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Education
and I will give you rest.”
Matthew 11:28
.
In every human being He discerned infinite possibilities. He saw
men as they might be, transfigured by His grace—in “the beauty of
the Lord our God.”
Psalm 90:17
. Looking upon them with hope,
He inspired hope. Meeting them with confidence, He inspired trust.
Revealing in Himself man’s true ideal, He awakened, for its attainment,
both desire and faith. In His presence souls despised and fallen realized
that they still were men, and they longed to prove themselves worthy
of His regard. In many a heart that seemed dead to all things holy,
were awakened new impulses. To many a despairing one there opened
the possibility of a new life.
Christ bound them to His heart by the ties of love and devotion;
and by the same ties He bound them to their fellow men. With Him
love was life, and life was service. “Freely ye have received,” He said,
“freely give.”
Matthew 10:8
.
It was not on the cross only that Christ sacrificed Himself for
humanity. As He “went about doing good” (
Acts 10:38
), every day’s
experience was an outpouring of His life. In one way only could such a
life be sustained. Jesus lived in dependence upon God and communion
with Him. To the secret place of the Most High, under the shadow
of the Almighty, men now and then repair; they abide for a season,
and the result is manifest in noble deeds; then their faith fails, the
communion is interrupted, and the lifework marred. But the life of
Jesus was a life of constant trust, sustained by continual communion;
and His service for heaven and earth was without failure or faltering.
As a man He supplicated the throne of God, till His humanity was
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charged with a heavenly current that connected humanity with divinity.
Receiving life from God, He imparted life to men.
“Never man spake like this Man.”
John 7:46
. This would have
been true of Christ had He taught only in the realm of the physical
and the intellectual, or in matters of theory and speculation solely. He
might have unlocked mysteries that have required centuries of toil and
study to penetrate. He might have made suggestions in scientific lines
that, till the close of time, would have afforded food for thought and
stimulus for invention. But He did not do this. He said nothing to
gratify curiosity or to stimulate selfish ambition. He did not deal in
abstract theories, but in that which is essential to the development of
character; that which will enlarge man’s capacity for knowing God,