1 John 4:16-19
“We have known and believed the love that God hath to us. We love Him, because He first loved us.”
What of Today’s Verse…
GOD IS Love. Jesus Christ first brought to men the conception that man loves God only because God has first loved him. In vain, we search for such an idea in the philosophies of Greece and Rome. The men who fixed this thought in the literature of mankind were followers of Jesus Christ. Might and majesty were the dominating ideas of B.C., but since A.D., we think of Love enthroned in the Divine Nature.
His Love passes knowledge. We may apply to it the masterly arraignment of Psalm 139. It winnows our rays. It besets us behind and before. It lays on us its gentle restraining hand. It is high, we cannot attain to it. If we ascend into heaven, it is there; if we make our bed in the grave, it is there to lift us to His heart; if we take the wings of the morning, it shines as sunrise; if we pass into the darkness, it makes the midnight shine as the day. It covered us in our birth; it will tend us in old age. How precious it is, and how multitudinous in its expression, no mortal lips can tell.
Even our sin will not lessen that Love. That Peter sinned deeply; who can doubt, but did it put a screen between him and Christ? Nay, for when Christ arose, He sent specially for him. In the garden, He restored him, and at the lakeside, He taught him that His love would be as acceptable as ever (Mar_16:7; Joh_21:15).
His Love will not spare. Jesus looked on the young man and loved him! But He read him through and through, and mercifully gave the unwelcome verdict: “Go, sell all that thou hast… and follow Me.” He went away sad, and Christ went away sad! But He loves us too well to spare us! God’s love is consistent with stern dealings at those things, which may cause us to fail of the best.
We believe in God’s Love when it seems not so. “We have known,” says the Apostle, that “God is Love,” unutterable and changeless! But there are times when we have to believe in it, i.e. in the perplexity of life’s problems. We are often facing incidents and providences that strike us as inconsistent with God’s Love. Then we must believe that the same Love is there. God Is Love, and nothing can reach us save through His Love.
Let us Pray:
May I not be satisfied with talking or musing on Thy Love, O God. Grant me the grace of manifesting it, not only in great crisis, but amid petty annoyances and the daily fret of life. AMEN.
Words of Wisdom
The Constraint Of The Call
Beware of stopping your ears to the call of God. Everyone who is saved is called to testify to the fact; but that is not the call to preach, it is merely an illustration in preaching. Paul is referring to the pangs produced in him by the constraint to preach the Gospel. Never apply what Paul says in this connection to souls coming in contact with God for salvation. There is nothing easier than getting saved because it is God’s sovereign work – Come unto Me and I will save you. Our Lord never lays down the conditions of discipleship as the conditions of salvation. We are condemned to salvation through the Cross of Jesus Christ. Discipleship has an option with it – “IF any man. . .”
Paul’s words have to do with being made a servant of Jesus Christ, and our permission is never asked as to what we will do or where we will go. God makes us broken bread and poured-out wine to please Himself. To be “separated unto the gospel” means to hear the call of God; and when a man begins to overhear that call, then begins agony that is worthy of the name. Every ambition is nipped in the bud, every desire of life quenched, every outlook completely extinguished and blotted out, saving one thing only – “separated unto the gospel.” Woe be to the soul who tries to put his foot in any other direction when once that call has come to him. This College exists for you, and you – to see whether God has a man or woman here who cares about proclaiming His Gospel to see whether God grips you. And beware of competitors when God does grip you.
“Woe is unto me, if I preach not the gospel!” 1 Corinthians 9:16
