Center of All Goodness, January 26

You are good, and do good; teach me Your statutes.—Psalm 119:68JNN 33.1

In the humanity of Christ there are golden threads that bind the believing, trusting poor person to His own soul of infinite love. He is the great Physician. In our world He bore our infirmities and carried our burdens. He is the mighty Healer of all diseases. He was poor, and yet He was the center of all goodness, all blessings. He is a reservoir of power to all to consecrate their powers to the work of becoming sons of God.JNN 33.2

Christ has ever been the poor person’s friend. He chose poverty and honored it by making it His lot. He has stripped from it forever the reproach of scorn by blessing the poor, the inheritors of God’s kingdom. Such was His work. By consecrating Himself to a life of poverty, He redeemed poverty from its humiliation. He took His position with the poor that He might lift from poverty the stigma that the world had attached to it. He knew the danger of the love of riches. He knew that this love is ruinous to many souls. It places those who are rich where they indulge every wish for grandeur. It teaches them to look down on those who are suffering the pressure of poverty. It develops the weakness of human minds and shows that, notwithstanding the abundance of wealth, the rich are not rich toward God.JNN 33.3

The characters of many have been molded by the false estimate placed on worldly rich people. The person possessed of houses and lands, lauded and deceived by the respect given him or her, may look down upon the poor person, who possesses virtues that the rich person does not. When weighed in the golden scales of the sanctuary, the selfish, covetous rich person will be found wanting, while the poor person, who has depended in faith upon God alone for his virtue and goodness, will be pronounced heir to eternal riches in the kingdom of God.—Manuscript 22, 1898.JNN 33.4

Further Reflection: Why did Jesus choose to become poor, to make His lot with the powerless and the marginalized? How do I emulate Jesus’ love for the suffering and the oppressed?JNN 33.5