l change in
the doer, by the infusion into him of the very life of Jesus Christ
Himself, is to begin at the top story, instead of at the foundation.
Many of us are trying to put the cart before the horse in that fashion.
Many of us have made the attempt over and over again, and the attempt
always has failed and always will fail. You may do much for the mending
of your characters and for the incorporation in your lives of virtues
and graces which do not grow there naturally and without effort. I do
not want to cut the nerves of any man's stragglings, I do not want to
darken the brightness of any man's aspirations, but I do say that the
people who, apart from Jesus Christ, and the entrance into their souls
by faith of His quickening power, are seeking, some of them nobly, some
of them sadly, and all of them vainly, to cure their faults of
character, will never attain anything but a superficial and fragmentary
goodness, because they have begun at the wrong end.

But 'make the tree good' and its fruit will be good. Get Christ into
your heart, and all fair things will grow as the natural outcome of His
indwelling. The fruitfulness of the light is not put upon its right
basis until we come to understand that the light is Christ Himself, who,
dwelling in our hearts by faith, is made _in_ us as well as '_unto_ us
wisdom, and righteousness, and salvation, and redemption.' The beam that
is reflected from the mirror is the very beam that falls on the mirror,
and the fair things in life and conduct which Christian people bring
forth are in very deed the outcome of the vital power of Jesus Christ
which has entered into them. 'I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in
me,' is the Apostle's declaration in the midst of his struggles; and the
perfected saints before the throne cast their crowns at His feet, and
say, 'Not unto us! not unto us, but unto Thy name be the glory.' The
talent is the Lord's, only the spending of it is the servant's. And so
the order of the Divine appointment is, first, the entrance of the
light, and then the conduct that flows from it.

Note, too, how this same principle of the fruitfulness of the light
gives instruction as to the true place of effort in the Christian life.
The main effort ought to be to get more of the light into ourselves.
'Abide in Me, and I in you.' And so, and only so, will fruit come.

And such an effort has to take in hand all the circumference of our
being, and to fix thoughts that wand