that what is holy and what is spiritual stand in the closest connection with each other when Jesus as man had glorified God by revealing and honouring and giving himself up to his holiness as man taken up into and made partaker of the divine glory and so it will be with us if here on earth we have given ourselves to have God's glory take possession of us and God's holiness God's Holy Spirit dwell and shine in us then our human nature with all our faculties created in the likeness of God shall have poured into and transfused through it in a way that passes the perception, the purity and the holiness and the life the very brightness of the glory of God we shall be like him in his glorified body it has been well said embodiment is the end of the ways of God the creation of man was to be God's masterpiece there had previously been spirits without bodies and animated bodies without spirits but in man there was to be a spirit in a body lifting up and spiritualizing the body into its own heavenly purity and perfection man as a whole is God's image his body as much as his spirit in Jesus a human body mystery of mysteries is set upon the throne of God is found a worthy partner and container of the divine glory our bodies are going to be the objects of the most amazing miracle of divine transforming power he will fashion our vile body like unto his glorious body according to the working whereby he is able even to subdue all things unto himself the glory of God as seen in our bodies made like Christ's glorious body will be something almost more wonderful than in our spirits we are waiting for the adoption to wit the redemption of our body we shall be like him in his place of honor every object must have a fit place for its glory to be seen Christ's place is the central one in the universe the throne of God he spoke to his disciples where I am there shall my servant be if any man served me him will my father honor I appoint you a kingdom even as my father have appointed me that ye may eat and drink at my table and sit on thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel to the church at Thyatira he says he that over cometh and keepeth my words unto the end to him will I give power over the nations even as I received of my father and to the church at Leodicea to him that over cometh will I grant to sit on my throne even as I overcame and am set down with my father on his throne higher and closer it cannot be even as we have borne the image of the earthly we shall also of the heavenly the likeness will be complete and perfect such divine God-given glimpses into the future reveal to us more than all our thinking what intense truth what divine meaning there is in God's creative word let us make man in our image after our likeness to show forth the likeness of the invisible to be partaker of the divine nature to share with God his rule of the universe is man's destiny his place is indeed one of unspeakable glory standing between two eternities the eternal purpose in which we were predestinated to be conformed to the image of the first born son the eternal realisation of that purpose when we shall be like him in his glory we hear the voice from every side oh ye image-bearers of God on the way to share the glory of God and of Christ live a God-like live a Christ-like life I shall be satisfied when I awake with thy likeness so the psalmist's song of old nothing can satisfy the soul but God's image because for that it was created and this is not as something external to it only seen but not possessed it is as partaker of that likeness that we shall be satisfied blessed they who hear along for it with insatiable hunger they shall be filled this the very likeness of God this will be the glory streaming down on them from God himself streaming through their whole being streaming out from them through the universe when Christ who is our life shall be manifested we also shall be manifested with him in glory beloved fellow Christians nothing can be made manifest in that day that has not a real existence here in this life if the glory of God is not our life here it cannot be here after it is impossible to glorify God here can God glorify here after man is the image and glory of God it is as you bear the image of God here as you live in the likeness of Jesus who is the brightness of his glory and the express image of his person that you will be fitted for the glory to come if we are to be as the image of the heavenly the Christ in glory we must first bear the image of the earthly humiliation child of God Christ is the uncreated image of God man is his created image on the throne in the glory the two will be eternally one you know what Christ did how he drew near how he sacrificed all to restore us to the possession of that image oh shall we not at length yield ourselves to this wonderful love to this glory inconceivable and give our life holy to manifest the likeness and the glory of Christ shall we not like him make the Father's glory our aim and hope living to his glory here as the way to live in his glory there the Father's glory it is in this that Christ's glory and ours have their common origin let the Father be to us what he was to him Father's glory will be ours as it is his all the traits of the life of Christ converge to this as their centre he was Son he lived as Son God was to him Father as Son he sought the Father's glory as Son he found it oh let this be our conformity to the image of the Son that the Father is the all in all of our life the Father's glory our everlasting home beloved brethren who have accompanied me thus far in these meditations on the image of our Lord and the Christ-like life in which it is to be reflected the time is now come for us to part let us do so with the word we shall be like him for we shall see him as he is he who hath this hope in him purifies himself even as he is pure like Christ let us pray for each other and for all God's children that in ever-growing measure this may be the one aim of our faith the one desire of our heart the one joy of our life oh what will it be when we meet in the glory when we see him as he is and see each other all like him ever-blessed and most glorious God what thanks shall be rendered the glorious Gospel of Christ who is the image of God and for the light of thy glory which shines upon us in him and what thanks shall we render thee that in Jesus we have seen the image not only of thine but of our glory the pledge of what we are to be with thee through eternity oh God forgive us forgive us for Jesus' blood's sake that we have so little believe this and we beseech thee that thou wouldst reveal to all who have had fellowship with each other in these meditations what the glory is in which they are to live eternally in which they can be living even now as they glorify thee oh Father awaken us and all thy children to see and feel what thy purpose with us is we are indeed to spend eternity in thy glory thy glory is to be around us and on us and in us we are to be like thy son in his glory Father we beseech thee oh visit thy church let thy Holy Spirit the spirit of glory work mightily in her and let this be her one desire the one mark by which she is known the glory of God resting upon her our Father for Jesus' sake Amen End of 31st day