| The Best Things in Life |
Chapter 9 |
Page 5 |
What is the faith that has such power? It is the faith that so enters into Christ that it takes up into itself all the life of Christ, all that he is. It makes us one with him, so that where we are he is, his Spirit flowing through us. “Because I live, ye shall live also,” said the Master. St. Paul puts it in a wonderfully vivid way when he says, “It is not I that live, but Christ living in me.” This faith makes Christ and his friend not two, but one. It is this which enables him who believes to do impossible things. St. Paul says, “I can do all things in him that strengtheneth me.”
The standard of character which our Master sets for his followers is full of impossibilities. Did you ever seriously try to live the Sermon on the Mount for a week, or even for a day? Did you ever try to live the Beatitudes? If you did, you know how impossible these reaches of requirement seem. But when Christ enters into us and begins to live in us, we find that it is possible to begin to live out these impossible things.
Impossible things are expected of a Christian, just because he is a Christian. Anybody can do possible things. Possible things are the things of the ordinary natural life. It requires no heavenly grace, no divine strength, and no superhuman skill, to do possible things. But the Christian should do impossible things, should live a life of truth, purity, and holiness, as far above the world’s standard and reach as the sky is above the mountains. He should live a life of love, so patient, so thoughtful, so self denying, that it shall prove in the eyes of all who see it immeasurably above this world’s ideals of life. But we are satisfied with too low standards of Christian life. We are not as good as we ought to be. We are not as good as we might be. We are not doing the impossible things which our Master expects of us. Sometimes we read of heroisms wrought on mission fields. The careers of many missionaries are sublime in their faith, in their devotion, in their courage, in their readiness to lay down their lives for Christ. Our hearts are thrilled when we read the story of these faithful witnesses. They do impossible things, such things as none but Christians can do, because Christ is in them. He said, “Go, make disciples of all nations, and lo, I am with you.”
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