Christ's Acts of Love the Christian's Model.
I. Christ took our flesh that in it He might go up and down among us; that in it He might be seen by us; that in it He might speak to us, and leave deeds and words which might, in characters of love, be traced in our souls, and there live on for ever. He came among us in order to set before us, in His own Divine person, the loveliness, and beauty, and majesty of Divine love and Divine holiness. The life of Christ is the whole sum of the Christian's life. Whatever holiness the Holy Spirit has wrought in any of the saints is wrought after that pattern. By meditating on that life, we live with Him, converse with Him, enter into His holy and hallowing society. Through studying Him we know how to follow Him; through following Him we understand what we study. And so, by a continual round, the contemplation of Him kindles our souls to long to be like Him and to copy Him; to copy Him enlightens our eyes, and clears away the film which dims their sight; and that sight, through His Spirit, transforms our spirits into the likeness of Him whom we behold.
II. And now what should we so behold, so adore, so copy, as the love of Jesus in act, in word, in thought? Our love must be (1) supernatural, (2) self-sacrificing; (3) it must embrace all whom Christ loves; (4) it must not be deterred by that which is repugnant to nature.
E. B. Pusey, Parochial and Cathedral Sermons,p. 197.
References: Ephesians 5:1. Spurgeon, Sermons,vol. xxix., No. 1725; J. H. Thorn, Laws of Life after the Mind of Christ,2nd series, p. 61; Homilist,vol. i., p. 241; Preacher's Monthly,vol. x., p. 239. Ephesians 5:1; Ephesians 5:2. H. J. Wilmot-Buxton, The Life of Duty,p. 158; H. W. Beecher, Christian World Pulpit,vol. vii., p. 347; Preacher's Monthly,vol. vii., p. 156.