Pilgrim
Portions
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Weeks
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Yet sure, if in Thy
presence
My soul still constant were, Mine eye would more familiar Its brighter glories bear: And thus Thy deep perfections Much better should I know, And with adoring fervour In this Thy nature grow. The Lord Jesus … is the summing up of all possible beauty and perfection in Himself.
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What was then the life of this Jesus, the Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief? A life of activity in obscurity, causing the love of God to penetrate the most hidden corners of society, wherever needs were greatest … this life did not shelter itself from the misery of the world … but it brought into it—precious grace!—the love of God.
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As Adam’s first act … was to seek his own will … Christ was in this world of misery, devoting Himself in love, devoting Himself to do His Father’s will. He came here emptying Himself. He came here by an act of devotedness to His Father, at all cost to Himself, that God might be glorified.
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The only act of disobedience which Adam could commit he did commit; but He, who could have done all things as to power, only used His power to display more perfect service, more perfect subjection. How blessed is the picture of the Lord’s ways!
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The more faithful He was, the more despised and opposed; the more meek, the less esteemed: but all this altered nothing, because He did all to God alone: with the multitude, with His disciples, or before His unjust judges, nothing altered the perfectness of His ways, because in all circumstances all was done to God.
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The Man Christ Jesus grew in favour with God and man. He was always the servant of everyone. The first thing that struck me some years ago in reading the gospels was, Here is a man that never did anything for Himself. What a miracle to see a man not living to himself, for He had got God for Himself.
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The
gospels
display the One in whom was no selfishness. They tell
out the heart
that was ready for everybody. No matter how deep His
own sorrow, He
always cared for others. He could warn Peter in
Gethsemane, and comfort
the dying thief on the cross. His heart was above
circumstances, never
acting under them, but ever according to God in them. Self pleasing, self exalting, self advancing are ever the principles of men’s actions … In the blessed Lord … there was true devotedness of heart and affection, and service, without the smallest particle of self seeking. … The very thing man so much covets, there was the perfect absence of in Him. “I receive not honour from man.”
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We find admirable affections in the apostles … we find works, as Jesus said, greater than His own; we find exercises of heart and astonishing heights by grace … but we do not find the evenness that was in Christ. He was the Son of man who was in heaven. Such as Paul are chords on which God strikes, and on which He produces a wondrous music; but Christ is all the music itself.
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May God
grant
unto us to value the perfect beauty of that Jesus who
came to us. Pilgrim Portions - Meditations for the Day of Rest - Selected from the
Writings, Hymns,
Letters, etc., of J. N. Darby SEDIN-Servicio Evangélico |
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