Quiet Talks on Following the Christ | Page 4

should I cut out that "nearly"? the earnest man in the
thick of the fight finds no "nearlys"--it's always with him--character is
always the result of a fight to keep to the choice decided upon.
Now with greatest reverence for our Lord Jesus, let me say, it was so
with Him. He was as truly God as though not man. Yet He lived His
life,--He insisted on living His life, on the human level.[3] He was as
truly human as though not peculiarly divine. He had the enormous
advantage of a virgin birth, a divine fatherhood with a human
motherhood. And, be it said with utmost reverence, He needed that
advantage for the terrific conflict and the tremendous task of His life,
such as no other has known. But His character as a man--the thing we
are to look at now--was a result of choice, and choice insisted upon
against terrible odds.
This gives new meaning to His "Follow Me." He went the same sort of
road that we must go. He insisted on treading our road. It was not one
made easier for His specially prepared feet. It was the common earth
road every man must go, who will. And so the way He went we can go
if we will, every step of it. By His help working through our wills, we
can, and, please God, surely we will.

The Dependent Life.
There were three traits in His character upward, that is in His relation

with His Father. First of all He chose to live the dependent life. He
recognized that everything He was, and had, and could do, was
received from the Father, and could be at its true best only as the
Father's direct touch was upon it. This was the atmosphere in which all
His human powers would do their best. He had nothing of Himself, and
could do nothing of Himself. This is the plan the Father has made for
human life and effort.[4] Our Lord Jesus recognized this and lived it.
Our common word for this is humility. Humility is a matter of
relationship. It means keeping one's relationship with the Father clear
and dominant. And this in turn radically affects and controls our
relationship with our fellows.
There were three degrees or steps in the dependent life He chose to live.
There was the giving up part, then the accepting for Himself the plan of
human life, and then accepting it even to the extent of yielding to
wrong and shameful treatment, without attempting to assert His rights
against such treatment. These were the three steps in His humility. In
Paul's striking phrase, He "emptied out" of Himself all He had in glory
with the Father before coming to the earth; He decided to come to the
human level and live fully the human life of utter dependence; and He
carried this to the extent of being wholly dependent on the Father for
righting the wrongs done Him.[5]
This is God's plan for the human life. It is to be a dependent life. It
actually is a dependent life, utterly dependent upon Him. It is to be
lived so. Then only is the fragrance of it gotten. It is part of the
dependent life--the true human life--that we depend on the Father for
vindication when wronged, as for everything else.[6]
Our Lord Jesus chose to live this life. There was an entire absence of
the self-spirit, that is the self-assertive, the self-confident spirit. There
was a remarkable confidence in action, but it was confidence in His
Father's unfailing response to His requests or needs. This sense of utter
dependence was natural to Him; as indeed it is natural to man unhurt by
sin. And then He carefully cultivated it. As He came in contact with the
very opposite all around Him, He set Himself--indeed He had to set
Himself--to keeping this sense of dependence untainted, unhurt by His

surroundings.
Now there were three things which naturally grew out of this dependent
life, or which naturally are part of it. One was, the sense of His Father,
and of His Father's presence. In a perfectly simple natural way, He was
always conscious of His Father's presence. Is this the meaning--one
meaning--of "blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God"? And
then He doubtless set Himself to cultivate this, as an offset to what He
found around Him. He would quietly look up and speak to the Father in
the midst of a crowd.[7] This was the natural thing to do. He was more
conscious of the Father's presence than of the crowd pressing in to get
near. When He was speaking to the crowd He knew the Father too was
listening. He felt the Father watching as He helped the people.