The Apostle's prayer dwells not only on the way by which a Christian
life may increase itself, but in its close reaches the yet deeper
thought that all that growth comes 'through Jesus Christ.' He is the
Giver of it all, so that we are not so much called to a painful toil as
to a glad reception. Our love fills us with the fruits of righteousness,
because it takes all these from His hands. It is from His gift that
conscience derives its sensitiveness. It is by His inspiration that
conscience becomes strong enough to determine action, and that even our
dull hearts are quickened into a glow of desiring to have in our lives,
the law of the spirit of life, that was in Christ Jesus, and to make our
own all that we see in Him of 'things that are lovely and of good
report.'
The prayer closes with a reference to the highest end of all our
perfecting--the glory and praise of God; the former referring rather to
the transcendent majesty of God in itself, and the latter to the
exaltation of it by men. The highest glory of God comes from the gradual
increase in redeemed men's likeness to Him. They are 'the secretaries of
His praise,' and some portion of that great honour and responsibility
lies on each of us. If all Christian men were what they all might be and
should be, swift and sure in their condemnation of evil and loyal
fidelity to conscience, and if their lives were richly hung with ripened
clusters of the fruits of righteousness, the glory of God would be more
resplendent in the world, and new tongues would break into praise of Him
who had made men so like Himself.