Sit, Walk, Stand: The Process of Christian Maturity Read Online Free PDF Page A

in that kind of darkness, seeking to amass the virtues that I felt sure should make up the Christian life, and getting nowhere in the effort. And then one day—it was in the year 1933—light broke from heaven for me, and I saw Christ ordained of God to be made over to me in His fullness. What a difference! Oh the emptiness of “things”! Held by us out of relation to Christ, they are dead. Once we see this, it will be the beginning of a new life for us. Our holiness will be spelled thereafter with a capital H,our love with a capital L. He Himself is revealed as the answer in us to all God’s demands.
    Go back now to that difficult brother, but this time, before you go, address God thus: “Lord, it is clear to me at last that in myself I cannot love him at all; but I know now that there is a life within me, the life of thy Son, and that the law of that life is to love. It cannot but love him.” There is no need to exert yourself. Repose in Him. Count upon His life. Dare thus to go and see that brother and to speak to him—and here is the amazing thing! Quite unconsciously (and I would emphasize the word “unconsciously,” for the consciousness only comes afterwards) you find yourself speaking most pleasantly to him; quite unconsciously you love him; quite unconsciously you know him as your brother. You converse with him freely and in true fellowship, and on your return you find yourself saying with amazement, “Why, I did not exercise the least bit of anxious care just now, and yet I did not become in the least bit irritable! In some unaccountable way the Lord was with me, and His love triumphed.”
    The operation of His life in us is in a true sense spontaneous, that is to say, it is without effort of ours. The all-important rule is not to “try,” but to “trust,” not to depend upon our own strength, but upon His. For it is the flow of life which reveals what we truly are “in Christ.” It is from the Fountain of Life that the sweet water issues.
    Too many of us are caught acting as Christians. The life of many Christians today is largely a pretense. Theylive a “spiritual” life, talk a “spiritual” language, adopt “spiritual” attitudes, but they are doing the whole thing themselves. It is the effort involved that should reveal to them that something is wrong. They force themselves to refrain from doing this, from saying that, from eating the other—and how hard they find it all! It is just the same as when we Chinese try to talk a language that is not our own. No matter how hard we try, it does not come spontaneously; we have to force ourselves to talk that way. But when it comes to speaking our own language, nothing could be easier. Even when we forget all about what we are doing, we still speak it. It flows. It comes to us perfectly naturally, and its very spontaneity reveals to everyone what we are .
    Our life is the life of Christ, mediated in us by the indwelling Holy Spirit Himself, and the law of that life is spontaneous. The moment we see that fact, we shall end our struggling and cast away our pretense. Nothing is so hurtful to the life of a Christian as acting; nothing so blessed as when our outward efforts cease and our attitudes become natural—when our words, our prayers, our very life all become a spontaneous and unforced expression of the life within. Have we discovered how good the Lord is? Then in us He is as good as that! Is His power great? Then in us it is no less great! Praise God, His life is as mighty as ever, and in the lives of those who dare to believe the Word of God, the divine life will be manifest in a power not one whit less mighty than was manifest of old.
    What does our Lord mean when He says, “Except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no wise enter into the kingdom of heaven”? (Matt. 5:20). We have seen above how He goes on to set the contrast between the requirements of the Law of Moses and His own