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The Price of Perfection, October 8
For it became him, for whom are all things, and by whom are all
things, in bringing many sons unto glory, to make the captain of
their salvation perfect through sufferings.
Hebrews 2:10
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Christ’s invitation to us all is a call to a life of peace and rest—a life
of liberty and love, and to a rich inheritance in the future immortal life....
We need not be alarmed if this path of liberty is laid through conflicts and
sufferings. The liberty we shall enjoy will be the more valuable because we
made sacrifices to obtain it. The peace which passeth knowledge will cost
us battles with the powers of darkness, struggles severe against selfishness
and inward sins....
We cannot appreciate our Redeemer in the highest sense until we can
see Him by the eye of faith reaching to the very depths of human wretched-
ness, taking upon Himself the nature of man, the capacity to suffer, and
by suffering putting forth His divine power to save and lift sinners up to
companionship with Himself. O why have we so little sense of sin? Why
so little penitence? It is because we do not come nearer the cross of Christ.
Conscience becomes hardened through the deceitfulness of sin, because
we remain away from Christ. Consider the Captain of our salvation. He
suffered shame for us that we might not suffer everlasting shame and con-
tempt. He suffered on the cross, that mercy might be granted to fallen man.
God’s justice is preserved, and guilty man is pardoned. Jesus dies that the
sinner might live. Shame is borne by the Son of the Highest for the sake
of poor sinners, that they might be ransomed and crowned with eternal
glory....
We must hide self in Jesus Christ, and let Him appear in our conver-
sation and character as the One altogether lovely, and the chief among
ten thousand. Our lives, our deportment, will testify how highly we prize
Christ and the salvation He has wrought out for us at such a cost to Him-
self. While we look constantly to Him whom our sins have pierced and our
sorrows have burdened, we shall acquire strength to be like Him. We shall
bind ourselves in willing, happy, captivity to Jesus Christ
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10
The Review and Herald, August 2, 1881
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297