Homepage
Login
Profile
BookClubs
dmBox
Read Ebook: The Mind of Jesus by Macduff John R John Ross
Font size:
Background color:
Text color:
Add to tbrJar First Page Next Page Prev Page
Ebook has 168 lines and 21381 words, and 4 pages
Reader! do you complain of your languid spirit, your drooping faith, your fitful affections, your lukewarm love? May you not trace much of what you deplore to an unfrequented chamber? The treasures are locked up from you, because you have suffered the key to rust; the hands hang down because they have ceased to be uplifted in prayer. Without prayer!--It is the pilgrim without a staff--the seaman without a compass--the soldier going unarmed and unharnessed to battle.
Beware of encouraging what indisposes to prayer--going to the audience chamber with soiled garments, the din of the world following you, its distracting thoughts hovering unforbidden over your spirit. Can you wonder that the living water refuses to flow through obstructed channels, or the heavenly light to pierce murky vapors!
"ARM YOURSELVES LIKEWISE WITH THE SAME MIND."
Tenth Day.
LOVE TO THE BRETHREN.
"And walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us."--Eph. v. 2.
Ah! if such was the Elder Brother's love to His younger brethren, what should the love of these younger brothers be for one another! How humbling that there should be so much that is sadly and strangely unlike the spirit which our blessed Master sought to inculcate alike by precept and example! Individual Christians, why these bitter estrangements, these censorious words, these harsh judgments, this want of kind consideration of the feelings and failings of those who may differ from you? Why are your friendships so often like the summer brook, soon dried? You hope, ere long, to meet in glory. Doubtless when you enter on that "sabbath of love," many a greeting will be this, "Alas! my brother, that on earth I did not love thee more!"
"ARM YOURSELVES LIKEWISE WITH THE SAME MIND."
Eleventh Day.
SYMPATHY.
"Jesus wept."--John, xi. 35.
"ARM YOURSELVES LIKEWISE WITH THE SAME MIND."
Twelfth Day.
FIDELITY IN REBUKE.
"The Lord turned and looked upon Peter."--Luke, xxii. 61.
Jesus never spake one unnecessarily harsh or severe word. He had a Divine sympathy for the frailties and infirmities of a tried, and suffering, and tempted nature in others. He was forbearing to the ignorant, encouraging to the weak, tender to the penitent, loving to all,--yet how faithful was He as "the Reprover of sin!" Silent under His own wrongs, with what burning invectives did He lay bare the Pharisees' masked corruption and hypocrisy! When His Father's name and temple were profaned, how did He sweep, with an avenging hand, the mammon-crowd away, replacing the superscription, "Holiness to the Lord," over the defiled altars!
Reader! art thou equally faithful with thy Lord in rebuking evil; not with "the wrath of man, which worketh not the righteousness of God," but with a holy jealousy of His glory, feeling, with the sensitive honor of "the good soldier of Jesus Christ," that an affront offered to Him is offered to thyself? The giving of a wise reproof requires much Christian prudence and delicate discretion. It is not by a rash and inconsiderate exposure of failings that we must attempt to reclaim an erring brother. But neither, for the sake of a false peace, must we compromise fidelity; even friendship is too dearly purchased by winking at sin. Perhaps, when Peter was led to call the Apostle who honestly reproved him, "Our beloved brother Paul," in nothing did he love his rebuker more, than for the honest boldness of his Christian reproof. If Paul had, in that crisis of the Church, with a timidity unworthy of him, evaded the ungracious task, what, humanly speaking, might have been the result?
How often does a seasonable reprimand, a faithful caution, save a lifetime of sin and sorrow! How many a death-bed has made the disclosure, "That kind warning of my friend put an arrest on my career of guilt; it altered my whole being; it brought me to the cross, touched my heart, and, by God's grace, saved my soul!" On the other hand, how many have felt, when death has put his impressive seal on some close earthly intimacy, "This friend, or that friend,--I might have spoken a solemn word to him; but now he is no more; the opportunity is lost, never to be recalled!"
"ARM YOURSELVES LIKEWISE WITH THE SAME MIND."
Thirteenth Day.
GENTLENESS IN REBUKE.
"Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me?"--John, xxi. 15.
How many have an unholy pleasure in finding a brother in the wrong--blazing abroad his failings; administering rebuke, not in gentle forbearance and kindly expostulation, but with harsh and impatient severity! How beautifully did Jesus unite intense sensibility to sin, along with tenderest compassion for the sinner, showing in this that "He knoweth our frame!" Many a scholar needs gentleness in chastisement. The reverse would crush a sensitive spirit, or drive it to despair. Jesus tenderly "considers" the case of those He disciplines, "tempering the wind to the shorn lamb." In the picture of the good shepherd bearing home the wandering sheep, He illustrated by parable what He had often and again taught by His own example. No word of needless harshness or upbraiding uttered to the erring wanderer! Ingratitude is too deeply felt to need rebuke! In silent love, "He lays it on His shoulders rejoicing."
"ARM YOURSELVES LIKEWISE WITH THE SAME MIND."
Fourteenth Day.
ENDURANCE IN CONTRADICTION.
"Who endured such contradiction of sinners against Himself."-- Heb. xii. 3.
"ARM YOURSELVES LIKEWISE WITH THE SAME MIND."
Fifteenth Day.
PLEASING GOD.
"I do always those things that please Him."--John, viii. 29.
"ARM YOURSELVES LIKEWISE WITH THE SAME MIND."
Sixteenth Day.
GRIEF AT SIN.
"Being grieved for the hardness of their hearts."--Mark, iii. 5.
Grieve for a perishing world--a groaning creation fettered and chained in unwilling "subjection to vanity." Do what you can, by effort, by prayer, to hasten on the hour of jubilee, when its ashy robes of sin and sorrow shall be laid aside, and, attired in the "beauties of holiness," it shall exult in "the glorious liberty of the sons of God!"
"ARM YOURSELVES LIKEWISE WITH THE SAME MIND."
Seventeenth Day.
HUMILITY.
"He riseth from supper, and laid aside His garments; and took a towel and girded Himself. After that He poureth water into a basin, and began to wash the disciples' feet."--John, xiii. 4, 5.
"ARM YOURSELVES LIKEWISE WITH THE SAME MIND."
Eighteenth Day.
PATIENCE.
"He was brought as a lamb to the slaughter."--Isa. liii, 7.
Think of this same patience with His Church and people since He ascended to glory. The years upon years He has borne with their perverse resistance of His grace, their treacherous ingratitude, their wayward wanderings, their hardness of heart and contempt of His holy word. Yet, behold the forbearing love of this Saviour of God! His hand of mercy is "stretched out still!"
"In patience," then, "possess ye your souls." Let it not be a grace for peculiar seasons, called forth on peculiar exigences; but an habitual frame manifested in the calm serenity of a daily walk;--placidity amid the little fretting annoyances of every-day life--a fixed purpose of the heart to wait upon God, and cast its every burden upon Him.
"ARM YOURSELVES LIKEWISE WITH THE SAME MIND."
Nineteenth Day.
SUBJECTION.
"As the Father gave me commandment, even so I do."--John, xiv. 31.
Jesus as God-man had omnipotence slumbering in His arm. He had the hoarded treasures of eternity in His grasp. He had only to "speak, and it was done." But, as an example to His people, His whole life on earth was one impressive act of subordination and dependence. At Nazareth He was "subject to His parents." There He remained in studied obscurity, occupying for thirty years a lowly hut, willing to continue in a state of seclusion, till the Father's summons called Him to His appointed work.
Add to tbrJar First Page Next Page Prev Page