Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head. Matthew 8:20.
Christ came to this world to live a life of perfect obedience to the laws of God's kingdom. He came to uplift and ennoble human beings, to work out an enduring righteousness for them. He came as a medium through which truth was to be imparted. In Him are found all the excellencies necessary to absolute perfection of character....
Christ gave up His high command in the heavenly courts, and laying aside His royal robe and kingly crown, He clothed His divinity with humanity. For our sakes He became poor in earthly riches and advantages, that human beings might be rich in the eternal weight of glory. He took His place at the head of the human family and consented to endure in our behalf the trials and temptations that sin has brought. He might have come in power and great glory, escorted by a multitude of heavenly angels. But no, He came in humility, of lowly parentage. He was brought up in an obscure and despised village. He lived a life of poverty and suffered often with privation and hunger. This He did to show that earthly riches and high rank do not increase the value of souls in the sight of God. He has given us no encouragement to think that riches make anyone worthy of eternal life. Those church members who, when a brother becomes poor, treat him as if he were unworthy of their notice certainly did not learn this from Christ....
It is submission to sin that brings the great unhappiness of the soul. It is not poverty but disobedience that lessens our hope of gaining eternal life, which the Savior came to bring us. True riches, true peace, true content, enduring happiness—these are found only in entire surrender to God, in perfect reconciliation to His will.
Christ came to our world to live a life of stainless purity, thus to show sinners that in His strength they, too, can obey God's holy precepts, the laws of His kingdom. He came to magnify the law and make it honorable by His perfect conformity to its principles. He united humanity and divinity, that fallen human beings might become partakers of the divine nature and thus escape the corruption that is in the world through lust.
It was from the Father that Christ constantly drew the power that enabled Him to keep His life free from spot or stain of sin.—The Review and Herald, July 4, 1912.
From From the Heart - Page 184
From the Heart