"And Jesus said unto him, The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man has not where to lay His head." (Matthew 8:20)
When Christ descended from heaven and took upon himself the nature of sinful flesh, He did not stop when He touched the topmost rim of humanity, but descended to the level of the poorest and most humble of birth.
Born in a manger, and reared in an obscure village, He possessed not a single mark of worldly distinction. He was the son of Joseph the carpenter. His foremost followers were fishermen; His food was loaves and fishes, and He testified that He had not where to lay His head. He was among His disciples as a servant.
Yet in it all He was the Son of God. He stood on the level of the sons of God, and angels did His bidding.
The plane of His life is the plane of the Gospel, and to that plane the poorest and humblest have access. The mysteries of salvation and heirship with Christ are not revealed to the wise and prudent, but unto babes. Jesus Christ identified himself with poverty, with humility, with reproach, and with suffering in their keenest forms, but in all He was without sin.
He did not make a low level of His followers, but an exalted one, for it was the level of the sons of the eternal God. It is sin that degrades, and not poverty, humility, and suffering. The plane of sin, though it is covered with men of wealth and power and honor, is infinitely below the plane of the Gospel, with its poor and lowly and outcast saints.--Present Truth, June 28, 1894--Timeline: IV-25 (The Privations of Discipleship)--Matthew 8:20.