(Joel Headley, “Jesus Christ“) LISTEN to Audio! Download Audio
Christ’s love to man was superhuman, divine!
Neglect,
abuse,
scorn,
rejection of His offered blessings,
fiendish thirst for His blood–
could not lessen its gentle force, nor silence its tender appeals.
His whole object is to win hearts.
Acts of personal kindness in the relief of suffering;
sympathy with the distressed;
loving words to the fearful;
cheering promises to the despairing;
offers of peace, pardon, and fullness of joy, and eternal blessedness to the believing
–make up His life, and form the substance of His message.
He confronts poor, sinful man with every motive, and addresses him with every form of appeal, to enkindle within him love and trust.
Whether alone on the mountain top bowed in prayer, or in the presence of corrupt, degraded women–the same divine purity invests Him. Unchanged by circumstances, unmoved by danger, and never excited by the temptations, or passions, or ambitions of men–He, though moving in their midst, is as completely separate from them as heaven from earth.
Love, overwhelming, inexpressible love–is the only chain that binds Him to the world in which He lives.
His character exhibits the most striking contrasts, and qualities apparently the most opposite and contradictory–and yet it is a perfect, harmonious whole. With unbounded courage without rashness, was joined perfect meekness without loss of dignity. Of heroic firmness under every trial–He yet weeps at the grave of his friend. Filling us with awe as He stands amid the glories of the transfiguration today–He wins our confidence tomorrow by taking little children in His arms and blessing them.
The Creator of man, He yet allows wicked man to spit upon Him; and, at last, offers up His life to save him.
In love, He heals the sick, raises the dead, and comforts the weary and sorrowful. In love, He exclaims over the city about to crucify him, “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem! How often would I have gathered your children, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings; but you would not.”
It is His incomprehensible, infinite love, that, when life was ebbing fast away, could look on His murderers, and say, in tones that will thrill the heart to the end of time; no, through eternity, “Father, forgive them!”
Such love cannot be described! It can only be felt by a penitent, loving heart.
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