November 9, 1896

“The Easy and Only Way to Do Right” The Bible Echo 11, 44, p. 348.

ATJ

DID Jesus ever find it difficult to do right? Every one will instantly say, No. But why? he was just as human as we are. He took flesh and blood the same as ours. “The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us.” And the kind of flesh that he was made in this world, was precisely such as was in this world. “In all things it behooved him to be made like unto his brethren.” “In all things”! It does not say, In all things but one. There is no exception. He was made in all things like as we are. He was of Himself as weak as we are; for He said, “I can of Mine own self do nothing.”BEST November 9, 1896, page 348.1

Why, then, being in all things like as we are, did He find it always easy to do right?—Because He never trusted to Himself, but His trust was always in God alone. All His dependence was upon the grace of God. He always sought to serve God, only with the power of God. And therefore the Father dwelt in Him, and did the works of righteousness. Therefore it was always easy for Him to do right. But as He is, so are we in this world. He has left us an example, that we should follow His steps. “It is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of His good pleasure,” as well as in Him. All power in heaven and in earth is given unto Him; and He desires that you may be strengthened with all might, according to His glorious power. “In Him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily;” and He strengthens you with might by His Spirit in the inner man, that Christ may dwell in your heart by faith, that you may be “filled with all the fulness of God.”BEST November 9, 1896, page 348.2

True, Christ partook of the divine nature, and so do you if you are a child of promise, and not of the flesh; for by the promises ye are partakers of the divine nature. There was nothing given to Him in this world, and He had nothing in this world, that is not freely given to you, or that you may not have.BEST November 9, 1896, page 348.3

All this is in order that you may walk in newness of life; that henceforth you may not serve sin; that you may be the servant of righteousness only; that you may be freed from sin; that sin may not have dominion over you; that you may glorify God on the earth; and that you may be like Jesus. And therefore “unto every one of us is given grace according to the measure of the gift of Christ.... Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ.” And I “beseech you also that ye receive not the grace of God in vain.”BEST November 9, 1896, page 348.4

A. T. JONES.