The Imitation of Christ — The Good Life, Not the Long Life

✦ Our Most Earnest Study

À Kempis opens his masterwork — the most widely read Christian book after the Bible itself — with a single command from Christ and a single response from the soul. The command: follow Me. The response: dwell upon His life.

The promise is plain: the one who follows will not walk in darkness. The darkness that blinds the heart — the confusion, the uncertainty, the decisions that have no clear answer — is dispelled by the following. Not by understanding first. Not by seeing the whole road before taking the first step. By following. The light comes with the following. The illumination is in the imitation. Dwell upon His life — and the darkness lifts. 🙏

✦ Feel It — Not Define It

À Kempis asks the question that silences every proud theologian: what does it profit you to discuss the Holy Trinity if you lack humility? The discussion itself becomes displeasing to the very God it discusses — because the discussion is performed without the heart that God requires.

It is not deep words that make a man holy. The soul that can explain the Trinity but cannot love her neighbor has gained nothing. The mind that can parse every doctrine but cannot kneel in humility has built a library, not a life. It is a good life — not a brilliant mind — that makes a person dear to God.

I had rather feel contrition than be skilful in the definition thereof. À Kempis said it in the 1400s. Tozer quoted it yesterday. And the truth has not changed: the living is more than the knowing. The soul that has felt contrition — real, honest, humble contrition before God — knows more about it than the theologian who can define it in twelve languages. The experience surpasses the explanation. The living surpasses the learning. The good life surpasses the deep words. 🙏

✦ Why Desire a Long Life?

À Kempis lists the vanities — and each one is a mirror held up to the world. Riches that perish — vanity. Honours that inflate — vanity. Fleshly desires that promise and disappoint — vanity. And then the one that stopped Le this morning:

It is vanity to desire a long life, and to have little care for a good life.

The world chases years. More time. More health. More days added to the calendar. And à Kempis asks: to what end? A long life lived without goodness is a long vanity. A hundred years without holiness is a hundred years of emptiness. The question is not how long? but how good? Not how many years? but how deep was the life within them?

The good life is not measured by its length. It is measured by its dearness to God. A short life lived in imitation of Christ is worth more than a century lived in imitation of the world. Because the good life continues beyond the grave — and the long life, if it was only long, does not. 🙏

✦ Hasten Where Eternal Joy Abides

It is vanity to love that which quickly passes away, and not to hasten where eternal joy abides. À Kempis draws the line between the temporary and the eternal — and asks: which one are you hurrying toward?

Everything the eye can see passes away. The riches. The honours. The pleasures. The health. The years themselves. All of it — passing. And the soul that loves the passing things is loving what is already leaving. The hand that grips the temporary is gripping what is already slipping through the fingers.

But eternal joy abides. It does not pass. It does not slip. It does not fade — Jowett's unfading inheritance, the bloom on which time does not breathe. And à Kempis says: hasten. Not stroll. Not wander. Hasten. The urgency is not panic — it is priority. The soul that has seen the difference between the passing and the abiding does not linger with the passing. She hastens toward the joy that does not end. 🙏

✦ The Eye Is Never Satisfied

Ecclesiastes said it three thousand years ago: the eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear with hearing. The appetite for the visible is insatiable. The more the eye sees, the more it wants to see. The more the ear hears, the more it wants to hear. The seen world cannot satisfy — because it was never designed to.

And à Kempis draws the practical conclusion: turn away. Not because the visible world is evil — God made it and called it good. But because the heart that is set on the seen will never be satisfied. The eye will always want more. The ear will always crave more. Only the unseen can satisfy — because only the unseen is eternal.

The turn from the seen to the unseen is the turn from vanity to reality. From the temporary to the permanent. From the long life to the good life. From the riches that perish to the inheritance that does not fade. And the turn begins every morning — in the quiet room, before dawn, when the heart sets itself not on what the eye can see but on the One who is invisible and eternal. 🙏