The Slow Steps in the Valley (Luke 14:33)

To follow Jesus Christ to-day is to follow a madman according to the ideals of present-day civilisation. We have the idea that our civilisation is God-ordained, whereas it has been built up by ourselves. We have made a thousand and one necessities until our system of civilised life is as cast iron, and then we apologise to the Lord for not following Him. “God can never mean that I have to follow Him at the cost of all I have?” But He does mean it. Instantly the clash is between our civilisation and the call of Jesus Christ. Read the Sermon on the Mount—“Seek ye first the kingdom of God”—and apply it to modern life and you will find its statements are either those of a madman or of God Incarnate.

The book entitled Imitation of Christ by Thomas à Kempis is exquisitely beautiful, but fundamentally twisted, because Our Lord’s own message of regeneration is ignored. Many a one who has started the imitation of Christ has had to abandon it as hopeless because a strain is put on human nature that human nature cannot begin to live up to. To have attitudes of life without the life itself is a fraud; to have the life itself imitating the best Pattern of that life is normal and right (see 1 Peter 2:21-23). The teaching of Jesus Christ applies only to the life He puts in, and the marvel of His Redemption is that He gives the power of His own disposition to carry any man through who is willing to obey Him.

– Chambers, Oswald: Approved Unto God

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