Joy in Service; Forgetting, and Pressing Onward; Until the Day Dawn | Page 5

imagine no higher ideal; and marvelous to say, here was the ideal realized. We cannot wonder any longer that over this Jesus of Nazareth God should say, "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased."
II. And now, while admiring, we are to ask if it is possible for us to imitate in principle this spiritual life, of which the Master gave so fine an example. Possibly, you may say, we may imitate some of the least remarkable traits, but scarcely this. And yet this lies at the root and soul of the rest: imitation of them is but external and spurious if it does not reach this. Only by this can we have real fellowship with him.
We are met at the outset by man's natural reluctance to even think of regarding the will of God as aught but repulsive. Very often objection is openly made to the spiritual view expressed by Christ. God, it is said, must surely want to educate us into the love of virtue and truth for their own sakes. He does not want merely to conquer us, to break our wills by superior power. He wants to lead us to share his own spirit and life; and, therefore, would not ask us to submit merely to his will. To train men, therefore, to merely obey is not so noble as to train men to reason, or to love truth and righteousness for their own sakes. But we reply that we should attain to the most exalted love of truth and righteousness and every other noble thing in no way so well as through loyalty to God. Certainly God does not want to merely conquer us by force, but of all things in the world that is the one not exhibited in Jesus Christ. His was the obedience of love. It sprang from his admiration of the Father's nature. And so must ours. God has laid us under immeasurable obligations of gratitude. He has condescended to reveal himself to us. He has given proof of his wisdom, his love, his holiness, his righteousness. And, therefore, the will of God is no arbitrary commandment. It is the wish of our dearest Friend. It is the direction given from the world's Pilot. It is the direction of infinite wisdom and righteousness and love; and to be devoted to his will is but to be confident that all his glorious attributes are being expressed for our guidance.
And then, what should we say of one who seeks after truth and righteousness, and yet does not yield obedience to him who is the source of all things--the truth, the righteousness? We should probably conclude that his search was a fancy, his aspiration an illusion. No! What we need is to love the Lord our God with all our heart, to feel that he is the wisest, the most lovely--the embodiment and the source of all other wisdom and goodness; the Sun by which the other planets shine, by whose rays the world of nature receives its life and beauty. We need to love God supremely; and if we do, then the will of God will seem to us always good, even as it did to Christ.
"Man's weakness, waiting upon God, Its end can never miss; For men on earth no work can do More angel-like than this.
"He always wins who sides with God. To him no chance is lost; God's will is sweetest to him when It triumphs at his cost.
"Ill that he blesses is our good, And unblessed good our ill; And all is right that seems most wrong, If it be his sweet will."
Let man behold, through Christ, the infinite Father, the source of all life and blessedness and good, and man will put God first, and find his highest glory in acting out the prayer, "Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven."
But even so, we are met by the further difficulty that, unlike Christ, we are not always sensible of being sent on any special errand into the world. We lose what aim we have, amid the diversities of toil to which we are compelled. We lose what breadth of view we have, amid the multitude of trifles of which our lives are composed. We can imagine Christ's sense of his mission, and how it could absorb him; but what in our lots can correspond? It may indeed be true that, unlike Christ, you have no clear idea of why God sent you into the world. Few have, but it would seem to quite remove God from actual government of the world to say that, therefore, he had no purpose. That glowing picture which the apostle paints of the rising temple should forbid the doubt. Every stone has its place and is