The Tender Heart of Jesus Christ.
I. What is a tender heart? What is included in it? What is the chief characteristic of such a heart? A tender heart must always be a sensitive heart; where there is life there is sensitiveness; a tender heart is one ready to receive and retain the very softest impression; a tender heart is one that is endowed with a more than ordinary power to love; it is also a heart that is easily pained. A man of tender heart will be sure to live a life in harmony with it.
II. It was absolutely necessary that our Lord Jesus should be characterised by tenderness of heart. He had a nature that assimilated to itself the very griefs and sorrows of others. Christ's heart was intensely sensitive, and therefore subject itself to pain. It was the exquisitely tender nature of Christ that made the thought of being alone an anguish. Christ's heart, being tender, shunned giving pain. A truly tender heart will be agonised at the thought of having perhaps unintentionally wounded another's spirit. Then a tender heart not only is susceptible to pain, and not only shuns giving pain to others, but it will always feel the pangs that others endure. Over and over again this sentence concerning Christ occurs in the New Testament: "moved with compassion."
III. The tenderness of Christ's heart was shown by tender actions. The tender-heartedness of Christ comes out in every action; it is not shown merely in what He does: it is heard in what He says, for "out of the abundance of the. heart the mouth speaketh." We have not a High-priest who cannot be touched with a feeling of our infirmities. Let us therefore remember that our Saviour is the tender-hearted Christ, and let us not grieve Him by our sins, but let us reflect to the world the beauty of His love.
Archibald Brown, Penny Pulpit,New Series, No. 1099.
The Source of Christian Love.
We see here
I. The Witness of Paul's tender regard for the Philippians: "God is my Witness." This expression should be reserved for periods of peculiar solemnity. Paul on the verge of martyrdom, not expecting to see these brethren again till he should meet them at the great white throne, takes the name of God, not in vain, but in reverent truth, into his lips, and confirms his testimony by his oath. It is healthful to the soul to be constantly reminded of another onlooker. God is not mocked. To go about the business and intercourse of life under the sense of God's presence would cast out all the malice and envy from the heart, would banish all falsehood from the lips. He requireth truth in the inward parts. As the mists of night are driven away by the rising sun, the face of God chases away malice and envy, so that they cannot harbour in the heart.
II. The source of his love for the brethren. He longed after them in the compassion of Jesus Christ. From that fountain his own pity flowed. Partakers of Christ as far as their finite nature will permit, Christians partake also of His affections towards the Church on one side of the world or the other.
III. The measure and manner of the Apostle's fond desires after these Philippian Christians: "I long after you all." Probably they were not all alike attractive either in person or character. If he had regarded them from a merely human and earthly view-point, he would have held to some and despised others; but he had risen to heavenly places in Christ, and therefore his tenderness shone on them all. A lamp lighted on the top of a pillar casts light on some objects and a shadow on others, but the sun spreads day over all. The love that is grafted into Christ is universal, like His own. There is no respect of persons with God, and none with the godly, as far as they act in accordance with their character.
W. Arnot, The Anchor of the Soul,p. 112.