The daily life of the Christian is summed up in the word 'receive'. Every challenging thing that
God demands of me long-suffering, meekness, humility, goodness, holiness, joy is not something I
am, or something I do, or some virtue I acquire or attain to. It is Christ in me. Each is the
manifestation of Him. Let Him be revealed, naturally and spontaneously, and that is enough.
'He is made unto us . . .' If He were our Justifier, Sanctifier, Redeemer, we could understand.
But it does not say He does these things. It uses abstract nouns: He is these things. Christ in us
meets every demand of God, and every demand of the circumstances around us.
It is not in us to be humble, nor shall we find it helps to trust in the power of Christ to make us
humble. Christ is humble, naturally-that is, by His very nature-and He is made our humility, for
Christ is our all. Even faith and trust and obedience, if we regard them as virtues by which we
attain, will prove ineffective. It is not that I trust His Word, therefore I can be longsuffering. It is
that Christ is long suffering, and, praise God, Christ is in me! Once again, this is Isaac, natural,
simple, spontaneous, trusting implicitly and without question, because the Father has made
absolutely sufficient provision.
