You are called to likeness with Christ. Oh, how many Christians strive
after this part and that part of the likeness of Christ, and forget the
root of the whole! What is the root of all? That Christ gave Himself up
utterly to God, and His Kingdom and glory. He gave His life, that God's
Kingdom might be established. Do you the same to-day and give your life to
God to be every moment a living sacrifice, and the Kingdom will come with
power into your heart. Give yourself up to Christ. Let Christ the King
reign in your heart, and the heavenly Kingdom will come there and the
Presence and the Rule of God be known in power. Oh, think of that wonderful
thing that is going to happen in the great eternity. We read of it in 1st
Corinthians: God has entrusted Christ with the Kingdom, but there is coming
a day when Christ shall come Himself again to be subjected unto the Father,
and He shall give up the Kingdom to the Father, that God may be all, and in
that day Christ shall say before the universe: "This is my glory, I give
back the Kingdom to the Father!" Christians, if your Christ finds His glory
here on earth in dying and sacrificing Himself for the Kingdom and then in
eternity again in giving the Kingdom to God, shall not you and I come to
God to do the same and count anything we have as loss, that the Kingdom of
God may be made manifest, and that God may be glorified.
CHRIST OUR LIFE.
VI.
_Colossians 3: 4_.--_Christ who is our life_.
One question that rises in every mind is this: "How can I live that life
of perfect trust in God?" Many do not know the right answer, or the full
answer. It is this: "Christ must live it in me." That is what He became man
for; as a man to live a life of trust in God, and so to show to us how we
ought to live. When He had done that upon earth, He went to heaven, that
He might do more than show us, might give us, and live in us that life of
trust. It is as we understand what the life of Christ is and how it becomes
ours, that we shall be prepared to desire and to ask of Him that He would
live it Himself in us. When first we have seen what the life is, then we
shall understand how it is that He can actually take possession, and make
us like Himself. I want especially to direct attention to that first
question. I wish to set before you the life of Christ as He lived it, that
we may understand what it is that He has for us and that we can expect from
Him. Christ Jesus lived a life upon earth that He expects us literally to
imitate. We often say that we long to be like Christ. We study the traits
of His character, mark His footsteps, and pray for grace to be like Him,
and yet, somehow, we succeed but very little. And why? Because we are
wanting to pluck the fruit while the root is absent. If we want really to
understand what the imitation of Christ means, we must go to that which
constituted the very root of His life before God. It was a life of absolute
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