The mind of Jesus E-Book

John Macduff

• Herausgeber: Bible Study Books
• Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2018

Seitenzahl: 94

Beschreibung

"Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus" Philippians 2:5 "Arm yourselves likewise with the same mind" 1 Peter 4:1 What a study is this! To attain a dim reflection of it, is the ambition of angel higher they cannot soar. "To be conformed to the image of His Son!" this is the design of God in the predestination of His people from all eternity. "We shall be like Him!" this is the Bible picture of heaven! In a former little volume, we pondered some of the gracious Words which proceeded out of the mouth of Jesus. In the present, we have a few faint lineaments of that holy Character which constituted the living expositor and embodiment of His precepts. But how lofty such a standard! How all creature-perfection shrinks abashed and confounded before a Divine portraiture like this! He is the true "Angel standing in the sun," who alone projects no shadow; so bathed in the glories of Deity, that likeness to Him becomes like the light in which He is shrouded"no man can approach unto it." May we not, however, seek at least to approximate, though we cannot adequately and fully resemble? It is impossible on earth to associate with a fellow-being without getting in some degree assimilated to him. Just so, the more we study "the Mind of Christ," the more we are in His company holding converse with Him as our best and dearest friend catching up His holy looks and holy deeds the more shall we be "transformed into the same image." "Consider," says the Great Apostle (literally 'gaze on') "Christ Jesus" (Hebrews 3:1.) Study feature by feature, lineament by lineament of that Peerless Exemplar. "Gaze" on the Sun of Righteousness, until, like gazing long on the natural sun, you carry away with you, on your spiritual vision, dazzling images of His brightness and glory! Though He is the Archetype of all goodness remember He is no shadowy model though the Infinite Jehovah He was "the Man Christ Jesus." We must never, indeed, forget that it is not the mind, but the work of Emmanuel which lies at the foundation of a sinner's hope. He must be known as a Savior, before He is studied as an Example. His doing and dying is the center jewel of which all the virtues of His holy life are merely the setting. But neither must we overlook the Scripture obligation to walk in His footsteps and imbibe His Spirit, for "if any man has not the Spirit of Christ he is none of His!" Oh, that each individual Christian were more Savior-like! that, in the manifestation of a holy character and heavenly demeanor, it might be said in some feeble measure of the faint and imperfect reflection "Such was Jesus!" How far short we are of such a criterion our mournful experience can testify. But it is at least comforting to know that there is a day coming, when, in the full vision and fruition of the Glorious Original, the exhortation of our motto-verse will be needed no more; when we shall be able to say, in the words of an inspired apostle "We have the MIND OF CHRIST!"

Leseprobe

PREFACE

"Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus"Philippians 2:5

"Arm yourselves likewise with the same mind"1 Peter 4:1

What a study is this! To attain a dim reflection of it, is the ambition of angel higher they cannot soar.

"To be conformed to the image of His Son!" this is the design of God in the predestination of His people from all eternity.

"We shall be like Him!" this is the Bible picture of heaven!

In a former little volume, we pondered some of the gracious Words which proceeded out of the mouth of Jesus. In the present, we have a few faint lineaments of that holy Character which constituted the living expositor and embodiment of His precepts.

But how lofty such a standard! How all creature-perfection shrinks abashed and confounded before a Divine portraiture like this! He is the true "Angel standing in the sun," who alone projects no shadow; so bathed in the glories of Deity, that likeness to Him becomes like the light in which He is shrouded"no man can approach unto it." May we not, however, seek at least to approximate, though we cannot adequately and fully resemble?

It is impossible on earth to associate with a fellow-being without getting in some degree assimilated to him. Just so, the more we study "the Mind of Christ," the more we are in His company holding converse with Him as our best and dearest friend catching up His holy looks and holy deeds the more shall we be "transformed into the same image."

"Consider," says the Great Apostle (literally 'gaze on') "Christ Jesus" (Hebrews 3:1.) Study feature by feature, lineament by lineament of that Peerless Exemplar. "Gaze" on the Sun of Righteousness, until, like gazing long on the natural sun, you carry away with you, on your spiritual vision, dazzling images of His brightness and glory! Though He is the Archetype of all goodness remember He is no shadowy model though the Infinite Jehovah He was "the Man Christ Jesus."

We must never, indeed, forget that it is not the mind, but the work of Emmanuel which lies at the foundation of a sinner's hope. He must be known as a Savior, before He is studied as an Example. His doing and dying is the center jewel of which all the virtues of His holy life are merely the setting. But neither must we overlook the Scripture obligation to walk in His footsteps and imbibe His Spirit, for "if any man has not the Spirit of Christ he is none of His!"

Oh, that each individual Christian were more Savior-like! that, in the manifestation of a holy character and heavenly demeanor, it might be said in some feeble measure of the faint and imperfect reflection "Such was Jesus!"

How far short we are of such a criterion our mournful experience can testify.

But it is at least comforting to know that there is a day coming, when, in the full vision and fruition of the Glorious Original, the exhortation of our motto-verse will be needed no more; when we shall be able to say, in the words of an inspired apostle "We have the MIND OF CHRIST!"

SUMMARY

PREFACE

COMPASSION

RESIGNATION IN TRIAL

DEVOTEDNESS TO GOD

FORGIVENESS OF INJURIES

MEEKNESS

THANKFULNESS

UNSELFISHNESS

SUBMISSION TO GOD WORD

PRAYERFULNESS

LOVE TO THE BRETHREN

SYMPATHY

FIDELITY IN REBUKE

GENTLENESS IN REBUKE

ENDURANCE OF CONTRADICTION

PLEASING GOD

GRIEF AT SIN

HUMILITY

PATIENCE

SUBJECTION

NOT RETALIATING

BEARING THE CROSS

HOLY ZEAL

BENEVOLENCE

FIRMNESS-IN-TEMPTATION

RECEIVING SINNERS

TRUTHFULNESS

ACTIVITY IN DUTY

COMMITTING OUR WAY TO GOD

LOVE OF UNITY

NOT OF THE WORLD

CALMNESS IN DEATH

1. COMPASSION

"Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus."

"I have compassion on the multitude." Mark 8:2.

What a pattern to His people, the tender compassion of Jesus! He found the world He came to save a moral Bethesda where crowds of sick people blind, lame, or paralyzed lay on the porches. The wail of suffering humanity was everywhere borne to His ear. It was His delight to walk its porches, to pity, relieve, comfort, save! The faintest cry of misery arrested His footsteps stirred a ripple in this fountain of Infinite Love.

Was it a leper that dreaded name which entailed a life-long exile from friendly looks and kindly words? There was One, at least, who had tones and deeds of tenderness for the outcast. "Jesus, being moved with compassion, put forth His hand and touched him."

Was it some blind beggars on the Jericho highway, groping in darkness, pleading for help? "Jesus stood still, and had compassion on them, and touched their eyes!"

Was it the speechless pleadings of a widow's tears at the gate of Nain, when she followed her earthly pride and prop to the grave? "When the Lord saw her, He had compassion on her, and said, Weep not!" Even when He rebukes the rainbow of compassion is seen in the cloud, or rather, that cloud, as it passes, dissolves in a rain-shower of mercy! He pronounces Jerusalem "desolate," but the doom is uttered amid a flood of anguished sorrow!

Reader! do the compassionate words and deeds of a tender Savior find any feeble echo and transcript in yours? As you traverse in thought, the wastes of human wretchedness does the spectacle give rise, not to the mere emotional feeling which weeps itself away in sentimental tears but to an earnest desire to do something to mitigate the suffering of woe-worn humanity?

How vast and world-wide, are the claims on your compassion! now near, now at a distance the unmet and unanswered cry of perishing millions abroad the heathendom which lies unsaved at your own door the public charity languishing the mission staff dwarfed and crippled from lack of needful funds a suffering district a starving family a poor neighbor a helpless orphan it may be, some crowded hovel where misery and vice run riot or some lonely sick-chamber, where the dim lamp has been wasting for dreary nights or some desolate home which death has entered, where "Joseph is not, and Simeon is not," and where some sobbing heart, under the tattered garb of poverty, mourns, unsolaced and unpitied, its "loved and lost one."

Are there none such within your reach, to whom a trifling pittance would be as an angel of mercy? How it would hallow and enhance all you possess, were you to seek to live as a dispenser of Jehovah's bounties! If He has given you of this world's substance, remember that it is bestowed and not to be greedily hoarded or lavishly squandered! Property and wealth are talents to be traded on and laid out for the good of others sacred trusts, not selfishly to be enjoyed but generously to be employed.

The poor saints are the representatives of Jesus their needs He considers as His own, and He will recompense accordingly. The feeblest expression of Christian pity and love, though it be but the widow's mite, or the cup of cold water, or the kindly look and word when there is neither mite nor cup to give yet, if done in His name, it is entered in the "book of life" as a "loan to the Lord;" and in that day when "the books are opened," the loan will be paid back with interest!

"Arm yourselves likewise with the same mind."

2. RESIGNATION IN TRIAL

"Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus."

"Yet I want Your will to be done not Mine!" Luke 22:42.

Where was there ever resignation like this? The life of Jesus was one long martyrdom. From Bethlehem's manger to Calvary's cross, there was scarcely one break in the clouds; these gathered more darkly and ominously around Him until they burst over His devoted head as He uttered His expiring cry! Yet throughout this pilgrimage of sorrow no murmuring accent escaped His lips. The most suffering of all suffering lives was one of uncomplaining submission.

"Yet I want Your will to be done not Mine!" was the motto of this wondrous Being! When He came into the world He thus announced His advent, "Lo, I come, I delight to do Your will, O my God!" When He left it, we listen to the same prayer of blended agony and acquiescence, "O My Father, if it is possible let this cup pass from Me! Yet I want Your will to be done not Mine!"

Reader! is this mind also in you? Ah, what are your trials compared to His! What are the ripples in your tide of woe compared to the waves and billows which swept over Him! If He, the spotless Lamb of God, "murmured not," how can you murmur? His were the sufferings of a bosom never once darkened with the passing shadow of guilt or sin. Your severest sufferings are deserved yes, infinitely less than you deserve! Are you tempted to indulge in hard suspicions, as to God's faithfulness and love, in appointing some peculiar trial? Ask yourself, Would Jesus have complained? Should I seek to pry into "the deep things of God," when He, in the spirit of a weaned child, was satisfied with the solution, "Even so, Father for so it seems good in Your sight!"

"Even so, Father!" Afflicted one! "tossed with tempest, and not comforted," take that word on which Your adorable Redeemer pillowed His suffering head, "Father!" and make it, as He did, the secret of your resignation. "My Father!" my covenant God! the God who spared not Jesus! It may well hush my every repining word.

The sick child will take the bitterest medicine from a father's hand. "This cup which You, O God, give me to drink — shall I not drink it? Be it mine to lie passive in the arms of Your chastening love, exulting in the assurance that all Your appointments, though sovereign, are never arbitrary but that there is a gracious 'need be' in them all."

Drinking deep of His sweet spirit of submission, you will be able thus to meet, yes, even to welcome, your sorest cross, saying, "Yes, Lord, all is well, just because it is Your blessed will. Take me, use me, chasten me as seems good in Your sight. My will is resolved into Yours. This trial is dark; I cannot see the 'why and the wherefore' of it yet I want Your will to be done not mine! My gourd is withered; I cannot see the reason of so speedy a dissolution of my beloved earthly shelter; my sense and sight ask in vain why these leaves of earthly refreshment have been doomed so soon to droop in sadness and sorrow. But it is enough. 'The Lord prepared the worm!' I want Your will to be done not mine!"

Oh, how does the stricken soul honor God by thus being silent in the midst of dark and perplexing dealings, recognizing in these, part of the needed discipline and training for a sorrowless, sinless, deathless world; regarding every trial as a link in the chain which draws it to heaven, where the whitest robes will be found to be those here baptized with suffering, and bathed in tears!

"Arm yourselves likewise with the same mind."