How many vile weeds grow there!

(Thomas Guthrie, 1803-1873)

"Leaving you an example, that you should follow in His steps." 1 Peter 2:21

We should certainly attempt always . . .
  to follow Jesus,
  to walk as He walked,
  to speak as He spoke,
  to think as He thought, and
  to mold our whole conduct and life on the pattern that He has left us.
Yet our best attempts will leave us more and more convinced that our only hope for redemption, salvation, and forgiveness, lies in the mercy of the Father, and the merits of the Son.

Even after we have been made new creatures in Jesus Christ, the most that we can do - even with the aid of the Holy Spirit - is to creep along the path which the Savior walked, and leave the mark of our knees, where He left the prints of His feet.

Christian, your corruptions have suffered a mortal wound - but they are not dead.

Your affections rise upward to Heaven - yet how much are they held back by the things of earth.

Though your heart turns to Christ, like the compass needle to the pole - how easily is it disturbed, how tremblingly it points to Him.

Your spirit has wings - yet how short are its flights, and how often, like a half-fledged eaglet, has it to return to its nest on the Rock of Ages.

Your soul is a garden where Christ delights to walk when the north and south winds blow, to inhale its spices - yet with many lovely flowers, how many vile weeds grow there!

"Blessed is he whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man whose sin the Lord does not count against him." Psalm 32:1-2