Now
may the Lord direct your hearts into the love of God and into the patience of
Christ.
II
Thessalonians 3:5
Jesus,
the very thought of Thee
With
sweetness fills the breast;
But
sweeter far Thy face to see,
And
in Thy presence rest.
No
voice can sing, nor heart can frame,
Nor
can the memory find
A
sweeter sound than Thy blest Name,
O
Savior of mankind!
O
hope of every contrite heart,
O
joy of all the meek,
To
those who fall, how kind Thou art!
How
good to those who seek!
But
what to those who find? Ah, this
Nor
tongue nor pen can show;
The
love of Jesus, what it is,
None
but His loved ones know.
O
Jesus, Thou the beauty art
Of
angel worlds above;
Thy
Name is music to the heart,
Inflaming
it with love.
BERNARD
OF CLAIRVAUX
The
first precious thing which we are to enter is the love of God. Beloved, we know
the love of God in various ways. Many know it by having heard of it, even as a
blind man may thus know the charms of an Alpine landscape. Poor knowledge this!
Others of us have tasted of the love of God, have talked about the love of God,
have prayed and have sung concerning the love of God. All very well, but Paul
meant a dove of a brighter feather. To be directed into the love of God is
quite another thing from all that we can be told of it. A fair garden is before
us. We look over the wall and are even al- lowed to stand at the door while one
hands out to us baskets of golden apples. This is very delightful. Who would
not be glad to come so near as this to the garden of heavenly delights?
Yet it is something more
to be shown the door, to have the latch lifted, to see the gateway opened and
to be gently directed into the Paradise of God. This is what is wanted—that we
may be directed into the love of God. Oh, that we may feel something of it
while we meditate upon it! Beloved, we come, when we are taught of the Spirit
of God, to enter into the love of God by seeing its central importance. We see
that the love of God is the source and center, fountain and foundation of all
our salvation, and of all else that we receive from God.
At first we are much
taken up with pardoning Grace. We are largely engrossed with those royal robes
of righteousness with which our nakedness is covered. We are delighted with the
viands of the marriage banquet—we eat the fat and we drink the sweet. What else
would you expect from starving souls admitted to the abundant supplies of
heavenly Grace? Afterwards we begin more distinctly to think of the love that
spread the feast, the love that provided the raiment, the love that invited us
to the banquet and gently led us to take our place in it. This does not always
come at first.
But I pray that none of
us may be long receiving the gifts of love without kissing the hand of love.
That none of us may be content to have had much forgiven without coming and
washing the feet of our forgiving Lord with our tears and declaring our deep
and true love to Him. O saved soul, may the Lord fill you with personal love to
that personal Savior through whom all blessings come to you! Remember, you have
all good things because God loves you!
When this great world,
the sun, and moon and stars, had not yet flashed the morning of their little
day, the LORD GOD loved His people with an everlasting love. In the Divine purposes,
which were not of yesterday, nor even of that date of which Scripture speaks as
“In the beginning”—when the Lord created the heavens and the earth—God loved
His own people.
He had chosen you,
thought of you, provided for you and made ten thousand forecasts of loving
kindness towards you before the earth was. Beloved Believer, you were engraved
on the hands of Christ even then. Oh that the Lord would direct you into the
antiquity of His love. It shall make you greatly prize that love to think that
it had no beginning and shall never, never have an end.
“The Lord direct your
hearts into the love of God.” Beloved, let the love of God to you flow into
your hearts and abide there till it settles down and bears on its surface the
cream of love to God, yielded by your own heart. The only way to love God is to
let God’s love to you dwell in your soul till it transforms your soul into
itself. Love to God grows out of the love of God.
C.H. SPURGEON ~June 1888
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