From some reading I was doing this morning, a great statement of how we Christians are sanctified and grow spiritually;
It is no good giving me a play like Hamlet or King Lear, and telling me to write a play like that. Shakespeare could do it; I can’t.
And it is no good showing me a life like the life of Jesus and telling me to live a life like that. Jesus could do it; I can’t.
But if the genuis of Shakespeare could come and live in me, then I could write plays like his.
And if the Spirit of Jesus could come and live in me, then I could live a life like his.
– William Temple, quoted in John Stott’s Radical Discipleship
Oh how true those words are! Far too many people fall into one of two errors; either they believe that their lives don’t have to look any different when they become Christians, and therefore live like the world (Shall we not sin, that grace may abound?), or they fight and struggle with all their might to live up to the Law and are constantly terrorized by the fact that they fall short (Oh, wretched man that I am!). In the above quote Temple makes two counter points. First, if we have the Spirit of Jesus in us, we will live lives that look different than the world around us (by no means! How shall we that have died to sin still live in it?). Second, that it is not based upon our own strength and power that we do so, but through the power of God at work in us (But thanks be to God, through our Lord Jesus Christ!).
Remember that fact, Christian. You will live like Christ because you have Christ in you. What a glorious thought that is!
No Comments