alk after the flesh, but we can always walk in the
Spirit and walking thus we walk as He walked. And this spiritual
walk becomes possible as our hearts dwell in faith on the fact that
we are called into the fellowship of His Son. We must have this
wonderful fact constantly before our hearts as a real thing. Then
all we do will be governed by it.

If this is real how can we be conformed to this world? The world in
all its aspects is the enemy of God. In that fellowship we walked
once "according to the course of this world." Should we then turn
back to it and enjoy its pleasures and ambitions? If we do, we walk
in the flesh and then we do not know the joy and peace of the
fellowship of His Son, but are joyless and miserable. But if the
fact of the fellowship of God's Son is a reality in power, it will
keep us from being conformed to this world.

We believe the Spirit of God presses this home to the consciences of
His people and calls us to a separated walk.

And this must lead to another phase of the fellowship of His Son
Jesus Christ. It is written "always bearing about in the body the
dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made
manifest in our body" (2 Cor. iv:10). This stands in connection with
persecution and suffering. Walking in the fellowship of His Son
Jesus Christ the Apostle had one great desire, "That I may know Him,
and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His
sufferings, being made conformable to His death" (Phil. iii:10). To
the Colossians he wrote "who now rejoice in my sufferings for you,
and fill up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ in my
flesh for His body's sake, which is the church" (Col. i:24). He
suffered and bore His reproach. His heart in the enjoyment of the
fellowship desired the fellowship of His sufferings. We know little
of these because we are conformed to this world and not loyal to our
Lord and God's calling. But if we walk in conscious fellowship with
Him and are loyal to Him we too will know a little of the fellowship
of His sufferings. Then our hearts long that we may "bear His
reproach." The blessed One of God is rejected, can our hearts be
satisfied with anything less than being rejected too? Perhaps if we
were to lift up our voices now against the Christ dishonoring
things, both in doctrine and practice, which are the leading
features of the present-day religious world, we would know a little
more of this fellowship.

Called