Much has been written on the subject of eternity, and more will be written, but never will we know more about it than Jesus our blessed Lord disclosed when He gave the Sermon on the Mount. There He instructed us that it consists in living one day at a time, consenting to divide life in small segments only sufficient to ensure the growth of our character. This view may seem to impose on us restrictions more severe than to view matters more extensively by looking farther ahead. However, some of us know by experience that one's mind refuses to tolerate too great and extensive views of the future.
It is well to think of these things in the light of the philosophy of Jesus. To Him life was not a riddle. He was not here in this world with no knowledge of the reason of things. He did not depend upon feeling that leads to self-centeredness and selfishness, that locks one in himself and sends him forth to wander over the earth, seeking for that which is not to be found except in his own nature.
Jesus did not see life ending in a bottomless pit, the only compensation for a forced stay on a planet of mystery and question and chance. He made no effort to live dangerously to satisfy a nameless craving. He did not sanction the conditions that make such a life possible. His body was not thought of as something to be thrown away but as something to be preserved.
To Jesus life was not a treadmill of endless toil to no known end. His was not the existence of the brute creation. He was free to put His exact thoughts and feelings into words of His own choosing. The golden rule as He gave it was the spontaneous pouring forth of His innermost being. He could see perfection in others.
Jesus had a clear and detailed idea of His relation to His Father and recognized in His mind the signs of His Father's guidance. This made it possible for Him to realize that His every step and every moment was carefully supervised but left Him with a sense of complete control of His powers and talents. He had been educated from babyhood in self-knowledge to the extent that He knew the exact capacity of His body to endure the wear and tear of life. He was never guilty of needless expenditures of His strength during His experience before Gethsemane, therefore he was enabled to meet the needful stress of the last hours of His earthly career with all the reserve necessary for that experience. He knew how to exercise the degree of self-control resting upon One with such reserves, and He moved among those weaker than Himself without fearing in the least that His powers might break bounds under provocation. Always His members were instruments of righteousness. "He impressed men with a sense of power that was hidden, yet could not be wholly concealed."—The Ministry of Healing, p. 51.
