Amen, Dorine! Jesus did not sermonize as men do today. His teaching was the expression of an inwrought conviction and experience. He experienced the things of which He spoke. He trusted His Father to shepherd Him in His will daily; He was dependent upon His Father and showed us the joy of such union and communion by His simple, profound, and yet heart-stirring lessons. He loved every soul and sought to bless everyone. This simplicity and depth of love in the gospel ministry will bear fruit--the fruit of souls converted to become like Jesus in mind and character, each reflecting in their unique person the grace of God. Each soul who tastes and sees that the Lord is good will be enabled to testify of Jesus' loveliness as their shining countenance will harmonize with how all of the fruits of the Spirit are seen in their lives without one missing. This is the evidence that one loves Jesus wholeheartedly and is living up to every known statute--because Christ has ravished the heart with His love and the soul loves to go where He leads the way!
I was deeply impressed for the first time in my life with a clear understanding of how Christ is both our Father and our Brother. We have a wonderful Heavenly Father (who gave all in His Son Jesus), but we know that Jesus, as the active agent in Creation, was the one who first formed Adam and Eve from the dust. Then, in an act of beyond infinite humiliation, He chose to leave His throne and step down to be born of the very human line He first formed--once it had been weakened by 4,000 years of sin. What wondrous love is this! And then He stepped still lower in consenting to bear our sins, to die as our sacrifice on Calvary's cross, and to rise in resurrection power to then go back to heaven to minister as our High Priest in the sanctuary! Jesus thus went to His Father's throne so that we, through a living union and communion with Him already by faith, may be seated in heavenly places in Christ Jesus, in preparation for when we will be blessed to sit down with Him on His throne! Praise God!
"However much a shepherd may love his sheep, he loves his sons and daughters more. Jesus is not only our shepherd; He is our 'everlasting Father.' And He says, 'I know Mine own, and Mine own know Me, even as the Father knoweth Me, and I know the Father.' John 10:14, 15, R. V. What a statement is this!--the only-begotten Son, He who is in the bosom of the Father, He whom God has declared to be 'the Man that is My fellow' (Zechariah 13:7),--the communion between Him and the eternal God is taken to represent the communion between Christ and His children on the earth!" {The Desire of Ages, page 483, paragraph 2}