[Songs in the Night - November 8]
Ye see your calling, brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called. I Corinthians 1:26
HOW strange!
Yet it is just like the Lord to pass
by the self-righteous and the proud, and to declare
that only those who humble themselves shall be exalted
and those that exalt themselves shall be abased.
This
fact, then, that God will accept none but the humble
accounts for the fact that those who have received the
message in humility are chiefly the mean, the ignoble.
It is only the humble-minded, taught in the school of
Christ, who are able and willing to accept the ignoble
ones who rally to the Lord's standard and who may be
accepted.
To love the ignoble signifies that we must
view them from the divine standpoint and love them as
God loves them—not because of their ignoble and mean
qualities, but in spite of these; because of their heart's
desires toward God and righteousness.
As we come to
love and appreciate all those who stand for and strive
for those principles, we take our position with God and
view the situation from the divine standpoint, having
compassion upon those who are weak and out of the
way and doing all we can to assist them, if they are of
those who love righteousness and hate iniquity and are
striving in harmony with their ideals. Z'08-326 R4269:4 (Hymn 194)