is set
before me. Think of Him ever, love Him ever. Let His name be like a
perfume breathed through the whole atmosphere of your lives. Keep your
wills in the attitude of submission, of acceptance, of indecision when
necessary, and of absolute dependence upon Him. Let your outward acts be
such as shall not bring a film of separation between Him and you. When
thus our whole being is steeped and drenched with Christ, then it cannot
but be that we shall be like Him. Even 'clouds themselves as suns
appear, when the sun pierces them with light.' 'Abide in Me, and I in
you.' You cannot make yourselves like Christ, but you can fasten
yourselves to Christ, and He will give you power which shall make you
like Him.

But, remember, such abiding is no idle waiting, no passive confidence.
It is full of energy, full of suppression, when necessary, of what is
contrary to your truest self, and full of strenuous cultivation of that
which is in accord with the will of the Father, and with the likeness of
the 'first-born among many brethren.'

Dear friends, lie in the light and you will become light. Abide in
Christ, and you will get like Christ; and, being like Him, you will be
able to lift up your heads, and rejoice when you front Him on the
Throne, and you are at the bar. Then, when you are no more in the world,
the likeness will be perfected, because the communion is complete. 'We
shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.'

LOVE AND FEAR

'There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear:
because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in
love.'--1 John iv. 18.

John has been speaking of boldness, and that naturally suggests its
opposite--fear. He has been saying that perfect love produces courage in
the day of judgment, because it produces likeness to Christ, who is the
Judge. In my text he explains and enlarges that statement. For there is
another way in which love produces boldness, and that is by its casting
out fear. These two are mutually exclusive. The entrance of the one is
for the other a notice to quit. We cannot both love and fear the same
person or thing, and where love comes in, the darker form slips out at
the door; and where Love comes in, it brings hand in hand with itself
Courage with her radiant face. But boldness is the companion of love,
only when love is perfect. For, inconsistent as the two emotions are,
love, in its earlier stages and lower degrees