“Who is My Neighbour?”
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toward some apparently great work, while we neglect the needy or turn
the stranger from his right, is not a service that will meet His approval.
The sanctification of the soul by the working of the Holy Spirit is
the implanting of Christ’s nature in humanity. Gospel religion is Christ
in the life—a living, active principle. It is the grace of Christ revealed
in character and wrought out in good works. The principles of the
gospel cannot be disconnected from any department of practical life.
Every line of Christian experience and labor is to be a representation
of the life of Christ.
Love is the basis of godliness. Whatever the profession, no man
has pure love to God unless he has unselfish love for his brother. But
we can never come into possession of this spirit by trying to love
others. What is needed is the love of Christ in the heart. When self is
merged in Christ, love springs forth spontaneously. The completeness
of Christian character is attained when the impulse to help and bless
others springs constantly from within—when the sunshine of heaven
fills the heart and is revealed in the countenance.
It is not possible for the heart in which Christ abides to be destitute
of love. If we love God because He first loved us, we shall love all
for whom Christ died. We cannot come in touch with divinity without
coming in touch with humanity; for in Him who sits upon the throne
of the universe, divinity and humanity are combined. Connected with
Christ, we are connected with our fellow men by the golden links of the
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chain of love. Then the pity and compassion of Christ will be manifest
in our life. We shall not wait to have the needy and unfortunate brought
to us. We shall not need to be entreated to feel for the woes of others.
It will be as natural for us to minister to the needy and suffering as it
was for Christ to go about doing good.
Wherever there is an impulse of love and sympathy, wherever
the heart reaches out to bless and uplift others, there is revealed the
working of God’s Holy Spirit. In the depths of heathenism, men who
have had no knowledge of the written law of God, who have never even
heard the name of Christ, have been kind to His servants, protecting
them at the risk of their own lives. Their acts show the working of a
divine power. The Holy Spirit has implanted the grace of Christ in the
heart of the savage, quickening his sympathies contrary to his nature,
contrary to his education. The “Light which lighteth every man that