How to Ignore Christ

But Christ sees it all, and He says, “It was I who was hungry and thirsty. It was I who was a stranger. While you were feasting at your abundant table, I was famishing in a shack. While you were comfortable in your luxurious home, I had nowhere to lay My head. While you enjoyed your pleasures, I languished in prison. When you doled out the crusts of bread to the starving poor, when you gave those flimsy garments to shield them from the biting frost, did you remember that you were giving them to the Lord of glory? All the days of your life I was near you in the person of these needy ones, but you did not seek Me. You would not enter into fellowship with Me. I do not know you.”HH 299.6

Many visit the scenes of Christ’s life on earth, to look on the lake beside which He loved to teach and the hills and valleys on which His eyes rested. But we do not need to go to Nazareth or Bethany in order to walk in Jesus’ steps. We will find His footprints beside the sickbed, in the ghettos of poverty, in every place where there are human hearts in need of consolation.HH 299.7

Everyone may find something to do. Millions of people caught in ignorance and sin have never even heard of Christ’s love for them. Christ’s rule of life, by which every one of us will stand or fall in the judgment, is, “whatever you want men to do to you, do also to them.” Matthew 7:12.HH 300.1

The Savior gave His life to establish a church capable of caring for tempted men and women. Believers may be poor, uneducated, and unknown, yet in Christ they may do a work in the neighborhood and even in “the regions beyond” whose results will reach to eternity. Because they neglect this work, many young disciples never advance beyond the mere alphabet of Christian experience. They could have directed the restless energy that is so often a source of danger into streams of blessing. They would forget self in earnest work to do others good. Those who minister to others will not be longing for exciting amusements or for some change in their lives. The great topic of interest will be how to save those who are ready to perish.HH 300.2

To make us children of one family, the King of glory became one with us. “Love one another as I have loved you.” John 15:12. When we love the world as He has loved it, then for us His mission is accomplished. We are fitted for heaven, for we have heaven in our hearts. In the great Judgment Day, those who have not worked for Christ, who have drifted along thinking of themselves, will be placed by the Judge of the whole earth with those who did evil.HH 300.3

To every person God has given a trust. The Chief Shepherd will demand from everyone, “Where is the flock that was given to you, your beautiful sheep?” Jeremiah 13:20.HH 300.4