The Lord Jesus Christ was the only perfect man that ever trod this earth. He was all perfect—perfect in thought, perfect in word, perfect in action. In Him every moral quality met in divine, and therefore perfect proportion. No one feature predominated. In Him were exquisitely blended a majesty which overawed, and a gentleness which gave perfect ease, in His presence. The scribes and Pharisees met His withering rebuke, while the poor Samaritan, and “the woman that was a sinner” found themselves unaccountably, yet irresistibly attracted to Him. No one feature displaced another, for all was in fair and comely proportions. This may be traced in every scene of His perfect life. He could say, in reference to five thousand hungry people. “Give ye them to eat;” and when they were filled, He could say, “Gather up the fragments that remain, that nothing be lost.” The benevolence and the economy are both perfect, and neither interferes with the other. Each shines in its own sphere. He could not send unsatisfied hunger away; neither could He suffer a single fragment of God’s provision to be wasted. He would meet, with a full and liberal hand, the need of the human family, and, when that was done, He would carefully treasure up every atom. The self-same hand that was widely open to every form of human need, was firmly closed against all prodigality. There was nothing niggardly, nor yet extravagant in the character of the perfect, the heavenly man.
What a lesson for us! How often with us does benevolence resolve itself into an unwarrantable profusion! And, on the other hand, how often is our economy marred by the exhibition of a miserly spirit! At times, too, our niggard hearts refuse to open themselves to the full extent of the need which presents itself before us; while, at other times, we squander, through a wanton extravagance, that which might satisfy many a needy fellow creature.
O, my young reader, let us carefully study the divine picture set before us in “the life of the man Christ Jesus.” How refreshing and strengthening to “the inward man” to be occupied with Him, the perfect One in all His ways, and who “in all things must have the preeminence.”