in which faith is got, and it is the same in the religious world as it
is in the world of men and women. I learn to trust you, my brother,
just as I get to know you, and neither more nor less; and you get to
trust me just as you get to know me. I do not trust you as a stranger,
but as I come into contact with you, and watch you, and live with you,
I find out that you are trustworthy, and I come to trust myself to
you, and to lean upon you. But I do not do that to a stranger.
The way to trust Christ is to know Christ. You cannot help trusting
Him then. You are changed. By knowing Him faith is begotten in you, as
cause and effect. To trust Him without knowing Him as thousands do, is
not faith, but credulity. I believe a great deal of prayer for faith
is thrown away. What we should pray for is that we may be able to
fulfill the condition, and when we have fulfilled the condition, the
faith necessarily follows. The way, therefore, to increase our faith
is to increase our intimacy with Christ. We trust Him more and more
the better we know Him.
And then another immediate effect of this way of sanctifying the
character is the tranquillity that it brings over the Christian life.
How disturbed and distressed and anxious Christian people are about
their growth in grace! Now, the moment you give that over into
Christ's care--the moment you see that you are _being_ changed--that
anxiety passes away. You see that it must follow by an inevitable
process and by a natural law if you fulfill the simple condition; so
that peace is the reward of that life and fellowship with Christ.
Many other things follow. A man's usefulness depends to a large extent
upon his fellowship with Christ. That is obvious. Only Christ can
influence the world; but all that the world sees of Christ is what it
sees of you and me. Christ said: "The world seeth Me no more, but ye
see Me." You see Him, and standing in front of Him reflect Him, and
the world sees the reflection. It cannot see Him. So that a
Christian's usefulness depends solely upon that relationship.
Now, I have only pointed out a few of the things that follow from the
standing before Christ--from the abiding in Christ. You will find, if
you run over the texts about abiding in Christ, many other things will
suggest themselves in the same relations. Almost everything in
Christian experience and character follows, and follows necessarily,
from standing before Christ and reflecting his character. But the
supreme consummation is that we are changed into _the same image_,
"even as by the Lord the Spirit." That is to say, that in some way,
unknown to us, but possibly not more mysterious than the doctrine of
personal influence, we are changed into the image of Christ.
This method cannot fail. I am not setting before you an opinion or a
theory, but this is