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The Ministry of Healing
his labors for his brethren he relied much upon the manifestation of
infinite love in the sacrifice of Christ, with its subduing, constraining
power.
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How earnest, how touching, his appeal: “Ye know the grace
of our Lord Jesus Christ, that, though He was rich, yet for your
sakes He became poor, that ye through His poverty might be rich.”
2 Corinthians 8:9
. You know the height from which He stooped,
the depth of humiliation to which He descended. His feet entered
upon the path of sacrifice and turned not aside until He had given
His life. There was no rest for Him between the throne in heaven
and the cross. His love for man led Him to welcome every indignity
and suffer every abuse.
Paul admonishes us to “look not every man on his own things,
but every man also on the things of others.” He bids us possess the
mind “which was also in Christ Jesus: who, being in the form of
God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: but made Himself
of no reputation, and took upon Him the form of a servant, and was
made in the likeness of men: and being found in fashion as a man,
He humbled Himself, and became obedient unto death, even the
death of the cross.”
Philippians 2:4-8
.
Paul was deeply anxious that the humiliation of Christ should
be seen and realized. He was convinced that if men could be led
to consider the amazing sacrifice made by the Majesty of heaven,
selfishness would be banished from their hearts. The apostle lingers
over point after point, that we may in some measure comprehend
the wonderful condescension of the Saviour in behalf of sinners. He
directs the mind first to the position which Christ occupied in heaven
in the bosom of His Father; he reveals Him afterward as laying
aside His glory, voluntarily subjecting Himself to the humbling
conditions of man’s life, assuming the responsibilities of a servant,
and becoming obedient unto death, and that the most ignominious
and revolting, the most agonizing—the death of the cross. Can we
contemplate this wonderful manifestation of the love of God without
gratitude and love, and a deep sense of the fact that we are not our
own? Such a Master should not be served from grudging, selfish
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motives.
“Ye know,” says Peter, “that ye were not redeemed with corrupt-
ible things, as silver and gold.”
1 Peter 1:18
. Oh, had these been