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You have made a religion of it; and it is thought to be blasphemy for a man to stand up and say 'It is idolatry! My dear brethren, I declare I solemnly believe that, if I were to go on to the Manchester Exchange next Tuesday, and stand up and say 'There is no God, I should not be thought half such a fool as if I were to go and say 'Poverty is not an evil per se, and men do not come into this world to get on but to get up nearer and liker to God. If you, by God's grace, lay hold of this principle of my text, and honestly resolve to work it out, trusting in that dear Lord who 'though He was rich yet for our sakes became poor, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred you will have to make up your minds to let the big prizes of your trade go into other people's hands, and be contented to say 'I live by peaceful, high, pure, Christ-like thoughts. 'He that needs least, said an old heathen, 'is nearest the gods'; but I would rather modify the statement into, 'He that needs most, and knows it, is nearest the gods. For surely Christ is more than mammon; and a spirit nourished by calm desires and holy thoughts into growing virtues and increasing Christlikeness is better than circumstances ordered to our will, in the whirl of which we have lost our God.
Those faces, men and women, touched for the first time with the Spirit's glory what a wonderful thing life was after all! The complete regeneration revealed in the sight of drunken, vile, debauched humanity kneeling down to give itself to a life of purity and Christlikeness oh, it was surely a witness to the superhuman in the world!
'He that hath wrought us for the self-same thing is God. If so, then what follows? This, among other things, that wishes are vain, for heaven is no gift of arbitrary favouritism, but that faith in Christ, and faith alone, leads us to His right hand and the measure of our faith and growing Christlikeness here, will be the measure of our glory hereafter, and of our nearness to Him.
The other means to this manifestation of visible Christlikeness lies in that tragical story of the foolish virgins who took no oil in their vessels. If light expresses the outward Christian life, oil, in accordance with the whole tenor of Scripture symbolism, expresses the inward gift of the Divine Spirit.
Calvin Bruce, D. D., the dignified, cultured, refined Doctor of Divinity, had within a few days been crying like a little child on his knees, asking for strength and courage and Christlikeness to speak his Sunday message; and yet the prayer was an unconscious involuntary disclosure of his soul's experience such as the Nazareth Avenue people had seldom heard, and never before from that pulpit.
Paul tells us that they are the fruit of the Spirit, that is, if the Holy Spirit is given control of our lives, this is the fruit that He will bear. All real beauty of character, all real Christlikeness in us, is the Holy Spirit’s work; it is His fruit; He produces it; He bears it, not we.
Summing up the evidence of men's Christlikeness by their characters, as I look back down my long list of loved and honoured helpers and friends, I am certainly safe in saying that I at least should judge that no section of Christ's Church has any monopoly of Christ's spirit; and that I should like infinitely less to be examined on my own dogmatic theology than I should thirty-five years ago.
They feel that people do not respect those rights as they should; so when any question involving them arises, they feel as though they must “stand up for their rights.” They often lose sight of everything else; kindness, mercy, forbearance, patience, Christlikeness—in fact, nothing counts but their rights.
Dear hands, where bridal jewel never shone, Whereon no lover's kiss was ever pressed, Crossed in unwonted quiet on the breast, I see through tears your glory, newly won, The golden circlet of life's work well done, Set with the shining pearl of perfect rest." Every writer speaks of Christlikeness as the real crown and completeness of all womanly character.
He who lets no mercy of God escape thankful recognition, who never hesitates at once to abandon an evil or questionable practice, and who, instead of extenuating a sin because it is comparatively small, promptly confesses and forsakes it, such a man will surely grow in Christlikeness. We must exercise our spiritual senses if we are to discern things spiritual.
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