In the first place, it is a great point to get what is positively comely for the Christian. This is of all-importance. We take habits, customs, associations and the like from this world. We shall find in Scripture that to be conformed to this world is absolutely forbidden. Even in detail we are not to be conformed to this world—not merely to be outwardly unlike it, which is of no avail of course, but it is a positive commandment.
There is another thing. A Christian has a positive study —Christ. A Christian’s own mind is nothing; one is apt to get into the current and go with it. Everything in the world is made by the world and for the world. We are apt to get colored by it whereas the Christian that takes Christ—pleasing Christ, as the one thing, gets everything in; the common practice of life so done as to suit Him—he has the Word of God to direct him. A man cannot desire to be rich, according to the Word of God; you get a solemn warning against it—a Lot and a Demas. You cannot as a Christian follow dress; it is not comely. The Word of God condescends to think of the braiding of the hair, the wearing of gold, and the putting on of apparel—the smallest things in the world.
The most valuable precept for one who is in earnest is their doing everything in the name of the Lord Jesus. It is a common principle, “Do all in the name of the Lord Jesus”; “He that hath my commandments and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me.” It is not He that loveth me keepeth my commandments. One who has the commandments, becomes acquainted with what God likes. A child really! attached to his parents will have the commandments. His, thought and attention to the parent will make the child; attentive to what the parent likes. People like the world, because they are not thinking of Christ, but thinking of the world. They have not the commandments, because they are not thinking of the Lord Jesus Christ, but thinking of. themselves.
A person says—Come and see some sight. Can I go there in the name of the Lord Jesus? Of course I cannot. I must be pleasing Christ. Then I do not go. They say, What is the harm? The harm is that I am forgetting Christ to please myself. A child might say—What harm is there; in this or that? and the thing might be no harm in itself, but if it is what my father does not like, the harm is that it would show indifference to pleasing the person with whom I have to do.
There is another thing. When we get upon that ground the difficulty (very real to a heart that is thinking of itself)! is gone, totally gone. If I speak of a great sacrifice, why is it a great sacrifice? Because I loved it so well. A great struggle? That is because of the state of my soul. Supposing it is money or dress, it may be a struggle, but why? Because I love decking myself out. The thing is as simple; as possible. Where Christ really takes possession of the soul, the difficulty is gone. My heart cares for the thing. The conscience says, You ought to do this or that, but the heart does not chime in. The word has reached the conscience, but it has not reached the heart. I believe it is of importance there should be the manifestation of the life of Jesus in our bodies. You will see how it is, treated as easy.
Look at Heb. 12. I am running a race. That is a weight in your race; lay it aside, a comfortable way of getting rid of everything there could be to hinder, Suppose my whole heart is set upon the race, and I am running with a cloak on that I have cared a good deal for: I like the cloak, but it is a great, heavy one. If I am thinking of the race I do not trouble myself about the hindering cloak; to throw it off is an easy way of getting rid of it. If I love my cloak I lose the race. “I lay aside every weight.” It is the simpest thing in the world, “and the sin that doth so easily beset us,” entanglement of the feet. The question is, whether the heart is really in the race. Now turn to Phil. 3, where the heart is earnestly, positively, and devotedly in the race. There is an active energy and divine grace in us that seeks to be like Him. “What things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ.” There is no great sacrifice in giving up dross and dung. If the flesh is not kept down, there is conflict; but supposing that to be the case, there is no great sacrifice about it. The real power is just that, only there must be purpose of heart in the race, that I may seek to “win Christ.”
“When he shall appear, we shall be like him.” It is faith and hope that make us run always, even in this life. You hope for a crop—you sow. It is always the thing hoped for that characterizes the man. He has hoped for power—he is ambitious. The thing he has hoped for characterizes him, if he is a consistent, energetic man. If I am hoping to be like Christ, I shall get the character of being as like Christ as I can by the way. The rest is a weight, and the moment it gets the character of weight, it is the simplest thing possible to have done with it. The flesh has to be overcome because it likes these things,
You will see the double principle in 2 Cor. 4, where the apostle speaks of that. It is lovely to see how the Lord guides in it. “For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined into our hearts... (but) we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us.” Dependence is brought in-another important point. “Troubled on every side”—the vessel— “yet not distressed,” because God is there. “Perplexed”— there is the poor vessel— “but not in despair.”
“Persecuted”—the vessel— “but not forsaken,” for God is there. “Cast down”—that is the vessel, “but not destroyed.”
Then you get “always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body.” I get the constant mind of the apostle—that is, that while he reckoned his flesh dead as to his place before God, still he had as regards his path, always to hold it dead. Here we get faithfulness in it, “always bearing about in the body;” the dying of the Lord Jesus was applied practically to the flesh, and it was never allowed to stir. I must hold it dead if I am going through this world. Not only holding himself dead, but “delivered unto death for Jesus’ sake, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our mortal flesh.” There I get the spirit in which he walked, and God was dealing in constant unceasing grace.
If we are really in earnest seeking to glorify Christ, death works in us. It has worked for us, and the effect of death working in us is that nothing but the life of Christ works from us towards others.
If Christ is actually the object, everything else is but dross and an entanglement. I have nothing to do but throw it off. “God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, whereby the world is crucified to me and I unto the world.”
Well, I quite understand the flesh claims to have its part in I, but then I say—That will not do. If I can say, “It is not I but sin dwelleth in me,” it is all right. Wherever I works it is sin, except the second I—the new nature. We need not have had the last Adam if the first Adam could have been mended. It is easy to throw off a weight when it is only a weight. Not that there is no conflict, but it is easy when Christ is everything!
If a Christian is honest, it must be, whatever we do, “do all in the name of the Lord Jesus.” This will sweep away a lot of things, and so much the better!