1 John 5:11–12 And this is the
testimony: God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. He who
has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life.
It is a
blessed thing to discover the difference between Christian graces and Christ:
to know the difference between meekness and Christ, between patience and
Christ, between love and Christ. Remember again what is said in 1 Corinthians 1:30: “Christ Jesus... was made unto us
wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification, and redemption.” The
common conception of sanctification is that every item of the life should be
holy; but that is not holiness, it is the fruit of holiness. Holiness is
Christ. It is the Lord Jesus being made over to us to be that. So you
can put in anything there: love, humility, power, self-control. Today there is
a call for patience: He is our patience! Tomorrow the call may be for purity:
He is our purity! He is the answer to every need. That is why Paul speaks of
“the fruit of the Spirit” as one (Gal. 5:22) and
not of ‘fruits’ as separate items. God has given us His Holy Spirit, and when
love is needed the fruit of the Spirit is love; when joy is needed the fruit of
the Spirit is joy. It is always true. It does not matter what your personal
deficiency, or whether it is a hundred and one different things, God has one
sufficient answer—His Son Jesus Christ, and He is the answer to every human
need.
How can we know more of Christ in this way? Only by way of an increasing awareness of need. Some are afraid to discover deficiency in themselves and so they never grow. Growth in grace is the only sense in which we can grow, and grace, we have said, is God doing something for us. We all have the same Christ dwelling within, but revelation of some new need will lead us spontaneously to trust Him to live out His life in us in that particular. Greater capacity means greater enjoyment of God’s supply. Another letting go, a fresh trusting in Christ, and another stretch of land is conquered. ‘Christ my life’ is the secret of enlargement.
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