aint and be weary, and
the young men utterly fall," physical life may fail and in the nature of
things must fail, "but they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their
strength, they shall run and not be weary."

It is Jesus Christ who brings us into connection with this source of
life eternal--He bears it in His own person. In Him we receive a new
spirit; in Him our motive to live for righteousness is continually
renewed; we are conscious that in Him we touch what is undying and never
fails to renew spiritual life in us. Whatever we need to give us true
and everlasting life we have in Christ. Whatever we need to enable us to
come to the Father, whatever we shall need between this present stage of
experience and our final stage, we have in Him.

The more, then, we use Christ, the more life we have. The more we are
with Him and the more we partake of His Spirit, the fuller does our own
life become. It is not by imitating successful men we become influential
for good, but by living with Christ. It is not by adopting the habits
and methods of saints we become strong and useful, but by accepting
Christ and His Spirit. Nothing can take the place of Christ. Nothing can
take His words and say to us, "I am the Life." If we wish life, if we
see that we are doing little good and desire energy to overtake the good
that needs to be done, it is to Him we must go. If we feel as if all our
efforts were vain, and as if we could not bear up any longer against our
circumstances or against our wicked nature we can receive fresh vigour
and hopefulness only from Christ. We need not be surprised at our
failures if we are not receiving from Christ the life that is in Him.
And nothing can give us the life that is in Him but our own personal
application to Him, our direct dealing with Himself. Ordinances and
sacraments help to bring Him clearly before us, but they are not living
and cannot give us life. It is only in so far as through and in them we
reach Christ and receive Him that we partake of that highest of all
forms of life--the life that is in Him, the living One, by whom all
things were made, and who in the very face of death can say, "Because I
live ye shall live also."

III. Being the Revealer of the Father, and giving men power to approach
God and live in Him, Jesus legitimately designates Himself "the Way."
Jesus never says "I am the Father"; He does not even say "I am God," for
that might have produced misunderstanding. He uniforml