" Thou art our Counselor, our Pattern and our Guide."
" Jesus! Thou art enough the mind and heart to fill."
What an Object we have here to occupy the mind and heart of men and angels! The Word made flesh, the manifestation in perfect Manhood of every moral grace, engaging the heart of God Himself! Little do we lay hold of the excellencies, the glories that shine forth from Jesus, yet it is sweet to consider Him in any of His varied graces. We are not only delighted as we consider Him, but we have His image imprinted on our hearts we have Himself as our Exemplar in order that we should walk as He walked.
Let us think of Him in his humility, His meekness, His gentleness—sweet graces, which our hearts sadly own are so little found in our ways.
In perfect submission to His Father's will, in the presence of the evil of man, His love and goodness refused, we hear those precious words of Matt. 2: 25-30. His spirit in the prophetic word declares " I have labored in vain, I have spent My strength for naught, and in vain: yet surely My judgment is with the Lord, and My work with My God." Isa. 49: 4. At such a time, He says " Come unto Me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you, and learn of Me; for I am meek and lowly (humble) in heart; and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For My yoke is easy, and My burden is light." He gives the secret, which He knew so well, of true rest. In absolute dependence, having nothing, but receiving all things from the Father, He is the Pattern of all true humility, and dependence. His life on earth, in the place and relationship He had taken, was a constant living on the fullness of His Father's love. He was ever the dependent One. What a Pattern of humility!
In Mark 10: 44, 45 He gives the secret of true greatness. " The Son of Man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give His life a ransom for many." So in Jesus, ever pre-eminent in grace and glory, we behold a life of perfect humility. This grace, which belongs to the highest archangel before the throne, as well as the meanest of God's intelligent creation, is as has been written, " not merely a grace, but the casket in which all other graces are contained."
Only the truly humble can be meek. The sense of complete dependence, of having nothing, must produce in the exercised one, in the inner spirit, the passive grace of meekness-receiving everything whether joy or sorrow, from Him Who is all-wise as all good. So in Jesus we see meekness in the presence of man's enmity, in all the sufferings of the path of obedience, receiving all things, the trials and sorrows, as from His God and Father. When refused by the Samaritan villagers (Luke 9: 51-56), the disciples would have called fire to come down from heaven to consume them, but He said, " Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of." And they went to another village. Again in Luke 8, when His work of mercy in healing the demoniac brought out man's evil, and the Gadarenes besought Him to depart, " He went up into the ship and returned back again."
The apostle in 2 Cor. 10: 1. exhorts the Corinthians by " the meekness and gentleness of Christ." Distinct from meekness, which lies more in the inner spirit, gentleness is shown in outward acts and ways. Jesus teaches the spirit of gentleness in the forgiving grace of the lord to the servant in the parable (Matt. 18: 27), the lord abating his just claim and freely forgiving the debtor, and Jesus teaches, that as forgiven debtors, we too, in gentleness should forgive, not exacting even what may be our due.
His own gentleness we discern in His reply to His servant and forerunner John the Baptist. From the prison John sends messengers to Jesus, saying, " Art Thou He that should come or look we for another? " The trying circumstances seemed to weaken John's faith. In gentleness Jesus gives the answer, without upbraiding His dear servant, but speaks in language John well understands, to his heart.
So ever in gentleness Jesus bears with the ignorance and selfwill of His disciples. Peter learned His Lord's gentleness in sweet restoring grace after the resurrection. The Lord of glory, the same Jesus, met Saul of Tarsus in his enmity and hatred of the name of Jesus, and towards His lowly disciples, as Paul afterward wrote, in " exceeding abundant " grace. What He was in grace on earth such He is in glory.
The Spirit of God sets Him before us, where He is, and as He is, as the only Object to occupy our hearts" our Counselor, our Pattern and our Guide." We are to be transformed by the renewing of our minds, daily, hourly, even here, bearing in our hearts the hope that when He shall appear, we shall be like Him according to the purpose of God, fully conformed to the image of His Son.