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The Example of Christ

It is only since his divine form has arisen before my soul, that I have learned to know the true condition of man. Formerly, by comparing myself with what was small, I appeared great in my own eyes; but since I have compared myself with him, how insignificant have I become. When we hear a man whom we feel to be truthful and humble speaking great things of himself, it has a humiliating effect upon us. And when the Savior utters such words as, “I do always those things that please him” and I do believe it to be in very truth that he utters this—I then become conscious of what man, who is created in the image of God, ought to be.

When I see how, in all things, he sought not his own glory, but that of his heavenly Father, I am ashamed of my ambition; when I see how he came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, I am ashamed of my pride; when I see how he took the cup which his Father gave him and drank it, I am ashamed of my disobedience; when I see how he bore the contradiction of sinners against himself, and when he was reviled, reviled not again, I am ashamed of my impatience and my passion. Nothing has so subduing an influence as my Savior’s example.—A. Tholuck.

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— February, 1880 —