How shall I follow in His steps?

(Alexander Smellie, "The Secret Place" 1907)

"Leaving an example for you to follow in His steps." 1 Peter 2:21

How shall I follow in His steps?

The first requisite is a personal relationship to Him. I cannot wear the loveliness of Jesus - until I drink deep of the forgiveness of Jesus. From the Cross where He has saved me - I set out on the pilgrim-road of imitation.

It is necessary, also, that love for Him leaps and flames in my soul. No amount of intellectual comprehension is enough. The heart must enthrone Him, must adore Him, must turn to Him with the inevitableness and the trust of the sunflower turning to the sun. I can only resemble Him, if my affection for Him is profound, controlling, and pervasive.

And there must be intimacy with my Lord. I am to share His thoughts, His temper, His motives, His decisions.

I must dwell much with Himself in prayer.

I must often meditate on the story of His life and death.

These are some of the modes in which I shall touch and grasp and imitate the grace and the wisdom and the loveliness and the gentleness and the splendor of Jesus Christ.

"Whoever says he abides in Him, ought to walk and conduct himself in the same way in which He walked and conducted Himself." 1 John 2:6 (Amplified Bible)