Personal Friendships of Jesus - J. R. Miller (beach books txt) 📗

into heroic courage and invincible character, and not to lead them along flowery paths through gardens of ease.

We are in the habit of saying that the follower of Christ will always find goodness and mercy wherever he is led. This is true; but it must not be understood to mean that there will never be any hardness to endure, any cross to bear, any pain or loss to experience. We grow best under burdens. We learn most when lessons are hard. When we get through this earthly life, and stand on the other side, and can look back on the path over which we have been led, it will appear that we have found our best blessings where we thought the way was most dreary and desolate. We shall see then that what seemed sternness and severity in Christ was really truest and wisest friendship. One writes:—

  "If you could go back to the forks of the road—
  Back the long miles you have carried the load;
  Back to the place where you had to decide
  By this way or that through your life to abide;

  Back of the sorrow and back of the care;
  Back to the place where the future was fair—
  If you were there now, a decision to make,
  Oh, pilgrim of sorrow, which road would you take?

  Then, after you'd trodden the other long track,
  Suppose that again to the forks you went back,
  After you found that its promises fair
  Were but a delusion that led to a snare—

  That the road you first travelled with sighs and unrest,
  Though dreary and rough, was most graciously blest,
  With a balm for each bruise and a charm for each ache,
  Oh, pilgrim of sorrow, which road would you take?"

Sometimes good people are disappointed in the way their prayers are answered. Indeed, they seem not to be answered at all. They ask God to take away some trouble, to lift off some load, and their request is not granted. They continue to pray, for they read that we must be importunate, that men ought always to pray and not to faint; but still there seems no answer. Then they are perplexed. They cannot understand why God's promises have failed.

But they have only misread the promises. There is no assurance given that the burdens shall be lifted off and carried for us. God would not be the wise, good, and loving Father he is, if at every cry of any of his children he ran to take away the trouble, or free them from the hardness, or make all things easy and pleasant for them. Such a course would keep us always children, untrained, undisciplined. Only in burden-bearing and in enduring can we learn to be self-reliant and strong. Jesus himself was trained on the battlefield, and in life's actual experiences of trial. He learned obedience by the things that he suffered. It was by meeting temptation and by being victorious in it that he became Master of the world, able to deliver us in all our temptations.

Not otherwise can we grow into Christlike men. It would be unkindness in our Father to save us from the experiences by which alone we can be disciplined into robust and vigorous strength. The promises do not read that if we call upon God in our trouble he will take the trouble away. Rather the assurance is that if we call upon God he will answer us. The answer may not be relief; it may be only cheer. We are taught to cast our burden upon the Lord, but we are not told that the Lord will take it away. The promise is that he will sustain us under the burden. We are to continue to bear it; and we are assured that we shall not faint under the load, for God will strengthen us. The assurance is not that we shall not be tempted, but that no temptation but such as man can bear shall come to us, and that the faithful God will not suffer us to be tempted above that we are able to endure.

This, then, is what divine friendship does. It does not make it easy for us to live, for then we should get no blessing of strength and goodness from living. How, then, are our prayers answered? God sustains us so that we faint not; and then, as we endure in faith and patience, his benediction is upon us, giving us wisdom, and imparting strength to us.

The friendship of Jesus was always sympathetic. Many persons, however, misunderstand the meaning of sympathy. They think of it as merely a weak pity, which sits down beside one who is suffering or in sorrow, and enters into the experience, without doing anything to lift him up or strengthen him. Such sympathy is really of very little value in the time of trouble. It may impart a consciousness of companionship which will somewhat relieve the sense of aloneness, but it makes the sufferer no braver or stronger. Indeed, it takes strength from him by aggravating his sense of distress.

It was not thus, however, that the sympathy of Jesus was manifested. There was no real pain or sorrow in any one which did not touch his heart and stir his compassion. He bore the sicknesses of his friends, and carried their sorrows, entering with wonderful love into every human experience. But he did more than feel with those who were suffering, and weep beside them. His sympathy was always for their strengthening. He never encouraged exaggerated thoughts of pain or suffering—for in many minds there is a tendency to such feelings. He never gave countenance to morbidness, self-pity, or any kind of unwholesomeness in grief. He never spoke of sorrow or trouble in a despairing way. He sought to inculcate hope, and to make men braver and stronger. His ministry was always toward cheer and encouragement. He gave great eternal truths on which his friends might rest in their sorrow, and then bade them be of good cheer, assuring them that he had overcome the world. He gave them his peace and his joy; not sinking down into the depths of sad helplessness with them, but rather lifting them up to sympathy with him in his victorious life.

The wondrous hopefulness of Jesus pervades all his ministry on behalf of others. He was never discouraged. Every sorrow was to him a path to a deeper joy. Every battle was a way to the blessing of victoriousness. Every load under which men bent was a secret of new strength. In all loss gain was infolded. Jesus lived this life himself; it was no mere theory which he taught to his followers, and had never tried or proved himself. He never asked his friends to accept any such untested theories. He lived all his own lessons. He was not a mere teacher; he was a leader of men. Thus his strong friendship was full of magnificent inspiration. He called men to new things in life, and was ready to help them reach the highest possibilities in achievement and attainment.

This friendship of Jesus is the inspiration which is lifting the world toward divine ideals. "I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me," was the stupendous promise and prophecy of Jesus, as his eye fell on the shadow of the cross at his feet, and he thought of the fruits of his great sorrow and the influence of his love. Every life that is struggling to reach the beauty and perfectness of God's thought for it is feeling the power of this blessed friendship, and is being lifted up into the likeness of the Master.

This friendship of Jesus waits as a mighty divine yearning at the door of every human heart "Behold, I stand at the door, and knock," is its call. "If any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me." This blessed friendship waits before each life, waits to be accepted, waits to receive hospitality. Wherever it is received, it inspires in the heart a heavenly love which transforms the whole life. To be a friend of Christ is to be a child of God in the goodly fellowship of heaven.

Rev. Dr. Miller's Books

A HEART GARDEN BUILDING OF CHARACTER COME YE APART DR. MILLER'S YEAR BOOK EVENING THOUGHTS EVERY DAY OF LIFE FINDING THE WAY FOR THE BEST THINGS GLIMPSES THROUGH LIFE'S WINDOWS GOLDEN GATE OF PRAYER HIDDEN LIFE JOY OF SERVICE LESSON OF LOVE MAKING THE MOST OF LIFE MINISTRY OF COMFORT MORNING THOUGHTS PERSONAL FRIENDSHIPS OF JESUS SILENT TIMES STORY OF A BUSY LIFE STRENGTH AND BEAUTY THINGS TO LIVE FOR UPPER CURRENTS WHEN THE SONG BEGINS WIDER LIFE YOUNG PEOPLE'S PROBLEMS

Booklets

BEAUTY OF KINDNESS BLESSING OF CHEERFULNESS BY THE STILL WATERS CHRISTMAS MAKING CURE FOR CARE FACE OF THE MASTER GENTLE HEART GIRLS; FAULTS AND IDEALS GLIMPSES OF THE HEAVENLY LIFE HOW? WHEN? WHERE? IN PERFECT PEACE INNER LIFE LOVING MY NEIGHBOR MARRIAGE ALTAR MARY OF BETHANY SECRET OF GLADNESS SECRETS OF HAPPY HOME LIFE SUMMER GATHERING TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW TRANSFIGURED LIFE TURNING NORTHWARD UNTO THE HILLS YOUNG MEN; FAULTS AND IDEALS

Thomas Y. Crowell & Company

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