Christ’s call to the soul is four-fold: Come unto Me, Learn of Me, Follow Me, Abide in Me. Come unto Me as Redeemer; Learn of Me as Teacher; Follow Me as Master; Abide in Me as Life. And all that is required of us is the one sufficient and inclusive attitude of soul which the New Testament knows as faith.
This attitude and response of trust, self-surrender, dependence, is the essential attitude and response of the soul of man to God. Every sincere man knows full well the impossibility of realizing his true life in isolation, apart from God. Faith as man’s response to God for ever puts an end to the spiritual helplessness and hopelessness of the solitary man.
He brings into the heart the assurance of forgiveness and deliverance from the burden of the past, he bestows on the soul the gift of the Divine life, and then he commences a work that is never finished in this life of assimilating our lives to that of Christ, working in us that Christlikeness which is the essential and unique element of the Gospel ethic.
As we continue to maintain and deepen the attitude of faith the Holy Spirit is enabled to do His work and we are enabled to receive more of His grace. "That we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith" (Galatians 3:14). By every act of trust and self-surrender we receive ever larger measures of the life of Christ, and all the while we are being changed into the image of Christ "from glory to glory" by the Spirit of the Lord.