“A Christian should be a striking likeness of Jesus Christ. You have read lives of Christ, beautifully and eloquently written, and you have admired the talent of the persons who could write so well, but the best life of Christ is His living biography, written out in the words and actions of His people. If we, my brethren, were what we profess to be; if the Spirit of the Lord were in the heart of all His children, as we could desire; and if, instead of having abundance of formal professors, we were all possessors of that vital grace, I will tell you not only what we ought to be but what we should be; we should be pictures of Christ, yea, such striking likenesses of Him, that the world would not have to hold us up by the hour together, and say, ‘Well, it seems somewhat of a likeness;’ but they would, when they once beheld us, exclaim, ‘He has been with Jesus; he has been taught of Him, he is like Him; he has caught the very idea of the holy Man of Nazareth, and he expands it out into his very life and every day actions.’”
C. H. Spurgeon in “Christ’s People—Imitators of Him” (Sermon given April 29, 1855)
