One question that rises in every mind is this:  “How can I live that life of perfect trust in God?” Many do not know the right answer, or the full answer.  It is this:  “Christ must live it in me.”  That is what He became man for; as a man to live a life of trust in God, and so to show to us how we ought to live.  When He had done that upon earth, He went to heaven, that He might do more than show us, might give us, and live in us that life of trust.  It is as we understand what the life of Christ is and how it becomes ours, that we shall be prepared to desire and to ask of Him that He would live it Himself in us.  When first we have seen what the life is, then we shall understand how it is that He can actually take possession, and make us like Himself.  I want especially to direct attention to that first question.  I wish to set before you the life of Christ as He lived it, that we may understand what it is that He has for us and that we can expect from Him.  Christ Jesus lived a life upon earth that He expects us literally to imitate.  We often say that we long to be like Christ.  We study the traits of His character, mark His footsteps, and pray for grace to be like Him, and yet, somehow, we succeed but very little.  And why?  Because we are wanting to pluck the fruit while the root is absent.  If we want really to understand what the imitation of Christ means, we must go to that which constituted the very root of His life before God.  It was a life of absolute dependence, absolute trust, absolute surrender, and until we are one with Him in what is the principle of His life, it is in vain to seek here or there to copy the graces of that life.

In the Gospel story we find five great points of special importance; the birth, the life on earth, the death, the resurrection, and the ascension.  In these we have what an old writer has called “the process of Jesus Christ;” the process by which He became what He is to-day—­our glorified King, and our life.  In all this life process we must be made like unto Him.  Look at the first.  What have we to say about His birth?  This:  He received His life from God.  What about His life upon earth?  He lived that life in dependence upon God.  About His death?  He gave up His life to God.  About His resurrection?  He was raised from the dead by God.  And about His ascension?  He lives His life in glory with God.

First, He received His life from God.  And why is it of consequence that we should look to that?  Because Christ Jesus had in that the starling-point of His whole life.  He said:  “The Father sent me;” “The Father hath given the Son all things;” “The Father hath given the Son to have life in Himself.”  Christ received it as His own life, just as God has His life in Himself.  And yet, all the time it was a life given and received.  “Because the Father almighty has given this life unto me, the Son of man on earth, I can count upon God to maintain it and to carry me through all.”