for the individual is hardest to
believe, and at the same time best, gives the real value of God,
that Jesus uses it so much. Perhaps the Great Artificer is too far
away for our minds. He is too busy, we think; and yet, after all, if
God is so great, why should he be so busy? If he is a real Father,
why should not he be at leisure for his children? He is, says Jesus;
a friend has leisure for his friends, and a father for his children;
and God, Jesus suggests, always has leisure for you.

The great emphasis with Jesus falls on the love of God. Thus he
tells the story of the impossible creditor with two debtors (Luke
7:42). One owed him ten pounds, and the other a hundred. When they
had nothing to pay, they both came to him and told him so. The
ordinary creditor, at the very best, would say: "Well, I suppose I
must put it down as a bad debt." Jesus says that this creditor took
up quite another attitude. He smiled and said to his two troubled
friends: "Is that all? Don't let anything like that worry you. What
is that between you and me?" He forgave them the debt with such a
charm ("echarisato"), Jesus says, that they both loved him. One
feels that the end of the story must be, that they both paid him and
loved him all the more for taking the money. What a delightful story
of charm, and friendship and forgiveness! And it is a true picture
of God, Jesus would have us believe, of God's forgiveness and the
response it wakes in men.

If we do not definitely set our minds to assimilate the ideas of
Jesus, we shall make too little of the heart of God. With Jesus this
is the central and crucial reality. He emphasizes the generosity of
God. God makes his sun rise on the good and on the bad; he sends
rain on the just and the unjust (Matt. 5:45). God's flowers are just
as beautiful in the bad man's garden. God knows what his child
needs, and gives it, whether it is a very good child or a very bad
one. The Father is the same great wise Friend in either case. The
peacemakers are recognized as the children of God, because of their
family likeness to God (Matt. 5:9). They come among people, and find
them in discord with one another, and their presence stills that; or
they come into a man's life, when it is all in disorder and pain,
and they bring peace there. They may not quite know it, but they do
these things almost without meaning to do them. And Jesus says that
this is a family likeness by which men know they are God's children.