LESSON 5: Jesus Mastering the Art of Living

Jesus is rapidly becoming a man, not just a young man but an adult. He has learned well to bear
responsibility. He knows how to carry on in the face of disappointment. He bears up bravely
when his plans are thwarted and his purposes temporarily defeated. He has learned how to be fair
and just even in the face of injustice. He is learning how to adjust his ideals of spiritual living to
the practical demands of earthly existence. He is learning how to plan for the achievement of a
higher and distant goal of idealism while he toils earnestly for the attainment of a nearer and
immediate goal of necessity. He is steadily acquiring the art of adjusting his aspirations to the
commonplace demands of the human occasion. He has very nearly mastered the technique of
utilizing the energy of the spiritual drive to turn the mechanism of material achievement. He is
slowly learning how to live the heavenly life while he continues on with the earthly existence.
More and more he depends upon the ultimate guidance of his heavenly Father while he assumes
the fatherly role of guiding and directing the children of his earth family. He is becoming
experienced in the skillful wresting of victory from the very jaws of defeat; he is learning how to
transform the difficulties of time into the triumphs of eternity. 127:6.12

Born into the world a babe of the realm, he has lived his childhood life and passed through the
successive stages of youth and young manhood; he now stands on the threshold of full manhood,
rich in the experience of human living, replete in the understanding of human nature, and full of
sympathy for the frailties of human nature. He is becoming expert in the divine art of revealing
his Paradise Father to all ages and stages of mortal creatures.

And now as a full-grown man—an adult of the realm—he prepares to continue his supreme
mission of revealing God to men and leading men to God. 127:6.15