Himself, and pour His love over, those who do the will of God.

The test of relationship with Jesus is obedience to His Father. Christ
is not laying down the means of becoming His kinsmen, but the tokens
that we are such. He is sometimes misunderstood as saying, 'Do God's
will without My help, and ye will become My kindred.' What He really
says is, 'If ye are My kindred, you will do God's will; and if you do,
you will show that you are such.' So the statement that we become His
kindred by faith does not conflict with this great saying. The two
take hold of the Christian life at different points: the one deals
with the means of its origination, the other with the tokens of its
reality. Faith is the root of obedience, obedience is the blossom of
faith. Jesus does not stand like a stranger till we have hammered out
obedience to His Father, and then reward us by welcoming us as His
brethren, but He answers our faith by giving us a life kindred with,
because derived from, His own, and then we can obey.

It is active submission to God's will, not orthodox creed or devout
emotion, which shows that we are His blood relations. By such
obedience, we draw His love more and more to us. Though it is not the
means of attaining to kinship with Him, it _is_ the condition of
receiving love-tokens from Him, and of increasing affinity with Him.

That relationship includes and surpasses all earthly ones. Each
obedient man is, as it were, all three,--mother, sister, and brother.
Of course the enumeration had reference to the members of the waiting
group, but the remarkable expression has deep truth in it. Christ's
relation to the soul covers all various sweetnesses of earthly bonds,
and is spoken of in terms of many of them. He is the bridegroom, the
brother, the companion, and friend. All the scattered fragrances of