Pattern: we almost hate the term – demands, regulations, compliance. Another set of wearying intruding obligations upon time, effort, and resources. But that not what I’m meaning; no, not at all.
“Everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and you who have no money, Come! Buy and eat without money and without cost. Why do you spend money for what is not bread, and your wages for what does not satisfy? Listen carefully to Me, and eat what is good, and delight yourself in the best food of all. Come to Me with your ears wide open. Hear Me that your soul will live!” –Isaiah 55:1-3.
OK, that’s a new Pattern altogether. All the patterns of men demand, but do not supply. They require but do not relieve. Standards are set without assisting. Laws are pronounced without power to comply. The patterns of men are subtle bondage, resented requirements, and joyless duty.
But not this Pattern; it gives, secures, overflows, and satisfies. And that Pattern is Christ Himself.
All that God requires of us, He provides to us in the Lord Jesus: freely, fully, and forever. Christ Himself is our standard, and Christ Himself is our saving satisfying supply. The very life that must be ours in order to please God, is infused in us by Christ Himself. What we are to be, Christ becomes in us.
He loved to the uttermost: the outcasts, unclean, and despised as well as the respectable and rich. Pagans and priests, harlots and Herods, along with slaves and sovereigns, liars and lechers were all loved. And we must do the same; He is our Pattern. But how is that possible?, you say. He is also our provision.
To the command: “Love one another, even as I have loved you” –John 13:34, comes the counterpart: “Love is from God. We love because He first loved us” -1 John 4:7,19. But is that practical? Yes, because what He requires He supplies. “The love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us” –Romans 5:5. “The fruit of the Spirit is love” –Galatians 5:22.
But how can we meet up to Christ’s Pattern of loving the unlovely, the wretched and reprehensible? Simply because “the love of Christ controls us” -2 Corinthians 5:14. And “whoever loves the Father, loves the child born of Him” -1 John 5:1. And this love produces holiness, a real purity.
It is not comprised of fake religious restrictions and regulations of character: not a ceaseless round of meetings, fastings, tithes and offerings, taboos on dress or adornment or association. No; holiness is Christ in us: “our Life” –Colossians 3:4, “our sanctification” -1 Corinthians 1:30. He is the “life-giving spirit” -1 Corinthians 15:45 who imparts all that He is to all that are His. But is this really possible? Yes. “He who is joined to the Lord is one spirit” -1 Corinthians 6:17. Ok, so what’s the catch? No catch.
“Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am meek and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and My burden is light” –Matthew 11:29,30. Ah ha! So there’s a yoke and a burden after all!
But the yoke is easy because Christ provides the power. The burden is light because “His commandments are not burdensome” -1 John 5:3. It is not a yoke of bondage extracting from us what we do not possess. The commandments are not grievous because of love: “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My Word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our home with him” –John 14:23. It’s a Pattern with a provision. A standard attended with a supernatural Spirit of supply.
Undergirding it all is truth. But I still don’t understand. How am I supposed to be loving, holy, and full of truth? Don’t worry; Christ has anticipated all this and has made a super-abundant supply beyond anything we could ask or think. “The Father will give you another Helper, that He may be with you forever: the Spirit of Truth” –John 14:16,17. “He will guide you into all truth. He will glorify Me. That’s why I said the Spirit will take what is Mine and will disclose it to you” –John 16:13-15. Yes, “the anointing of Christ’s Spirit which you received from Him abides in you, and teaches you about all things, and is true, and just as it has taught you, abide in Him” 1 John 2:27. Supply is sure in Christ our Pattern.
“Abide in Me, and I in you. No branch can bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine; so neither can you unless you abide in Me. I am the Vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing” –John 15:4,5.
This is why patterns are hateful, but the Pattern of Christ is not. Abide there and His life will flow.