[478]As Jesus is the Son of God, so the church, the bride of Christ, is the daughter of God. Hence the Psalmist speaks to her here, inviting those who are to become the daughter to forget their own people and their earthly father's house and earnestly and willingly follow in the Master's footsteps. These are invited to worship the Lord and grow in his likeness and thereby become beautiful; and it is that beauty, the character-likeness of the Lord, that he desires. DEVELOPMENT [479]The development of the church is not an instantaneous matter. It is a gradual process. Some have erroneously thought and taught that a man might be wicked all his life and then on his deathbed confess his sins, accept Christ, become a Christian and die and go immediately to heaven. There is no Scripture that warrants such a conclusion. Time is required for the development of the Christian. He must first repent; that is to say, become displeased with the wrongful course of the world, change his own course and seek the Lord. He must become converted, turn away from a wrongful course and turn to the Lord. He must be drawn to the Lord Jesus, make a full consecration, be accepted of the Lord, presented to the Father, justified, and begotten of the holy spirit, before he becomes a new creature; and from that time forward he must develop. He must have the opportunity to pass through, and must pass through, many experiences and by these experiences learn the lessons that God desires the members of the new creation to learn. [480]A boy or a girl in school who is being trained for a special purpose is required to have some hard mental exercise in order to develop the mind. For this reason many mathematical problems are required of the pupil; and other lessons are required to develop the mental faculties. One who is training for a race or other physical contest is required to have some strenuous experiences. With stronger reasoning are these principles true relative to the members of the new creation. These are being trained for the high and exalted position of membership in the royal family of heaven. Hence we may not be surprised to find often that their training is quite severe. The understanding of this requirement enables one to appreciate why Christians have never been popular and why they have suffered so much during the past nineteen centuries.