"Called Unto Holiness" by Ruth Paxson, part 2

Called Unto Holiness by Ruth Paxson

Likeness to Christ

   “The essential thing for holiness of life is to have a standard, and then to live without deviation by that standard. The Lord Jesus Christ has set that standard for us…

   Where we are determines what we are… What are you now that you are in Christ?..

   John 15… Oneness in Christ demands likeness to Christ; the branch that is in the vine must bear fruit. The branch that bears no fruit is worthless and is taken away. John 15:2 What a solemn thought that is for every one of us who is a branch.

   The second thought is that no branch can bear fruit of itself. There is absolutely nothing in the branch itself that is productive of fruit, nothing that the branch is, nothing that the branch can do, can make it produce fruit; only the sap of the vine produces fruit. So the branch has nothing to do but to abide in the vine. John 15:4

  Third, fruit-bearing is progressive…. John 15:2, 8

   There is nothing static in spiritual experience; every real Christian is a growing Christian. The purpose of fruit-bearing is to glorify Christ. The branch does not bear fruit to glorify itself, it bears fruit to glorify the vine…

   Now what is fruit? It is Christ in His outward manifestation. John 15:4… The whole of Christian living is in these three words, ‘I in you.’ ‘I in you’-you nothing but a house of which the Lord Jesus Christ has taken possession, control and use.

   Christ Himself is our Sanctification. 1 Cor. 1:30

   Christ Himself is our life Col. 3:4

   The Christian life is not merely a converted life, it is not merely a consecrated life, it is not a Christian life at all unless it is a Christ-life…

   A Christian has only one value in this world-to reveal Jesus Christ, to manifest Jesus Christ in this dark, sinful world where men do not know Him and do not read the Bible to find Him there. A Christian is an absolutely worthless Christian unless he is revealing Jesus Christ. What enables him to reveal Christ? Anything in himself? Nothing but the One that lives within him, the Lord Jesus Christ-‘I in you.’ It is all that He asks of you and me, to let Him do the living and revealing…

   Christ now has the right to possess us fully, to control us completely and to use us exclusively. In order that He may do so, He must become Lord. But sin, that stubborn old ruler, will contest His claim every step of the way. But did God make provision for the dethronement of that old master sin? See Rom. 6:6… You and I are called to make a choice…the choice between the continued sovereignty of that old master, Sin, and that of our new master, Christ. Rom. 6:12…Have you made this choice? Has it been a deliberate, final choice of Christ as the sole Sovereign over your life?..

   Having chosen Christ as our Master, then He commands us to yield to Him as Lord. Rom. 6:13 ‘Yield yourselves,’ spirit, soul and body. Yield your whole human personality in toto to Christ. Have you done it? Or have you parceled out a little bit and told Him what He could have, and what you intended to reserve for yourself?

   ‘Yield your members.’ In order that there may be no loophole, He goes on to say we are to yield every member of the body-the eyes, the ears, the feet, the hands, the lips, the tongue. Have you done it?.. Then we must yield everything that has any relationship whatsoever to our life, all our habits, all our practices, all our appetites, our pleasures, our companionship's, our home, our possessions, our children, our money…Here is our Lord’s command, have we obeyed it?.. Will you yield yourself, your members, all that you are and have, to the Lord now?

   This work of sanctification can be carried on only through the Holy Spirit, the Sanctifier, that second great gift bestowed at the time of conversion. The moment you were brought into union with Christ, the wonderful Holy Spirit came to indwell you, and He is there for one purpose, to glorify Christ in you…

   The Spirit of truth gives us a progressive revelation of Christ and of our riches in Him so, that once having seen Him we will want Him and Him only. Eph. 1:17-19…

   The Spirit of power works for a progressive realization of Christ within us as our Life and our Lord. Eph. 3:16, 17, 19…

   The Spirit of holiness works progressively to separate us from earthly things and from the love of the world and to strip us of everything of which Christ is not the source, the center and the goal. 2 Cor. 6:14, 17; James 4:4…

   The Spirit of life works progressively to counteract the flesh by taking control and by crowning Christ Lord of all in life and work. Rom. 8:2; Gal. 5:17…

   As the Spirit of glory He conforms us to the image of the Lord Jesus Christ. 2 Cor. 3:18…

   We become the Christian who bears the much fruit. Gal. 5:22, 23   A wonderful cluster of fruit that cannot be broken.

   What memories do I leave behind me? Have we drawn attention to ourselves, or have we fixed the thought of others upon our glorified Lord?”