In the Love of God
Scriptural counsel bids us keep ourselves in the love of God. This does not mean that we should keep ourselves loving God. Of course, we should always love God. He should ever have the first place in our affection. Not to love God is to fail in our first and holiest duty, to cut ourselves off from the source of all blessing, and to rob our lives of the best good. Yet that is not what is meant in the exhortation to keep ourselves in the love of God. We all know something of the experience of discouragement which ofttimes comes when the duty of loving God is pressed upon us. Our love seems so feeble, so unsatisfactory, so much less intense than it should be, and so fitful and changeable, that it does not comfort us to think of it. It is well, therefore, ftntiinQ tle
that we are not asked to measure our faith by the degree of our love of God. If this were the index, our heart’s joy would be sadly variable. It is well that we have for our comfort something better than our poor, fitful love for God.
“Our love so faint, so cold to thee,
And thine to us so great.”
We are taught to keep ourselves in God’s love, in its blessed warmth, believing in it, trusting in it, letting it flood our lives.
“Thine the bearing and forbearing
Through the patient years;
Thine the loving, and the moving
Plea of sacred tears.
* * * *
“Mine the leaving and the grieving
Of thy mournful eyes;
Mine the fretting and forgetting
Of our blood-bound ties.
* * * * “Mine the wrecking, thine the building,
Of my happiness — My only Saviour, help me make
The dreadful difference less.”
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The love of God is infinite. It is infinite in its tenderness. Human love is easily wearied. The divine love is inexhaustible in its patience and gentleness. Looking back over his past life, with all its follies, failures and sins, and remembering the goodness of God which never had given him up, but which had brought him to honor and power, David, in his old age, gave the secret of it all in the words, “Thy gentleness hath made me great.” None of us know how much we owe to God’s gentleness.
A writer tells the story of a boy who at the age of eight was regarded as being of feeble mind, hopelessly imbecile, the result of some illness in infancy. The boy’s father was widely known as an educator. Inspired by his deep love for his child, he took personal charge of his training, devoting himself to it most assiduously. If the boy had been sent to ordinary schools, he would probably never have been anything but an imbecile. As it was, however, he became bright and talented, passed with honor through one of the great [103] ifinnfng ti)t Wav
universities, and became a man of ability and influence. The father’s gentleness made him great. His genius as a teacher, inspired by his strong love for his child, took the poor, stunted life, and by patience developed its latent possibilities into beauty and noble strength.
That is what God’s wonderful love does with us. What would we have been but for the divine care of us.^ As the warm sunshine falling upon the bare, dried, briery bush, unsightly and apparently useless, wooes out leaves and buds and marvelous roses, so the warm love of God, falling upon our poor, sin-hurt lives, with only death before them, awakens in them heavenly yearnings and longings and aspirations, and leads them out and glorifies them.
There is wonderful inspiration in the knowledge and consciousness that God loves us. A newsboy was in the habit of running after a gentleman on the ferry-boat and brushing his coat with affectionate fondness. One day the gentleman asked him, “Why are [104]
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3’ou so careful with me every morning?” The boy answered, “Because once, when you bought a paper, you said, ‘My child!’ No one ever called me his child before. That’s the reason. I love you for saying that to me.” It was the first love the boy had found in this world, and it was like heaven to him. It is a blessed moment to us when we first realize that God is our Father, and calls us his own children. It fills us with unspeakable joy. It brings the love of God about us in floods. It lifts us up into heaven in our experience.
If we keep ourselves in the love of God, the love of God will enter into us and fill us. We seem to have now but a small measure of this divine love in us. We are unloving in our own lives. We chafe easily when others irritate us. We are readily vexed and offended and hold grudges and resentments. If God were like us, what would become of us? If he were so unforbearing, unforgiving, and uncharitable as we are, if he had no more mercy on us than we have on those who uninten- [105] jfiiTDiiTQ ti)t Wav
tionally or intentionally hurt us, what would become of us? But if we keep ourselves in the love of God, all this is changed. The love in us transforms us into its own spirit. If a bar of iron lies in the fire for a time, it becomes red-hot — the fire enters into the iron and transfigures it. A lump of clay lying on a rose, becomes fragrant — the rose’s sweetness enters into it. A grain of musk in a bureau drawer fills all the garments in the drawer with its perfume. If we keep ourselves in the love of God, in the atmosphere of that love, our whole being becomes saturated with it until we live as God lives. It was written of one Christian man,
“His life grew fragrant with the inner soul, And weary folk who passed him on the street Saw Christ’s love beam from out the udstful eyes, And had new confidence in God and men.”
So will it be with all who truly keep themselves in the love of God. Their lives will be transformed into the grace and beauty of Christ, and the weary ones who see them and [106]
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know them will have new faith in God and new love for men.
The love of God is a wonderful refuge to those who hide away in it. A favorite picture in the Old Testament is the hiding of the troubled or hunted life under the wings of the Almighty. Saint Paul has a great word about the Christian’s life being hid with Christ in God. This is indeed a marvelous hiding — in the heart of Christ, and then in this sacred enfolding carried back into the infinite depths of deity. Those who flee to the love of God for refuge are safe eternally. Neither height nor depth nor angel nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, can separate them from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
In this refuge the world’s harm never can reach us. It was in this divine keeping that Christ himself was sheltered that night on the sea when he slept on the boat, and the wild storm and the mad sweep of the waves did not disturb him. He was wrapped in the [ 107] ftnuing tie Wat
folds of the same love in all the troubled hours of his trial and crucifixion. He spoke of his peace — nothing ever broke the quiet of the calm of his spirit. Then he promises to give the same peace, his own peace, to all who believe on him. “My peace I give unto you.” “In me ye shall have peace.” This is the benediction of those who keep themselves in the love of God.
Cie aiJunDant life
Not him who hath the largest store
Ingathered of life’s wealth, I praise, But him who loveth mankind more
Than treasure-trove of all his days; Who, from the world-wide brotherhood,
Withholdeth naught of heart and brain — Yea, counteth it the highest good
To show the Christ in man again!
—James Buckham.