February 19
He saith unto htm the third time, Simon, son of Jonas, Lovesf thou Me? Peter was grieved because He said unto him the third titne, Lovest thou Me? And he said unto Him, Lord, Thou knowesi all things; Thou knowest that I love Thee. — John xxi. 17.
-g Notice how we have here, not only that figure of Christ
e ruary. from the Cross, with all the appeal that His sufferings for us ought to make to our hearts, smiting upon those hearts a deeper consciousness of our transgression, but we have also the figure, full of encouragement and of teaching for us, of the penitent rejoicingly acknowledging, notwithstanding his sin, his fervent love to the Master. Do not let any sense of unworthiness make you hesitate in saying, “I love Thee!” Do not try to find out whether you love Christ or not by inferences from your conduct.
You do not do that about your love to one another. You do not say, “I do so-and-so for my wife, or my husband, therefore I conclude that I love him, or her.” You start with the feeling, with the consciousness of the feeling, with the glad avowal of it; and then, to the best of your power, you shape your conduct accordingly. It is beginning at the wrong end to begin with conduct, and to look to it for the answer to the questions, “Do I love the Lord or no?” “Am I His, or am I not?” AH of us have to bewail inconsistencies, but any Christian man or woman who seeks to answer the question whether they love Jesus Christ by inferences drawn from conduct is condemning himself or herself to a lifelong burden of weariness, and to a religion in which, because there will be little joy, there will be little power and freedom. Let us not be afraid, after the example of this man, howsoever dark and numerous may have been our fauUs, let us not be afraid to profess our love to Him.
The consciousness of our treachery and of His pardon should deepen our love to Christ. So out of our very falls we may rise to a closer and more blessed experience, and come to understand for ourselves how the publicans and harlots my go into the Kingdom before the Pharisees. The only source from which a true love to Jesus Christ, warm enough to melt the ice of our hearts, and flowing with a powerful enough stream to sweep the corruption out of our natures, can ever flow is the sense of our pardon from Him. That sense will deepen as the consciousness of our manifold transgressions deepens. So the more we feel our evil and our guilt, the more let us cleave to that great Lord that has given Plimself for us.
It was but a shallow conviction of sin that moved in Peter’s breast at the other miraculous draught of fishes, when he said, “Depart from me, LOT I am a sinful man!” He has learned here a deeper knowledge of his own fault; he knows better how bad he has been and how weak he still is; and, therefore, instead of sa3ang “Depart!” he says, “Let me cleave to Thee: Thou knowest that I love Thee.”