Chapter 8: Growing Up Into Christ

Chapter 8: Growing Up Into Christ
The change of heart by which we become children of God is in the Bible spoken of as birth. Again, it is compared to the germination of the good seed sown by the husbandman.
--As with life, so it is with growth. It is God who brings the bud to bloom and the flower to fruit. It is by His power that the seed develops, "first the blade, then the ear, after that the full corn in the ear." Mark 4:28.
--In the matchless gift of His Son, God has encircled the whole world with an atmosphere of grace as real as the air which circulates around the globe.
--As the flower turns to the sun, that the bright beams may aid in perfecting its beauty and symmetry, so should we turn to the Sun of Righteousness.
--Jesus teaches the same thing when He says, "Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the

vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in Me. . . . Without Me ye can do nothing." John 15:4, 5.
--Many have an idea that they must do some part of the work alone. They have trusted in Christ for the forgiveness of sin, but now they seek by their own efforts to live aright. But every such effort must fail. David says, "I have set the Lord always before me: because He is at my right hand, I shall not be moved." Psalm 16:8.
*When the mind dwells upon self, it is turned away from Christ.
--Satan's constant effort to keep the attention diverted from the Savior and thus prevent the union and communion of the soul with Christ. 

The pleasures of the world, 

life's cares and perplexities and sorrows, 

the faults of others, or your own faults and imperfections—to any

 or all of these 

he will seek to divert the mind. 

Say with the apostle Paul, "I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave Himself for me." Galatians 2:20. Here is where we need to watch, to strive, to pray, that nothing may entice us to choose another master; for we are always free to do this.

--Consecrate yourself to God in the morning; make this your very first work.
--Jesus prayed for us, and He asked that we might be one with Him, even as He is one with the Father. What a union is this!

When Christ took human nature upon Him, 

He bound humanity to Himself by a tie of love 

that can never be broken by any power 

save the choice of man himself.