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Christ is our Pattern, July 22
Fight the good fight of faith, lay hold on eternal life, whereunto thou art
also called, and hast professed a good profession before many witnesses.
1
Timothy 6:12
.
To follow Christ is not freedom from conflict. It is not child’s play. It is not
spiritual idleness. All the enjoyment in Christ’s service means sacred obligations
in meeting oft stern conflicts. To follow Christ means stern battles, active labor,
warfare against the world, the flesh, and the devil. Our enjoyment is the victories
gained for Christ in earnest, hard warfare. Think of this.
“We are labourers together with God” (
1 Corinthians 3:9
). Christ engaged in
the great work for which He lived and died. We are to be instant in season and out
of season. And why? “For ye are bought with a price,” and have enlisted under the
banner of Prince Emmanuel. We are enlisted for labor, “not for the meat which
perisheth, but for that meat which endureth unto everlasting life” (
John 6:27
). We
are to work out our own salvation with fear and with trembling. We are not our
own. We are bought with a price, to glorify God with our bodies and spirits, which
are His. A work is to be done. There is a faithful work to do in His vineyard.
And to every man is given his work. If we are privileged with the bread of life,
we must work in the Lord’s vineyard. A charge comes to us to deny ourselves
and take up the cross and follow Christ. We are to run the race set before us with
persevering earnestness. This oft requires energetic movements. We cannot be
idlers. We are urged, “Fight the good fight of faith, lay hold on eternal life.” ...
We must keep constantly before the ones who are pledged to the service of
Christ that it means diligence. It means to be faithful workers, to do all possible
to win souls to Christ. It is a constant watchfulness to be faithful unto death, to
fight the good fight of faith until the warfare is ended and as overcomers we shall
receive the crown of life.
This means much more than we take in. Christ is our example. The Christian
warfare is not a life of indulgence to eat and drink and dress as self-indulgent
worldlings. The Lord Jesus came in human nature to our world to give His precious
life as an example of what our life should be. He is the specimen, not of spiritual
indulgence, but of a life constantly before us of self-denial, self-sacrifice. We
have the correct view that Christ our Pattern came to give us. There is before
us the Prince of heaven, the Son of God. He laid aside the royal crown and the
princely robe and came to take His position in our world as a Man of Sorrows
and acquainted with grief. How few take it in!—
Manuscript 156, July 22, 1907
,
“Diary Fragments.”
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