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. 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. 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. 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! 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. 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. 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.” 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. 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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