Helps To Holy Living

Part Two

Faith

  "For ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus." Gal. 3:26. Faith is that which brings the soul in contact with God in Christ, and Christ is formed in man.[49]

  Faith in Christ identifies man with God. Heart faith works by love. By faith we love the unseen Christ. Faith is the faculty of spiritual touch. Faith is that energy by which the soul is attached in a vital union with God. It is by faith that the unseen is realized. It is by faith that the soul is brought in touch with the Infinite. Faith receives into itself that which is in Christ and mingles His life with its own. Faith brings virtue out of Him into our body or soul. It is just according to what faith has been exercised for. Faith is more than a chain that binds us to God; it unites God to us so that we are one. Faith fills the soul with God, and the soul filled with God finds every thing full of Him. Every event, every circumstance is a bush aflame with His glory. Faith associates God with every moment of time and every event of life. Faith puts the world with its vanities and vexations under our feet. Faith regards every foe as conquered. It refuses to look on circumstances. It will not be drawn aside from looking into the face of God.

Living by Faith

  "The just shall live by faith." Gal. 3:11. The sinner lives by sight; the saint lives by faith. This puts them into two different spheres of life. One lives in the world of seen things, while the other lives in the unseen world. One sees only the circumstances of every day life, while the other sees the hand of Providence in all circumstances. It makes a vast difference. By faith man lives above all earthly circumstances. He is not affected by "hard times." He lives up where all times are good times. The most abject poverty has no influence over his life. If he has no place to lay his head, he has a place to lay his heart and he is perfectly contented. Mountains of gold have no more influence over his life than the kingdoms of the world had over Jesus. He makes no more obeisance to the world at its offers of riches, honor, and pleasure than Jesus made to the devil at his offers of all the glory of the kingdoms of earth. Those who live by faith do not look around on material things. They live amid eternal things. They understand [50] that they are to use every thing that comes to them in life to help them on in the spiritual life. Those living by faith live under the influence of the unseen and not the seen.

Man's Worth

  "What is man, that thou art mindful of him?" Heb. 2:6. Man is of infinite worth. Not only is he of infinite worth to God, but he is of infinite worth to himself. When a man loses himself, he has lost all. When he finds himself, he finds all. Christ was not only the Son of God, but also the Son of man. He was born of the Holy Spirit and of woman. God finds Himself (we say it with profound reverence) when He finds man, and man finds himself when he finds God. The father finds himself in the child, and the child finds himself in the father. God has children in His loins, and in those that are born of Him He sees of the travail of His soul and is satisfied—He finds His completeness. There is something in God that yearns for man, and something in man that yearns for God. When they find one the other, they have found their fullness of joy, their fullness of fellowship, their fullness of glory. The greatest gift to man is God, and the greatest gift to God is man. You can give God no greater gift than the giving of yourself. God gave Himself to man that He might receive the gift of man to Himself. The cross of Christ is the measurement of man's worth to God. Man being crucified with Christ is the measure of God's worth to him.

The Christian

  "The disciples were called Christians first in Antioch." Acts 11:26. The Christian is man in his completeness. He is not something more than man, neither is he something less, but man in his perfect manhood. "Ye are complete in Him." The Christian is not an addition to man's manhood, but he is the true type of manhood. To not be a Christian is to be something less than man. Such are below the [51] standard. They are rejected. When man measures to the stature of the fullness of Christ, he also measures to the fullness of himself. He who does not measure to the fullness of Christ has not risen to the fullness of manhood. When we say, "Be a man," it means in the full sense, "Be a Christian." There is no difference between the laws of Christ written in the Gospel and those written in the heart and mind of man. The one answers to the other. Do you ever check up? When the Christian transgresses the law of the Gospel, he transgresses the law of his being. The life of a Christian is not the outflowing of the laws of the Gospel, but the outflowing of the laws of his own being, and since these are identically the same, the Christian life is an outward expression of Gospel law. Holy living is Gospel living.

Man's Kinship With God

  "I will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters." 2 Cor. 6:18. It is the kinship of father and son. It is God coming into humanity and the taking of humanity up into Himself. He stamps Himself with humanity and stamps humanity with Himself. Look at humanity in Christ and you will see what humanity ought to be. Look at Christ in humanity and you will see what Christ is. This may be a hard saying, but it is what man is in Christ. Christ is the Revealer of man, and saved man is the revealer of Christ. The Christian is the revealer of Christ not only on special or extraordinary occasions, but also in the smallest detail of life. Whether he speaks or acts, he does all in the name (life, character) of Christ. Look on the footprints Christ made through this world and you will see the pathway for the redeemed. Look on the pathway of the redeemed and you will see the footprints of the Savior. The redeemed "walk even as He walked." Jesus was filled with divinity and humanity, and man in Christ is fulfilled with humanity and divinity. Jesus was the fullness of man, and man in Him is the fullness of God. God and man are so united in Christ as to work together, walk together, suffer and rejoice together. This is holiness.[52]

God's Eternal Purpose

  "According to the eternal purpose which He purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord." Eph. 3:11. From the dawn of eternity God had a purpose in mind, and that purpose was to have a being that He could love to the fullest capacity of His love and with whom He could have perfect fellowship and most intimate communion. You, dear reader, are that being. This purpose was wrought out through Christ. That God might have His purpose realized He must bring man up to a perfect likeness of Himself. God loved man in his sins, but did not love him for what he then was, but for what he could become in Christ Jesus. The likeness of God was in Christ. The great task of God is the bringing of man up to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. To do this Christ Himself must be formed in man. Man becomes the likeness of God in Christ. God looks on the man in Christ and sees the fullest realization of His purpose. Christ Jesus came to save man. This is what salvation is— fellowship, likeness, communion with God. Salvation is in being like God. This is accomplished by Christ coming into the life of man and taking that life up into His own and making them one life. Christ and saved man are not two, they are one. This is the new creation.

Salvation

  "Mine eyes have seen thy salvation." Luke 2:30. Jesus is God's salvation for man—Jesus and none other. Salvation is more than saving man from all that is unlike Christ; it is also imparting to him all that is like Christ. It is Christ's and man's nature inwrought one in the other, making them of like nature. It is the transforming of man into the likeness of God. It is man attaining his true manhood. Salvation is manhood regained. Look at Christ and you will see what you ought to be and can be. Jesus became the Savior of men by giving Himself for men. Men are saved by giving themselves to the Savior. A saved man is one to whom the Savior has been given and one who has given himself to the Savior. They are of like nature. They [53] have perfect fellowship, blessed communion, and share everything in common. Each has what the other has. That which the man has belongs to Christ, and that which Christ has belongs to the man. Christ sups with the man and the man with Christ. Wherever you find the saved man you will also find Jesus there. They think, they speak they act together. They are one life. Christ is the life of the man, and the man's life is lived in by Christ. This is holy living—this is salvation.

Character

  "The express image of His person." Heb. 1:3. We do not have the word "character" in the King James' Version of the Bible, but had we got a direct rendering of the above text, it would have been "character" instead of "image." Christ was in the express character of the Father. Man can not serve two masters, but the fact is, he is serving one of two. There is none good but One; neither is there any that doeth good. All good that man does is done by the power of God. There is a spirit that works in the children of disobedience to the doing of wrong. Man is not free to do what he wills. He may will to do good and find he is not able to do it. He may sometimes will to do evil and find himself hindered. The only freedom man has is the power to choose which power shall work in him—the power of Christ, or the power of Satan. If man will yield his life to Christ, He will come in, dethroning the power of sin, and be the power in man to the doing of good. Character is not what we are by reason of what we do, but what we are by reason of what power is working in us. We do not build a Christian character by our own doing, but by accepting Christ and letting Him work in and through us to His own pleasure.[54]

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