He Will Chasten in Love
For the Lord will not cast off his people, neither will he forsake his inheritance. Psalm 94:14.
Let us remember that Jesus knows us individually, and is touched with the feeling of our infirmities. He knows the wants of each of His creatures, and reads the hidden, unspoken grief of every heart. If one of the little ones for whom He died is injured, He sees it, and calls the offender to account. Jesus is the Good Shepherd. He cares for His feeble, sickly, wandering sheep. He knows them all by name. The distress of every sheep and every lamb of His flock touches His heart of sympathizing love, and the cry for aid reaches His ear. One of the greatest sins of the shepherds of Israel is thus pointed out by the prophet: “The diseased have ye not strengthened, neither have ye healed that which was sick, neither have ye bound up that which was broken, neither have ye brought again that which was driven away, neither have ye sought that which was lost; but with force and with cruelty have ye ruled them.... My sheep wandered through all the mountains, and upon every high hill; yea, my flock was scattered upon all the face of the earth, and none did search or seek after them.”
Jesus cares for each one as though there were not another individual on the face of the earth.—Testimonies for the Church 5:346.
God brings His people near Him by close, testing trials, by showing them their own weakness and inability, and by teaching them to lean upon Him as their only help and safeguard. Then His object is accomplished. They are prepared to be used in every emergency, to fill important positions of trust, and to accomplish the grand purposes for which their powers were given them.—Testimonies for the Church 4:86.
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