Remember that Christ’s commandment not to be conformed to the world is the consequence of his commandment to be conformed to himself.  ‘Thus did I not’ comes second; ‘this one thing I do’ comes first.  You will misunderstand the whole genius of the gospel if you suppose that, as a law of life, it is perpetually pulling men short up, and saying: don’t, don’t, don’t!  There is a Christianity of that sort which is mainly prohibition and restriction, but it is not Christ’s Christianity.  He begins by enjoining: ‘This do in remembrance of me,’ and the man that has accepted that commandment must necessarily say, as he looks out on the world, and its practices: ‘So did I not because of the fear of God.’

Alexander Maclaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture: Second Kings, Chronicles, Ezra and Nehemiah (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1977), 369.