Consider Christ So As to Become Like Him (2)

He would not ‘quench the smoking flax, nor break the bruised reed' (Matt. 12:20), so gentle and sweet a Saviour have we. He loved and responded to those who sought him out, as when the rich young man came and said, 'What good thing must I do to inherit eternal life?' (Mark 10:17). So to the Pharisee, he said, 'You are not far from the kingdom of God' (Mark 12:34). He laboured to pull him further. He was of a winning, gaining disposition. Will we not labour to be of his disposition, not to set people further off, but to be of a gaining, winning nature?
See how obedient he was to his Father: 'Not as I will, but as you will' (Matt. 26:39). Both in active and in passive obedience, in all things he looked to his Father's will, being subordinate to him. We see he prayed whole nights (Luke 6:12; 21:37). Wherever there is subordination, there ought to be obedience. We are subordinate to God as our Father in Christ; we should labour to be obedient even to death, as Christ was. Our happiness lies in subordination. The happiness of the inferior is in subjection to the superior that may do him good.
In and of himself, how holy and heavenly he was. He took occasion of vines, of stones, of water, of sheep, and of all things to be heavenly-minded, to raise his soul upon all occasions. And when he rose from the dead and conversed with his disciples, what did he talk about? He spoke all about matters of the kingdom of heaven. So his whole disposition was heavenly and holy in himself, and he was patient in wrongs done to him. He did not return injury for injury. You see how meek he was. He was in himself full of purity and holiness and heavenliness.

Devotional Readings taken from Puritan Richard Sibbes 'Refreshment for the Soul.'
Glorious Freedom, pp. 111-12 [122-23]
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