Basic HTML Version
Jesus Our Perfect Pattern, August 1
He that saith he abideth in him ought himself also so to walk, even
as he walked.
1 John 2:6
.
We have before us the highest, holiest example. In thought, word,
and deed Jesus was sinless. Perfection marked all that He did. He points
us to the path that He trod, saying, “If any man will come after me, let
him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.”
Matthew 16:24
.
Christ unites in His person the fullness and perfection of the God-
head and the fullness and perfection of sinless humanity. He met all the
temptations by which Adam was assailed, and overcame these temp-
tations because in His humanity He relied upon divine power. This
subject demands far more contemplation than it receives. Christians
strike too low. They are content with a superficial spiritual experience,
and therefore they have only the glimmerings of light, when they might
discern more clearly the wonderful perfection of Christ’s humanity,
which rises far above all human greatness, all human power. Christ’s
life is a revelation of what fallen human beings may become through
union and fellowship with the divine nature....
Men and women frame many excuses for their proneness to sin. Sin
is represented as a necessity, an evil that cannot be overcome. But sin is
not a necessity. Christ lived in this world from infancy to manhood, and
during that time He met and resisted all the temptations by which man
is beset. He is a perfect pattern of childhood, of youth, of manhood.
The life of Christ has shown what humanity can do by being partaker
of the divine nature. All that Christ received from God we too may have.
Then ask and receive.... Let your life be knit by hidden links to the life
of Jesus.
[220]
228