THE IDEAL CHRISTIAN by James Mudge

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Dec 22, 1887

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 13, No. 49.

THE IDEAL CHRISTIAN.

By James Mudge

STEADY progress can be exhibited in no department of life except there be an ideal, a clearly-defined object or aim. Without a working model, a pattern, the labors of the workman will be largely wasted for lack of definite direction.

This is precisely as true in regard to Christian living as in regard to any other kind of activity. Every Christian must distinctly form and constantly keep before him an ideal image of what he means to be. Otherwise he will not feel that incitement to a continual advance without which no important advance is likely to be made.

Clearly our ideal of what perfect Christian living is should be ever advancing. It will be if we follow the ever advancing light which God from many sources throws upon our pathway. He whose conscience is not growing tender and more sensitive to slight departures from rectitude or small omissions, who is not becoming keener to detect little infractions of the perfect law, who is not increasingly scrupulous as to the purity of his motives and the fervor of his quick response to all God's calls, he has good reason to suspect the genuineness of his devotion to the Master.

Is there not a fully intelligible sense in which at conversion a new-born child of God is a perfect Christian, perfect as a babe, perfect according to the light and strength at that time vouchsafed to him? Yet, of course, there are other higher perfections toward which he is to press forward, very much greater degrees of likeness to the image of Christ. Will he ever get where no greater approximation to that matchless image is possible to him?

The perfection of man involves continual growth, as his opportunities and his powers expand. He cannot rest in any attainment as a finality. Resting is rusting. And it would seem that this must apply as much to his love as to any other part of him. . . . A higher ideal, a larger perfection, a fuller love, should be constantly coveted and attained. They will accomplish it, who make it their one aim, who allow nothing to distract them, who concentrate every energy.

They will perceive more and more strongly and clearly the transcendent beauty and excellence of the divine will until the pleasure of doing or bearing it so far surpasses the pain and drowns the suffering involved that the pain and suffering practically disappear. . . . The desire will become perfectly concurrent with God, so that there will be no desire for anything that he does not sanction; there will be perfect indifference to everything which is out of God's plan and wish. . . . No other reward will be sought but his approval, no other aim will be cherished but to do his ever blessed will.—Rev. James Mudge, in Christian Advocate.