Religion in Human Experience

100:7.1Al­though the av­er­age mor­tal of Uran­tia can­not hope to at­tain the high per­fec­tion of char­ac­ter which Je­sus of Naz­a­reth ac­quired while so­journ­ing in the flesh, it is al­to­gether pos­si­ble for ev­ery mor­tal be­liever to de­velop a strong and uni­fied per­son­al­ity along the per­fected lines of the Je­sus per­son­al­ity. The unique fea­ture of the Mas­ter’s per­son­al­ity was not so much its per­fec­tion as its sym­me­try, its ex­qui­site and bal­anced uni­fi­ca­tion. The most ef­fec­tive pre­sen­ta­tion of Je­sus con­sists in fol­low­ing the ex­am­ple of the one who said, as he ges­tured to­ward the Mas­ter stand­ing be­fore his ac­cusers, “Be­hold the man!”

100:7.2The un­fail­ing kind­ness of Je­sus touched the hearts of men, but his stal­wart strength of char­ac­ter amazed his fol­low­ers. He was truly sin­cere; there was noth­ing of the hyp­ocrite in him. He was free from af­fec­ta­tion; he was al­ways so re­fresh­ingly gen­uine. He never stooped to pre­tense, and he never re­sorted to sham­ming. He lived the truth, even as he taught it. He was the truth. He was con­strained to pro­claim sav­ing truth to his gen­er­a­tion, even though such sin­cer­ity some­times caused pain. He was un­ques­tion­ingly loyal to all truth.

100:7.3But the Mas­ter was so rea­son­able, so ap­proach­able. He was so prac­ti­cal in all his min­istry, while all his plans were char­ac­ter­ized by such sanc­ti­fied com­mon sense. He was so free from all freak­ish, er­ratic, and ec­cen­tric ten­den­cies. He was never capri­cious, whim­si­cal, or hys­ter­i­cal. In all his teach­ing and in ev­ery­thing he did there was al­ways an ex­qui­site dis­crim­i­na­tion as­so­ci­ated with an ex­traor­di­nary sense of pro­pri­ety.

100:7.4The Son of Man was al­ways a well-poised per­son­al­ity. Even his en­e­mies main­tained a whole­some re­spect for him; they even feared his pres­ence. Je­sus was un­afraid. He was sur­charged with di­vine en­thu­si­asm, but he never be­came fa­nat­i­cal. He was emo­tion­ally ac­tive but never flighty. He was imag­i­na­tive but al­ways prac­ti­cal. He frankly faced the re­al­i­ties of life, but he was never dull or pro­saic. He was coura­geous but never reck­less; pru­dent but never cow­ardly. He was sym­pa­thetic but not sen­ti­men­tal; unique but not ec­cen­tric. He was pi­ous but not sanc­ti­mo­nious. And he was so well-poised be­cause he was so per­fectly uni­fied.

100:7.5Je­sus’ orig­i­nal­ity was un­sti­fled. He was not bound by tra­di­tion or hand­i­capped by en­slave­ment to nar­row con­ven­tion­al­ity. He spoke with un­doubted con­fi­dence and taught with ab­so­lute au­thor­ity. But his su­perb orig­i­nal­ity did not cause him to over­look the gems of truth in the teach­ings of his pre­de­ces­sors and con­tem­po­raries. And the most orig­i­nal of his teach­ings was the em­pha­sis of love and mercy in the place of fear and sac­ri­fice.

100:7.6Je­sus was very broad in his out­look. He ex­horted his fol­low­ers to preach the gospel to all peo­ples. He was free from all nar­row-mind­ed­ness. His sym­pa­thetic heart em­braced all man­kind, even a uni­verse. Al­ways his in­vi­ta­tion was, “Whoso­ever will, let him come.”

100:7.7Of Je­sus it was truly said, “He trusted God.” As a man among men he most sub­limely trusted the Fa­ther in heaven. He trusted his Fa­ther as a lit­tle child trusts his earthly par­ent. His faith was per­fect but never pre­sump­tu­ous. No mat­ter how cruel na­ture might ap­pear to be or how in­dif­fer­ent to man’s wel­fare on earth, Je­sus never fal­tered in his faith. He was im­mune to dis­ap­point­ment and im­per­vi­ous to per­se­cu­tion. He was un­touched by ap­par­ent fail­ure.

100:7.8He loved men as broth­ers, at the same time rec­og­niz­ing how they dif­fered in in­nate en­dow­ments and ac­quired qual­i­ties. “He went about do­ing good.”

100:7.9Je­sus was an un­usu­ally cheer­ful per­son, but he was not a blind and un­rea­son­ing op­ti­mist. His con­stant word of ex­hor­ta­tion was, “Be of good cheer.” He could main­tain this con­fi­dent at­ti­tude be­cause of his unswerv­ing trust in God and his un­shak­able con­fi­dence in man. He was al­ways touch­ingly con­sid­er­ate of all men be­cause he loved them and be­lieved in them. Still he was al­ways true to his con­vic­tions and mag­nif­i­cently firm in his de­vo­tion to the do­ing of his Fa­ther’s will.

100:7.10The Mas­ter was al­ways gen­er­ous. He never grew weary of say­ing, “It is more blessed to give than to re­ceive.” Said he, “Freely you have re­ceived, freely give.” And yet, with all of his un­bounded gen­eros­ity, he was never waste­ful or ex­trav­a­gant. He taught that you must be­lieve to re­ceive sal­va­tion. “For ev­ery one who seeks shall re­ceive.”

100:7.11He was can­did, but al­ways kind. Said he, “If it were not so, I would have told you.” He was frank, but al­ways friendly. He was out­spo­ken in his love for the sin­ner and in his ha­tred for sin. But through­out all this amaz­ing frank­ness he was unerringly fair.

100:7.12Je­sus was con­sis­tently cheer­ful, not­with­stand­ing he some­times drank deeply of the cup of hu­man sor­row. He fear­lessly faced the re­al­i­ties of ex­is­tence, yet was he filled with en­thu­si­asm for the gospel of the king­dom. But he con­trolled his en­thu­si­asm; it never con­trolled him. He was un­re­servedly ded­i­cated to “the Fa­ther’s busi­ness.” This di­vine en­thu­si­asm led his un­spir­i­tual breth­ren to think he was be­side him­self, but the on­look­ing uni­verse ap­praised him as the model of san­ity and the pat­tern of su­preme mor­tal de­vo­tion to the high stan­dards of spir­i­tual liv­ing. And his con­trolled en­thu­si­asm was con­ta­gious; his as­so­ciates were con­strained to share his di­vine op­ti­mism.

100:7.13This man of Gal­i­lee was not a man of sor­rows; he was a soul of glad­ness. Al­ways was he say­ing, “Re­joice and be ex­ceed­ingly glad.” But when duty re­quired, he was will­ing to walk coura­geously through the “val­ley of the shadow of death.” He was glad­some but at the same time hum­ble.

100:7.14His cour­age was equaled only by his pa­tience. When pressed to act pre­ma­turely, he would only re­ply, “My hour has not yet come.” He was never in a hurry; his com­po­sure was sub­lime. But he was of­ten in­dig­nant at evil, in­tol­er­ant of sin. He was of­ten might­ily moved to re­sist that which was in­im­i­cal to the wel­fare of his chil­dren on earth. But his in­dig­na­tion against sin never led to anger at the sin­ner.

100:7.15His cour­age was mag­nif­i­cent, but he was never fool­hardy. His watch­word was, “Fear not.” His brav­ery was lofty and his cour­age of­ten heroic. But his cour­age was linked with dis­cre­tion and con­trolled by rea­son. It was cour­age born of faith, not the reck­less­ness of blind pre­sump­tion. He was truly brave but never au­da­cious.

100:7.16The Mas­ter was a pat­tern of rev­er­ence. The prayer of even his youth be­gan, “Our Fa­ther who is in heaven, hal­lowed be your name.” He was even re­spect­ful of the faulty wor­ship of his fel­lows. But this did not de­ter him from mak­ing at­tacks on re­li­gious tra­di­tions or as­sault­ing er­rors of hu­man be­lief. He was rev­er­en­tial of true ho­li­ness, and yet he could justly ap­peal to his fel­lows, say­ing, “Who among you con­victs me of sin?”

100:7.17Je­sus was great be­cause he was good, and yet he frat­er­nized with the lit­tle chil­dren. He was gen­tle and unas­sum­ing in his per­sonal life, and yet he was the per­fected man of a uni­verse. His as­so­ciates called him Mas­ter un­bid­den.

100:7.18Je­sus was the per­fectly uni­fied hu­man per­son­al­ity. And to­day, as in Gal­i­lee, he con­tin­ues to unify mor­tal ex­pe­ri­ence and to co-or­di­nate hu­man en­deav­ors. He uni­fies life, en­no­bles char­ac­ter, and sim­pli­fies ex­pe­ri­ence. He en­ters the hu­man mind to el­e­vate, trans­form, and trans­fig­ure it. It is lit­er­ally true: “If any man has Christ Je­sus within him, he is a new crea­ture; old things are pass­ing away; be­hold, all things are be­com­ing new.”

100:7.19[Pre­sented by a Mel­chiz­e­dek of Neb­a­don.]