It is, therefore, a characteristic of believing in Jesus that we bring our “deeds to _His light_ that it may be made manifest that they are wrought in God.” Jesus was “_the Light_” but His precepts and example—all, in fact, that He did and taught—are so many lights derived from Him; as well as the light of the Holy Ghost or Comforter, who shines in our hearts to give “us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” (2 Cor. iv. 6); and this bringing our deeds to the light includes trying them by His words and example;—the precepts taught by His Apostles, as well as by the Holy Spirit itself,—that by any or all of these accordant tests it may be made clear whether they are according to the mind of Christ. “He that hath My commandments, and _keepeth them_, he it is _that loveth Me_. . . . He that _loveth Me not_, _keepeth not_ My sayings” (John xiv. 21, 24). We have a lively illustration of practical belief in the patriarchs of old, who, believing in God’s promises, and having seen them afar off, embraced them, and shaped their lives in conformity to them:—viz., “These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims in the earth. For they which say such things declare plainly that they seek . . . a better country—that is, a heavenly” (Heb. xi. 13, 14, 16). Believing in Christ, therefore, implies a belief that He is the Son of God, the Messiah, and Saviour of the world, the centre and spring of all our spiritual existence;—a belief in His _teaching expressed by_ shaping our lives and conversation in the world by it; accepting Him as our King, whose right it is to reign and rule in our hearts. He tells us that we must be “born again”—“born of the Spirit” (John iii. 3 and 6)—and the power to truly believe in Christ is coincident with this new birth, and indicative of it, when “the Holy Ghost or Comforter,” convincing us of sin, and of our alienation from God by it, enables us to look to Jesus as our Saviour and Redeemer. When, by the power of the same Spirit, we are enabled to lay aside our old works, thoughts, and propensities to evil, and walk by the rule of faith in the light of the Spirit of Christ. As we abide and walk therein, we shall “grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ;” bringing forth the fruits of the Spirit, which are set forth in Gal. v. 22, as “love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance; against such there is no law.” Again (2 Pet. i. 5–7), as—“Faith, virtue, knowledge, temperance, patience, godliness, brotherly kindness, and charity.”