LESSON 3: Jesus' Respect for the Individual

“The disciples early learned that the Master had a profound respect and sympathetic regard for
every human being he met, and they were tremendously impressed by this uniform and
unvarying consideration which he so consistently gave to all sorts of men, women, and children.
He would pause in the midst of a profound discourse that he might go out in the road to speak
good cheer to a passing woman laden with her burden of body and soul. He would interrupt a
serious conference with his apostles to fraternize with an intruding child. Nothing ever seemed
so important to Jesus as the individual human who chanced to be in his immediate presence. He
was master and teacher, but he was more—he was also a friend and neighbor, an understanding
comrade.” 138:8.9

THE BELIEVER'S SURETY

Jesus portrayed the profound surety of the God-knowing mortal when he said: 'To a God-
knowing kingdom believer, what does it matter if all things earthly crash?'Temporal securities
are vulnerable, but spiritual sureties are impregnable. When the flood tides of human adversity,
selfishness, cruelty, hate, malice, and jealousy beat about the mortal soul, you may rest in the
assurance that there is one inner bastion, the citadel of the spirit, which is absolutely
unassailable; at least this is true of every human being who has dedicated the keeping of his soul
to the indwelling spirit of the eternal God.

After such spiritual attainment, whether secured by gradual growth or specific crisis, there
occurs a new orientation of personality as well as the development of a new standard of values.
Such spirit-born individuals are so remotivated in life that they can calmly stand by while their
fondest ambitions perish and their keenest hopes crash; they positively know that such
catastrophes are but the redirecting cataclysms which wreck one's temporal creations preliminary
to the rearing of the more noble and enduring realities of a new and more sublime level of
universe attainment. 100:2.7