POSITIVELY AND PRACTICALLY CONSIDERED

"Be ye, therefore, perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect."

"The disciple is not above his Master; but every one that is perfect shall be as his Master."

"And every man that hath this hope in him, purifieth himself EVEN AS He is pure."

"As He is, so are we in this world."

"So then we are not to be mere imitators of Christ, but to partake of Christ so that He becomes 'our life' and we have His divine nature and possess His (pure) mind and manifest His spirit and bear His image and 'Walk even as He walked.' "

"Exceeding great and precious promises that by these ye might be partakers of the Divine Nature."

Some of our readers have, no doubt, already taken issue with the subject of our book and said, "The thing is impossible." The standard is too high and would fain have us lower it. We are reminded of the familiar historic incident of the Ensign who bore his country's flag well nigh into the teeth of the enemy's guns. The soldiers, seeing his daring and danger, cried, "Bring back the colors; we cannot capture the fort! It is too perilous! We would lose our lives!... Nay," was the prompt reply, "I cannot bring back the colors; you will have to bring up your men to the colors." So we can never lower the colors or the standard God has given, to suit men living beneath their privilege. Bring up your lives to God's standard! They tell us the German version reads: "It stands written, be ye holy as I am holy." Through all the mutations of time, in spite of dungeon, fire, and sword, and bitter hatred of foes, God's standard stands written. It can never be lowered to meet the demands of a recreant, faithless church. It stands written! A member of the church said, "You expect too much of us." We replied, "It is the other way; you expect too little of God!" "Your standard is too high." "No, yours is too low."

But What Is It, To Walk As He Walked?

If we can see how He walked, the question how we ought to walk is answered. As we review the evidences of a Christ-like walk, let us humbly ask, "Am I so walking?

(1) Christ walked in undivided love for God. He who taught "Thou shalt love the Lord, thy God, with all thy heart and with all thy mind, soul, and strength," so loved God. "I and my Father are one." His heart was welded to His Father in Perfect Love and unity. Not the least intriguing with other lovers in Him. God had His undivided love. He delighted to do God's will. The Father was well pleased in Him, His beloved Son. Jesus had the testimony, "I do always those things that please Him." This, His ambition- to please God and to finish the work God had given Him; seeking not His own glory, but His that sent Him. No suffering, persecution, agony, stripes, buffetings, thorns, not even the cross, could divide that love. In its shadow He said, "Thy will be done." "Thy will is the expression of Thy love, and whatever Thou willest me is right." "I delight to do Thy will."

He has made provision we may have this same undivided love for God and oneness with His Father, "Sanctify them through Thy truth... that they all may be 'one;' as Thou, Father, art in Me, and I in Thee." Do we imitate Him in this? Is there a hankering for other loves? The Lord, thy God, will circumcise thy heart to love the Lord with all thy heart. "Then shall thy heart no longer rove, rooted and fixed in God."

(2) Love for God ultimates into love man-ward. He that loveth God, loveth his brother also. He that loveth not his brother, loveth not God. Hereby perceive we the love of God, because He laid down His life for us. "Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another and lay down our lives for the brethren." God's love was universal in its provision, world-wide. "God so loved the world." Jesus voluntarily laid down His life in sacrifice for the world; "He laid down (voluntarily) His life for us." "I have power to lay it down and to take it up." He chose deliberately, of His own accord, to lay it down. He broke over sectarian, Jewish narrowness, and exclusiveness, and reached out in His sacrificial love to all mankind, irrespective of race, nation, denomination, clime, or color. The obligation is on us to walk as He in his broad universal love. Are we so doing? Is our love world-wide? Yearning for those outside our little circle or fold, in the regions beyond; going, sending, or praying for them?

(3) Love for foes is also an evidence of walking as He walked. He loved and prayed for His bitterest enemies. They maligned Him, accused Him of living in league with demons; yea, the very prince of Devils himself -- "He hath a devil and is mad" -- took Him to the brow of the hill to thrust Him down the deep abyss; buffeted, bruised, smote with rods, palms of their hands, and burly fists, thorn-crowned, ultimately nailed him to the tree, pierced His side, thirsted for His blood; cried, "Crucify Him!... Crucify Him!" "Away with such a fellow; it is not fit for Him to live." Still His latest breath breathes a prayer of love and forgiveness for these cruel, merciless enemies; "Father, forgive them, they know not what they do." He requited all their malignant hatred by dying for them.

We recall while working for a great corporation, an official requesting us to make a false entry, and upon our refusal his violent rage and threats to knock our head off and never to forgive us to our dying day for insubordination and insinuation that he was dishonest. Being young in the Christian life, we were troubled; we remembered the Scripture concerning one having ought against you, etc., and prayed and resolved to get even with him by kindness. Before long God gave us the desired opportunity. In the general shakeup contingent on change of management he lost his position, and, having a large family, needed work. Learning of a lucrative position, we hastened to his home and said, as he gruffly said, ,'Come in," "I've come to tell you of a foremanship vacancy with the L. & N. R. R." It is needless to say he was completely won over. What opportunity all of us have .for this practical demonstration of loving our enemies!

Love For The Church

(4) Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for it that lie might sanctify it. This definite purpose of Jesus in giving Himself up for the sanctification of the church is worthy of emulation of all His followers. If He thought dying for the purification of the church an object worthy of pursuit -- lived, sacrificed, prayed, toiled, died for that specific end; the accomplishment of this, the all-consuming passion that fired His every energy; if this object was worthy of the best effort of the Son of God, it is a worthy goal for the best of His ministers -worthy of their best talents, learning, and endeavor. If Christ died for the sanctification of the church, we can afford to put definite effort forward to the same end. If He did, we owe no one an apology for walking herein as He walked. In fact, we ought so to do. Are we walking as He did in His special love for His church?

(5) He walked above Sin. "Leaving us an example that we should follow His steps who did no sin." He never violated His conscience. He was the lamb without spot or blemish, slain to take away the sin of the world -- to forgive us our sins, destroy completely the works of the Devil, and endow us with a power to "go and sin no more." We are to lay aside "every weight" (cumbrance) and "the sin that doth so easily beset." We are not even to have a besetting sin that doth so easily upset us. Dr. J. H. Smith said the only time this expression occurs in the whole Bible is in Hebrews 12:1, and here God says we are not to have it, but get rid of it: "Let us lay aside the sin which doth so easily beset us!" If we say we abide in Him, we ought to walk as He walked, "who did no sin." Jealousy, insincerity, anger, ill temper, ill will, self-will, hatred, wrath, malice, unforgiving spirit, bitterness, holding old score and grudge, faultfinding, censoriousness, evil speaking, touchiness, stubbornness, grouchy, pouty spells had no place in His life. He commands us to let all these things be put away from us. "Let every one who names the name of Christ, depart from iniquity." Unless we learn how to partake of His holy life and follow Him in doing no sin, rather than imitating Him in a special mode of baptism, devotion to ordinances, etc., while clinging to sin, He must say those fearful words in the judgment, "Depart from me, all ye that work iniquity."

(6) Lowliness. "I am meek and lowly in heart." If we will remember God's reducing process in Isaiah, on the descending scale, there will be little trouble in locating ourselves and occupying our proper sphere. After saying all the nations are only as a drop in the bucket in His sight, which would make each one of us as large as the one fifteen hundredth part of a million, He proceeds to say we are each as big as a grain of sand cut up into fifteen hundred million parts -- i. e., one of those parts is our size in His sight. But still there is too much of us! So He administers the knockout blow by saying, "All the nations are as nothing in His sight," yea, as "less than nothing." Now as there are said to be fifteen hundred million people in all the nations' population, each individual inhabitant is just as large in God's sight as the one fifteen hundred millionth part of O, and less than O! Good-bye. "I beseech you, brethren, not to think more highly of yourselves than you ought to think." Is it not because we do not realize our insignificance that God does not more largely use some of us?

(7) He Walked in Self-Sacrifice. He had nothing over; used up every energy for God. So poor, not even a life insurance policy to pay His funeral expenses. Someone must donate Him a tomb. How little walking as He walked in self-sacrifice and denial among His followers today! Yet this is a first condition of discipleship.

There are so many Scriptural points showing "How He Walked," we can but concisely name them here and then treat the subject more at length in succeeding chapters.

He walked in Holiness, Humility, Obedience, Aggressiveness, Self-Denial, Tenderness, Considerateness, Sympathy, Pity, Compassion, Mercy, Love, Poverty, Truth. He delighted in God's will; in intimate communion with God; in Faith, a Life of Prayer, perfect surrender to God. Holy, Harmless, Undefiled, Spotless; Separated from the world and sinners; Patient under Fire, Perfect self control. Loved the poor; Antagonized the sin of an unspiritual church, Persecuted, Hated by the world for faithfully witnessing against its sin. -- "Me it hateth because I testify of it that the works thereof are evil." -- He went about doing good; pleased God; was anointed with power and the Holy Ghost.