Bought with A Price
We are bought with a price, we are not our own. In consequence of this-this perfect salvation-this finished work, I am no longer my own at all. Whatever I do, I should "do all in the name of the Lord Jesus." I am in a new place altogether, into which I have been brought by perfect love in divine righteousness. I am in the presence of God Himself, in the full light and favour of God. We have power now, the power of the Holy Ghost; and the Christian is set in this world to show what Christ was: "He that saith he abideth in him, ought himself also to walk even as he walked,"-"Always bearing about in the body the dying of Jesus, that the life also of Jesus may be made manifest in our body."
There are thousands of things we do from habit, and we say we must do them. There is no "must" for me but Christ’s will. I have to learn what His will is; for we are made epistles of Christ, and the path we are to walk in is to manifest the life of Jesus in our bodies. Everything I do should be the expression of the allegiance of my heart to Christ, and the manifestation of Him to others. The standard of walk is, what is "worthy of the Lord," not of a man. Sometimes it is very difficult to be peaceful, patient, gentle, when a man wrongs and insults me. But were you not an enemy of God, and did not God forgive you when you were His enemy? Well, you forgive your enemy. I quite understand the difficulties, but we have the blessed privilege of walking "as he walked." If you want to do this, go and study Christ, learn what His path was down here, after you have learned your place in Him on high. It is a great comfort that in looking at Christ, I not only see the thing I ought to be, but get the thing I ought to be-"grace for grace." "We all, with open face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image, from glory to glory." There is real growth there, not in fitness and acceptance, but in likeness to Christ, and it ought to be growth every instant. We are in this place of Christ then before God, and what I would press upon you is to study Christ, so that we may be like Him here. There is nothing that so fills the soul with blessing and encouragement, or that so sanctifies; nothing which so gives the living sense of divine love; that gives us courage. The Lord give us this courage, and enable us to study HIM. "He that eateth me, even he shall live by me."
