Andrew Jukes

“So long indeed as the life of God, though quickened, is unseen in man, it offends none, for, like an unborn child, it is yet unmanifested. Even when it is first brought forth, and is still a babe, though it may cause trouble to some (Matt. 2:3), yet, like Christ, it grows here for a season, not in wisdom and stature only, but “in favour also with God and man” (Luke 2:52). As yet there is nothing in such a life to judge others. Not so after heaven opens; for then, because the Spirit of the Father rests upon His sons, and His grace and truth, not only are in, but also daily beaming forth from them, because this light exposes all pretenses, and this love condemns all self-love, those in whom it is seen will be counted, as their Master, “breakers of the law” (John 5:10), or “mad” (John 10:20), or “deceivers” (Matt. 27:63; John 7:12), by those, who, with much zeal for God, are yet in self-hood.

For truth is welcome only to the true: love is welcome only to the loving. Thus the “poor of the flock” (Zech. 11:11), who feel their need, are ever readier to welcome and receive God’s life, when it appears among them, than the Pharisees and Scribes, who are satisfied with their own supposed attainments. And yet this life, though despised of men, as unknown, yet well known, as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing, as poor, yet making many rich, because it is God’s own life in flesh and blood, as in Christ the Head, so in His members, must conquer all; not by force, but by the cross, that is by patient suffering, even unto death; “by pureness, by knowledge, by longsuffering…”
– Andrew Jukes