The True Estimate of Life and How to Live

“To me to live is Christ.” What did the apostle mean? There are seven things which he might have meant. By these words he intended to say that:

1. Christ was the author of his life. It was as though he had written, “To me to live at all is Christ.”
2. Christ was the sustainer of his life. “To me to continue to live is Christ.”
3. Christ was the law of his life. “The conditions in which I live my life are summed up in Christ.”
4. Christ was the product of his life. “To me to live is to reproduce Christ.”
5. Christ was the aim and influence of his life. “To me to live is to lead men to Christ.”
6. Christ was the impulse of his life. “To me to live is to be swept along under the compassion of the Christ.”
7. Christ was the finisher, the crown of his life. “To me to live is at last to be what he is, and to find the crowning of all my manhood in him.”
   Christ the end, as Christ was the beginning. Christ the beginning, and therefore Christ the end. Whether this man looked back upon the past, at the present, or into the future, within or without, behind, above, or beyond to the consummation—wherever he turned his eyes, he saw Jesus only.