Christ According to You continued
"We are miserable and unhappy and unsatisfied to the degree that Christ is not formed in our lives”
Christ that that druggist had through the testimony of Christian customers. You see, the world does not judge our faith by our carefully thought out actions that we plan for them to see, but it does judge us by our instinctive reactions to things. We are revealed not by what we do when we have time to think about it, but by what we do when we don’t have time to think. What are your reactions to incidents that arise in your life? Somebody cuts across your line of travel in traffic: what do you do? Do you roll down the window and bawl them out good? Then that’s the picture they get of Christ if they know you to be a Christian. That’s where our true life is revealed, our true characters are told. Your children run in with a story and you’re interrupted when you’re talking to somebody. What do you say to them? How do you treat them? What’s the tone of your voice with which you answer? These are the revelations which the world is reading in us all the time. You remember those distortion mirrors in amusement parks? You walk up to them and one o f them will take your legs and stretch them out to infinity and squeeze the rest of you together into about two feet. And the others will take the top part and stretch it out and make your legs squat — you have a lot of fun with them in the amusement park. They’re funny. You know why? Because you know people aren’t really that way. But what would it be like if you didn’t know that? What would it be like if you thought people really were that way? Wouldn’t you be repulsed? Wouldn’t you be offended by those leering, deformed figures; those squat, bloated dwarfs? Those emaciated, horribly thin giants that live all around you ? Well now, think a minute. Don’t we often leave just this impression of Jesus Christ before others? The only Christ they see is the Christ they see in us. And too often it’s that kind of a Christ. You see, that was what troubled the Apostle Paul when he wrote to the Galatians. Their testimony was distorted and twisted before the world, and so he wrote to them, "My little children, o f whom I travail in birth again until Christ be formed in you.” What was wrong with them? Well, the processes o f birth had been arrested while the body was only half-formed yet. When that happens in the physical world we have a de formed child. And is it not true that many times we have been guilty of presenting a deformed Christ unto the world ? A hideously deformed image of the Lord o f glory. What a tragedy that we’ve made the most attractive Person in all the world seem mean and stingy and cruel and self- righteous and smug and angry. In so many ways we’ve deformed Him before the world. Now if you’re a Christian today, you are presenting a
picture of Christ. You don’t have any choice in this matter. If you’re a Christian these words are true of you today. You are a living epistle of Christ and the world is reading you. You can’t close the covers of the book. They’re going to be read anyhow. There is no way you can stop it except to go off to a monastery or live as a hermit in the hills. Men and women are reading you. What kind of a Christ are they reading about? What sort o f an image is written on the pages of your heart? What is needed? Now let me turn to the rest of this. What is it that’s needed in life? How do we present the picture of Christ as He really is to this world so that the men and women all around us who are longing for something to satisfy will see Him in all His glory, in all His warm sympathy, in all His attrac tive magnificence, in all His tender compassion and His amazing ability to meet the needs o f life? How can it happen? What do we need to change the picture within? The answer is very simple. We need a yielding o f each area o f our life to the life of Christ within us. Christ, you see, must control not only our actions but our reactions to things. We must bring these areas to Him that He might bring them into line with His picture within. You remember the Lord Jesus said in the sixth chapter of John, "Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life. . . .” That’s the way we come to really know Christ. "For my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, dwelleth in me, and I in him.” Now He’s not talking about eating the bread and drink ing the wine of the communion table. These elements can do nothing for you. There’s no magical formula here. There’s nothing about these simple things that is going to change your life. He’s talking about what these things symbolize ■— the very life of Christ forming within each one of us and becoming visible to the world around about us. We are miserable and unhappy and unsatisfied to the degree that Christ is not formed in our lives, for as He is formed in us we become satisfied and are at peace within. Our misery and unhappiness all come from having areas in our lives where Christ has not been formed. The life of Christ is not complete and able to function normally within us until He takes over the whole man. And He says, as we learn to live and to share these whole areas o f our life with Him, then we’re eating His flesh and drinking His blood and we dwell in Him and He in us. Then the world is able to read in large letters the living epistle o f Christ. In the wonderful prayer in John 17 the Lord Jesus said these words as He prayed to the Father, "That they all
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