Love of Jesus and Heaven
“In heaven we shall live in our own element. We are now as the fish in a vessel of water, only so much as will keep them alive. But what is that to the ocean? We have here a little air let in to afford us breathing, but what is that to the sweet and fresh gales upon Mount Zion? Here we have a beam of the sun to lighten our darkness and a warm ray to keep us from freezing. But there we shall live in the light and be revived by its heat.”
RICHARD BAXTER.
r “HE Apostle James says: “Blessed is the man that endureth temptation, for when he is tried he shall receive the crown of
life which the Lord hath promised to them that
love him.” The great condition of this great reward, the crown of life, is Love.
It would be impossible to overestimate the importance of love. Christ makes it the aim of the moral code and the fulfilment of all prophecy. It is called the royal law, and is said to be the fulfilling of that law; the bond of perfection, the test of discipleship, the first of the graces, and the shield on the day of judgment.
In the thirteenth of first Corinthians it is pictured, and we gaze and admire, but rarely do we transfer to practical life this the most beautiful of all things, and the most practical too. Love is not faith, though the only medium through which faith works. It is not hope, though it forms the substance which hope colors and brightens. It is the most common thing, and the rarest, often on our lips, but seldom in our hearts, easiest to say and hardest to do.
What is the description as thus given by Paul? It has passion, but neither envy nor jealousy have any place in that pure flame. It is clothed with humility, so that neither vanity nor pride inflate its heart, nor speak from its lips. Unseemly conduct never mars its beauty, nor casts reproach nor suspicion on its fidelity. Self renders his scepter, and claims his rights with modesty, and meekness. It is never provoked to peevish irritation, not insulted to bitterness, and wrath. It does not suspect ill nor avenge wrongs. It is saddened by the triumphs of evil, but rejoicing in the success of truth. It is akin to God in its freedom from hasty and angry excitements, long-suffering, self-restrained to evil but to the good mobile, and ever-flowing in kindness, usefulness, beneficence.
It has strength to bear, is credulous for good, full of hope and cheer for the best, and waits patiently, serene and gentle, when faith and fortitude and hope have almost failed.
Such is the divine portraiture of this Divine love. Such are the principles on which Christ proposes to reconstruct human nature — sublime principles, sublimer purposes of the Son of God. Out of no other material does He propose to begin and complete His fair and costly building and make His heaven.
Religion is shut up to this one principle. All else is foreign or false. It is the capsheaf, the commandment which completes, aggregates and dominates the whole; burnished, emphatic and pregnant with His life and death. The summary of that life and death is: “Love one another.” This is the decalogue revised and completed — the Sinai of Calvary — the law of the Gospel.
Love is the regenerating principle implanted in man’s heart by the Holy Ghost, and its perfection is the end for which he is to labor with incessant effort and incessant prayer.
This love to Jesus implanted in the renewed heart has retired earth’s most sacred attachments and become the animating force and crown of our earthly lives. ‘‘ Where I am there ye may be also.” “To be at home with the Lord.” “To be with Christ which is far better.” ‘ Father, I will that those whom thou hast given me be with me where iam,”
To love Jesus is to long to be with Him. To love Jesus is to think about Him. ‘To love Jesus is to obey Him, to obey Him readily and implicitly, not feebly and reluctantly. “If ye love me keep my commandments. If ye keep my commandments ye shall abide in my love.” The certainty of heaven is assured when we keep Jesus in the center of our hearts, in the center of our lives. He is to be the author of impulse and desire, of effort and action. ‘ Whatsoever ye do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus.”
Will you get to heaven? What is Jesus to you? Does He charm you? Does He draw you heavenward? Is it to be with Him that you seek heaven? Is He the fairest flower in all its garden? Is He the rarest and most precious of all its jewels? Is He sweeter than all its songs?
Does He beget the longings for its blissful abodes? Does the desire to see and be with Him stir the profoundest ambition of your soul? Jesus and heaven are bound up together. To love Him with an untold passionate devotion is heaven begun, heaven continued, and heaven ended. Paul says: “I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand. I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith. Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day: and not to me only, but unto all them also that love his appearing.”
The crown is not only personal to him, but universal, only limited “unto all them that love his appearing.” Here it is not simply love for Jesus personally, but love for the great fact which is to culminate in the great glory of Jesus. ‘To “love his appearing” there is the absolute necessity for loving His Person. The loving His coming is the test of loving His Person. We love the fact because we love the Person. We are not charged to love any theory or opinion about the manner of His coming, or the time, but the fact. Let Him come when He will, how He will, and for what purpose He will. We love His coming because we love Him. “Even so, come quickly, Lord Jesus,” and bring Thy heaven with Thee.
The overcomers, the victorious ones, the conquerors, they are the heaven-crowned ones. Their valorous strength, their undaunted courage, their dire conflicts, their unyielding steadfastness, their holding fast even unto death; they who, by their Christian constancy and courage, keep themselves unharmed. and spotless from all the devices, assaults, solicitations of the world, the flesh and the devil — these are crowned to the heavenly life.
They have gained the victory over the devil; conquerors they are of him. “I write unto you young men because ye have overcome the wicked one.” ‘The spirit of antichrist they have overcome. “For whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world; and this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith. Who is he that overcometh the world but he that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God.” “He that overcometh shall inherit all things; and I will be his God, and he shall be my son.” Blessed company! “They all are robed in spotless white. And conquering palms they bear.” They are the victors. The conflict is past, the battle has been fought, and the victory has been won and won forever. They are “more than conquerors through him that loved them.” ‘The blessed Jesus has always led them in triumph, and now they are with Him upon His throne in their last and great triumph.
This love is born of the Spirit of God and is centered on Jesus Christ. Heaven depends on our love to the Saviour of sinners. We love heaven only as we love Him and as we seek for Him. This love is to be ardent and supreme. Jesus is the joy and glory of heaven.
Do not I love thee, O my Lord?
Then let me nothing love;
Dead be my heart to every joy,
When Jesus cannot move.
Thou know’st I love thee, dearest Lord,
But O, I long to soar
Far from the sphere of mortal joys,
And learn to love thee more!