Quote of the Day

"It was not easy for Jesus to be our friend.  Friendship is sometimes very costly.  His reputation went, and then His life.  But He never flinched.  He was thinking of us.  Our need controlled Him.  There were two controlling words in our Lord Jesus' life -- passion and compassion.  He had a passion for His Father.  He had compassion for us. 

...Friendship is mutual.  And now this Friend of ours is in need...  And this seems a startling thing to say.  You may think I am indulging some rhetorical figure of speech merely.  He, the Lord Jesus, in need!  He is now seated at the Father's right hand in glory.  He is 'far above all rule and authority and power and dominion.'  He is the sovereign ruler or our world.  How can it be said, with any soberness of practical meaning, that He is in need, and in desperate need?  Yet, let me repeat very quietly, that it is even so.

He needs our co-operation.  He needs the human means through which to work out His plans.  The power of God has always flowed through human channels.  And His plans have waited, have been delayed because He has not always been able to find men willing to let Him use them as He will.  This is the only explanation of the long , weary waiting of the earth for His promised Kingdom."

~  S.D. Gordon     (Quiet Talks on Following the Christ, 171-172)