Love Made Perfect

The two chapters which constitute this little work, are the substance of addresses delivered at the South African Keswick of 1893. Appearing first in the columns of the South African Pioneer, the organ of the South African General Mission, of which the author is president, it was urged that they be put in more permanent form; they have therefore been somewhat revised, though retaining the familiar, personal and direct character of their first utterance.

“‘f[e that dwelleth tn love dwelleth in God, and God in him.”’

How little we know what we are! To think that that Everlasting God who created heaven and earth, should deal with each one of us individually — with me, and that it should please Him to take out of the fountain of His everlasting Godhead, and to fill me with that everlasting love in which the Father begot the Son and in which the Holy Spirit maintains thefellowship between Father

and Son.
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“GOD IS LOVE.”

You find these words twice in the fourth chapter of the first Epistle of John. “God is Love.” What does that mean? I think it means at once and first of all that I must not seek for love, for I may fail. If I want love I must seek God, for love is the very nature of God. It does not say God as love, but God zs love, and 7

THE LOVE THAT I NEED

is God Himself coming into my heart. Not a drop of pure, real, heavenly, everlasting love can come to us, but God must be moved to give it as an act of His grace. God has revealed His love in all nature, even in the very animals. Look at the way the little lamb clings to its mother and

Love Midade Pertect 9

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the way the mother sheep cares for the lamb. That is what we call love. And so amongst the most savage and most ungodly heathen, you can find love of a certain sort. But the love of heaven, the love of eternity, that will last, the love that is not in the flesh, but that comes from heaven, that love is God, and if I want that love I must have God. What a thought! Oh! let the heart bow in humble praise. I want this great God to come into me and to take possession of me and to make mea vessel fit for His use, that He can fill me with love. Let the heart say: “Yea! my God! take me and fill me with love, for the sake of Thy Son who died on Calvary.”

The first question is, “What do we need? What is it we seek?” Then our

10 Love Mave Pertect

second question will be, “What are we to do, what have we to do to get what we are seeking?” And then the third question, “What are we to expect?” Look first of all at your relationship to God! Do you know the love of God as you ought to know it? Does it dwell upon you as an overshadowing power, the way the love of a mother dwells upon the child that lives in her smile? DO YOU KNOW THE LOVE OF GOD, and does it make you from morning to night sing the song of the ransomed ones? There is not a heart but says: “Oh! I know the love of God too little.” And why is that? It is because you have not been perfected in love, because when the soul is perfected in love it has got such a sense of that love that it can rest

Dove Made Perfect II

in it for eternity, and though it has as much as it can contain for the time being it can always receive more. Again, is there no dissatisfaction with your love to God? You sometimes think that you can say: “Oh! my God, I do love Thee.” There are many Christians who don’t say that — real Christians. They are afraid to say it. They fear God, and they say earnestly: “I wish to love God,” and they complain very honestly.

and bitterly, “Oh! my God, why have Iso little love?” but they hardly know what it is tosay,“Oh! thou God of Heaven, how I love Thee! Thou knowest how my heart delights in Thee.” Have you not had to confess often and often that you could not speak like that to God? And does there not come up in the heart a strong feeling of condemnation? “Alas, my love to God is not. what it should be!” And then sometimes when you have a sense of God’s love given to you for a moment in your fellowship with God, is there not a cry, “Oh! why can it not abide with me!” The child has no trouble in rejoicing in its parents’ love. I remember my little boy or girl of five or six,sometimes com: ing to the study door, and opening it, and just looking in and smiling to see papa’s face, and then shutting the door and going away happy; or coming on tip-toe just outside the window, looking in to see papa,and then going off again to play. It was never an effort to the child to love the father. Dear friend, God can do that for you, and make that His love shall all the day cover you,and that your love shall all the day rise up to Him in deep restfulness and inchild-like peace. I am sure God can do it. Iam sure God wants to doit. This is what we need — more love, more love, more of the love of God.

And then look further. Whatisit we need? Look at our love to those around us, in our daily life, in our family, husband and wife, parents and children, brothers and sisters, masters and servants.

LOOK AT OUR DAILY LIFE in business! Look at our daily life in society, with the people whom we meet. Remember the remarks that are so easily made about others. Think of the hasty judgments, of the sharp words, of the thoughtless expressions that escape our lips. Think of how many there are on whom our eyes look and there is no outgoing of love towards them. And why is it such an effort to us, and why do we come short? I want you to get hold of one thought, and that is that love is the easiest and most natural thing in the world — if I have got it in me to love — the easiest and happiest thing in the world, if I have only got it in me. But if I have not got it, then I try and try and do it for a little and then I fail. Is not God able? I believe he is, and you believe it too. Is not God able to take such possession of the heart of His child? Is not God able, in His mighty power as God, to come into the heart of His child and to give His love and His spirit? Is not God able to open a fountain of love, so that in all our intercourse day by day it shall be LOVE, LOVE, LOVE

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