Feb 25
4
John 17:26 And I have declared unto them thy name, and will declare it: that the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them.
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Eternal
love! -Spurgeon’s sermon, “Good Cheer for Christmas” Every child of God is the object of eternal love– love without beginning and without end. This is one of the fat things full of marrow. Is it so, that I, a believer in Jesus, unworthy as I am, am the object of the eternal love of God? What transport lies in that thought! Long before the Lord began to create the world, he had thought of me. Long before Adam fell or Christ was born, and the angels sung their first choral over Bethlehem’s miracle, the eye and the heart of God were towards his elect people. He never began to love them, they were always “a people near unto him.” Is it not so written-“I have loved you with an everlasting love, therefore, with lovingkindness have I drawn you”? |
Eternal love,
infinite wisdom,
boundless power!
Spurgeon, “The Ravens’ Cry” No. 672.
Eternal love appointed a way of mercy
from before the foundation of the world,
and infinite wisdom is engaged with
boundless power to carry out the divine
design. Surely the Lord must take much
pleasure in saving the sons of men.
If God is pleased to supply the beast of
the field, do you not think that he delights
much more to supply his own child?
“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ.” –Ephesians 1:3
J.C.Philpot
O, could our faith but embrace a little, were it only a little, and O, could we daily come and drink but a few drops of this pure fountain of immortal joy, in the sweet realisation of being blessed, already blessed, fully blessed, unalterably, irreversibly blessed with all spiritual blessings in Christ, what strength and consolation would it impart to our often cast down soul! Look at the words; examine them again and again; think over in your mind, one by one, the spiritual blessings that you most covet. Is it pardon? Is it peace? Is it the love of God shed abroad in your heart? Is it the spirit of adoption, enabling you to cry, “Abba, Father?” Is it communion with God? Is it the enjoyment of his presence and smiles? Is it deliverance from every doubt and fear? Is it a large measure of his fear in your heart, a subduing of all your lusts and corruptions, a godly, holy life, and a happy, blessed death? Are not these the spiritual blessings which you prize above house or land, wife or husband, child or relative, or any earthly good? With these, then, and with every other are you blessed, already blessed, if you are one of God’s saints and a believer in Christ Jesus. God has not yet to bless you, beyond giving you a foretaste here and the full enjoyment hereafter. He has already blessed you with them all in Christ Jesus.
“WE LOVE HIM, BECAUSE HE FIRST LOVED US”. I John 4:19
We may differ on many points. But in this one thing every true child of God is like every other child of God-“We love him”. We do not love him as we desire. We do not love him as we know we should. We do not love him as we soon shall. But we do really love him. It is not possible for a man to experience the grace of God in salvation and not love the God of all grace. It is not possible for a man to know the efficacy of Christ’s blood in his own soul and not love his gracious Redeemer. It is not possible for a man to have his heart renewed by the power of the Holy Spirit and not love the Spirit of life. In spite of our many weaknesses, sins, and failures, we do honestly and sincerely confess, “Lord, thou knowest all things, thou knowest that I love thee.”
We know also that we would never have loved him if he had not loved us first. The love of God for us precedes our love for him. “He first loved us.” He loved us before we had any desire to be loved by him. He loved us before we sought his grace. He loved us before we had any repentance or faith. He loved us before we had any being. He loved us eternally. Does he not say, I have loved the with an everlasting love, therefore with lovingkindness have I called thee”? He chose us, redeemed us, and called us because he loved us.
Not only does God’s love for us precede our love for God, but God’s love for us is the cause of our love for him. “We love him, because he first loved us.” This heart of mine was so hard, this will was so stubborn, that I would never have loved the Lord, if he had not intervened to conquer me with his love. In the midst of my sin and corruption, he passed by, and behold it was “the time of love”. He revealed his great love for me in Christ. Beholding the crucified Christ, dying in the place of sinners, the love of God conquered this rebel’s heart. Trusting Christ as my only Saviour, I am compelled to love him, because he first loved me. And now I know that whatever I am, by the grace of God, I am because he loved me. Tell me, my brother, Is it not so with you?
Don Fortner
Because he first loved
us
by Spurgeon
“We love him because he first loved us.” -1 John 4:19
There is no light in the planet but that which proceeds from
the sun; and there is no true love to Jesus in the heart but
that which comes from the Lord Jesus himself.
>From this overflowing fountain of the infinite love of God,
all our love to God must spring. This must ever be a great
and certain truth, that we love him for no other reason than
because he first loved us. Our love to him is “the fair
offspring” of his love to us.
Cold admiration, when studying the works of God,
anyone may have.
But the warmth of love can only be kindled in
the heart by God’s Spirit.
How great the wonder that such as we should ever have
been brought to love Jesus at all! How marvellous that
when we had rebelled against him, he should, by a display
of such amazing love, seek to draw us back. No! never
should we have had a grain of love towards God unless it
had been sown in us by the sweet seed of his love to us.
Our love, then, has for its parent the love of God shed
abroad in the heart: but after it is thus divinely born, it must
“be divinely nourished”.
Love is an exotic– it is not a plant which will flourish
naturally in human soil, it must be watered from above.
Love to Jesus is a flower of a delicate nature, and if it
received no nourishment but that which could be drawn
from the rock of our hearts it would soon wither.
As love comes from heaven, so it must feed on heavenly
bread. It cannot exist in the wilderness unless it be fed by
manna from on high.
Love must feed on love.
The very soul and life of our love to God is his love to us.
“I love you, Lord, but with no love of mine,
For I have none to give;
I love you, Lord; but all the love is yours,
For by your love I live.
I am as nothing, and rejoice to be
Emptied, and lost, and swallowed up in you.”
If Christ has our love…
If Christ has our love he has our all; and Christ never has what
he deserves from us, until he has our love. True love withholds
nothing from Christ, when it is sincerely set upon him. If we
actually love him, he will have our time, and he will have our
service. He will have the use of all our resources, and gifts, and
graces. Indeed, then he shall have our possessions, and our
very lives, whenever he calls for them.
In the same way, when God loves any of us, he will withhold
nothing from us that is truly good for us. He does not hold
back his own only begotten Son, Rom.8:32.
When Christ loves us, he gives us everything we need– his
merits to justify us, his Spirit to sanctify us, his grace to adorn
us and his glory to crown us. Therefore, when any of us love
Christ sincerely, we lay everything down at his feet, and give
up all to be at his command and service. “…they did not love
their lives so much as to shrink from death.” Rev. 12:11.
For you!
“The Son of God, who loved me and
gave Himself for me!” Galatians 2:20
Is Jesus precious to your heart?
Is He the object of your supreme admiration and delight?
Does He have your warmest affection?
Do you love Jesus?
You must light your torch of affection for Christ, at the altar of Calvary.
You must go there, and learn and believe what the love of Jesus is to you:
the vastness of that love,
the self-sacrifice of that love,
how that love of Christ laboured and wept, bled, suffered, and
died for you!
Can you stand before this love–this love . . .
so precious,
so great,
so enduring,
so self-consuming,
so changeless;
and know that . . .
for you was this offering,
for you this cross,
for you this agony,
for you this scorn and insult,
for you this death–
and feel no sensibility, no emotion, no love to Jesus? Impossible!
Do not be cast down, then, in vain regrets that your love to Christ is so
frigid, so fickle, so dubious. Go and muse upon the reality and the greatness
of the Saviour’s love to you. And if love can inspire love–while you muse, the
fire will burn, and your soul shall be all in flame with love to Jesus!
Octavius Winslow
“For He satisfieth the longing soul, and filleth the hungry soul with goodness.” –Psalm 107:9
We find the living family of God sometimes set forth under the character of the ‘hungry’. Let us see what they are hungering after. Is it pleasure, honour, promotion, respectability? O no; these toys and baubles cannot satisfy the spiritual hunger of a living soul. They cannot hunger after that on which they cannot feed. They hunger then after righteousness, as the Lord said–“Blessed are you who hunger and thirst after righteousness.” They hunger after God himself in his blessed manifestations; they hunger after the bread of life which came down from heaven, that a man should eat thereof and not die.
Christ in the mere letter of the word cannot satisfy their keen appetite. They must feed upon him internally, or their famine still continues. To these hungry, famishing souls, to have Christ in the letter is like a starving beggar standing outside a shop where there is plenty of provisions, and not having a farthing to buy them with. What is Christ in the letter? Will a sight of Christ in the word of God remove the burden of guilt, bring peace into the soul, purge the conscience or subdue the power of sin? Will the mere doctrine of Christ draw up the affections to him, cast out the world, dethrone self, or purify the heart? “Alas!” we say by painful experience, “not one jot, not one jot.” But the ‘presence of Christ in the soul’ can at once do all these things. Thus a hungry, famishing soul can only be pacified by Christ coming into his heart as the hope of glory.
J.C.Philpot
The genuine Gospel will always appear like an insult on the taste of the public. Whenever it comes, if it be not received, it awakens disgust and provokes abhorrence. Nor can it be otherwise. For its principal design is to mortify the pride of man and display the glory of grace; to throw all human excellence down to the dust, and to elevate, even the Throne of Glory, the needy and the wretched; to show that everything which exalteth itself against the knowledge of Christ is an abomination in the sight of God.
The ancient Gospel is an unceremonious thing, it pays no respect to the academic because of his profound learning; nor to the moralist on account of his upright conduct. It has not the least regard to the courtier because of his pompous honours, nor the devotee for the sake of his zeal of his righteousness. No, the potent prince and the abject slave, the wise philosopher and the ignorant rustic, the virtuous lady and the infamous prostitute, all stand on the same level in the Gospel’s comprehensive site.
~Abraham Booth
Sitting at the leper’s table!
“Jesus was in Bethany
at the home of Simon, a man who had leprosy.”
(Matthew 26:6).
To this home Jesus had been invited–and He goes.
It seems to have been his leprosy which first brought Simon to Christ–and
Christ to him. His disease was his link of connection with the Lord; and had it
not been for it, he might never have sought Him.
It is still so with us. Our sin, our moral leprosy–draws us to Jesus. We go to
Jesus, not about the good that is in us, but the evil.
Our sense of guilt draws us to Him as the Pardoner; and our consciousness of
sin constrains us to deal with Him as the Healer and Renewer. And as we began,
so also do we go on. Sin brought us to Him–and Him to us. Our sin
keeps us constantly at His side.
Simon finds that he has much more to do with Jesus than merely for the cure of
his leprosy; therefore he must have Him at his table. So is it with us.
We begin our relationship with Jesus by going to Him with our sins. But we soon
discover that it cannot be ended here. Our relationship becomes a constant
interchange of thought and sympathy. We invite Him to our house–and He comes.
We ask Him to dine with us–and He comes.
How great the honour enjoyed by Simon, of entertaining the Lord of glory;
sitting at his own table, with Jesus at his side as his guest! How marvellous
the condescension of Christ, in thus sitting at the leper’s table!
Here, then, is the Saviour that suits us–the healer of the leper, and the
guest of the healed one! We say to Jesus, “Heal me”–and He heals!
“Come in”–and He comes! “Sit down at my table”–and He
sits down immediately.
It is but little communion indeed, that we can taste here; for the best of
earthly feasts are but foretastes of the marriage-supper. But the whole glad
fullness we shall yet enjoy, when we shall meet a long absent Lord, not at our
table–but at His own! That day shall be the day of the Master’s joy, as well
as of ours–He feasting with us, and we with Him! He enjoying our fellowship,
and we His–forevermore!
Horatius Bonar