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Testimonies to Ministers and Gospel Workers
regular operation of His appointed laws. So it is in spiritual things.
Satan is constantly seeking to produce effects by rude and violent
thrusts; but Jesus found access to minds by the pathway of their
most familiar associations. He disturbed as little as possible their
accustomed train of thought by abrupt actions or prescribed rules.
He honored man with His confidence, and thus placed him on his
honor. He introduced old truths in a new and precious light. Thus
when only twelve years old, He astonished the doctors of the law by
His questions in the temple.
Jesus assumed humanity that He might meet humanity. He brings
men under the transforming power of truth by meeting them where
they are. He gains access to the heart by securing sympathy and
confidence, making all feel that His identification with their nature
and interest is complete. The truth came from His lips beautiful in
its simplicity, yet clothed with dignity and power. What a teacher
was our Lord Jesus Christ! How tenderly did He treat every honest
inquirer after truth, that He might gain admission to his sympathies
and find a home in his heart.
I must tell you, brethren, that you are far from what the Lord
would have you be. The attributes of the enemy of God and man
too often find expression in your spirit and attitude toward one
another. You hurt one another because you are not partakers of
the divine nature. And you work against your own perfection of
character, you bring trouble to yourselves, make your work hard
and toilsome, because you regard your own spirit and defects of
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character as precious virtues to be clung to and fostered.
Jesus points the highest minds, as well as the lowest, to the lily,
in the freshness of the dew of the morning, and bids us, “Consider
the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they
spin: and yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory
was not arrayed like one of these.” And He impresses the lesson: “If
God so clothe the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is
cast into the oven, shall He not much more clothe you, O ye of little
faith?”