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Amazing Transformation of Character, May 16
As for me, I will behold thy face in righteousness: I shall be
satisfied, when I awake, with thy likeness.
Psalm 17:15
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Jesus came to restore in man the image of his Maker. None but
Christ can fashion anew the character that has been ruined by sin. He
came to expel the demons that had controlled the will.
The Lord Jesus is making experiments on human hearts through the
exhibition of His mercy and abundant grace. He is effecting transforma-
tions so amazing that Satan, with all his triumphant boasting, with all his
confederacy of evil united against God and the laws of His government,
stands viewing them as a fortress impregnable to his sophistries and
delusions. They are to him an incomprehensible mystery. The angels of
God, seraphim and cherubim, the powers commissioned to cooperate
with human agencies, look on with astonishment and joy, that fallen
men, once children of wrath, are through the training of Christ devel-
oping characters after the divine similitude, to be sons and daughters
of God, to act an important part in the occupations and pleasures of
heaven.
They were purified in the furnace of affliction. For Jesus’ sake
they endured opposition, hatred, calumny. They followed Him through
conflicts sore; they endured self-denial and experienced bitter disap-
pointments. By their own painful experience they learned the evil of
sin, its power, its guilt, its woe; and they look upon it with abhorrence.
A sense of the infinite sacrifice made for its cure, humbles them in their
own sight, and fills their hearts with gratitude and praise which those
who have never fallen cannot appreciate. They love much, because they
have been forgiven much. Having been partakers of Christ’s sufferings,
they are fitted to be partakers with Him of His glory.
In their untainted purity and spotless perfection, Christ looks upon
His people as the reward of all His suffering, His humiliation, and His
love, and the supplement of His glory—Christ, the great center from
which radiates all glory.
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