nce which it is in his own power to win; no Christian will ever
be as all-round a good man as he has the opportunities of being, unless
he makes it his business, day by day, to aim after the conscious
increase of gifts that he possesses, and the conscious appropriation and
possession of those of which he is still lacking. 'Nothing of itself
will come,' or very little. True, the light will shine out in variously
tinted ray if it be in a man, as surely as from the seed come the blade
and the ear and the full corn in the ear, but you will not have nor keep
the light which thus will unfold itself unless you put forth appropriate
effort. Christ comes into our hearts, but we have to bring Him there.
Christ dwells in our hearts, but we have to work into our nature, and
work out in action, the gifts that He bestows. They will advance but
little in the divine life who trust to the natural unfolding of the
supernatural life within them, and do not help its unfolding by their
own resolute activity. 'Walk as children of the light.' There is your
duty, for 'the fruit of the light is all righteousness.' One might have
supposed that the commandments would be, 'Be passive as children of the
light, for the light will grow.' But the Apostle binds together, as
always, the two things, the divine working and the human effort at
reception, retention, and application of that divine work, just as he
does in the great classical passage, 'Work out your own salvation, for
it is God that worketh in you.'

II. Secondly, the general exhortation of my text widens out itself into
this--test all things by Christ's approval of them.

'Proving what is well pleasing unto the Lord.' That, according to the
natural construction of the Greek, is the main way by which the Apostle
conceives that his general commandment of 'walking as children of the
light' is to be carried out. You do it if, step by step, and moment by
moment, and to every action of life, you apply this standard--Does
Christ like it? Does it please Him? When that test is rigidly applied,
then, and only then, will you walk as becomes the children of the light.

So, then, there is a standard--not what men approve, not what my
conscience, partially illuminated, may say is permissible, not what is
recognised as allowable by the common maxims of the world round about
us, but Christ's approval. How different the hard, stern, and often
unwelcome prescriptions of law and rigidity of some standards of