Spurgeon: June AM
* 06/11/AM
"We love Him because He first loved us."
--1 John 4:19
There is no light in the planet but that which proceedeth
from the sun; and there is no true love to Jesus in the heart
but that which cometh from the Lord Jesus himself. From this
overflowing fountain of the infinite love of God, all our love
to God must spring. This must ever be a great and certain truth,
that we love Him for no other reason than because He first loved
us. Our love to Him is the fair offspring of His love to us.
Cold admiration, when studying the works of God, anyone may
have, but the warmth of love can only be kindled in the heart by
God's Spirit. How great the wonder that such as we should ever
have been brought to love Jesus at all! How marvellous that when
we had rebelled against Him, He should, by a display of such
amazing love, seek to draw us back. No! never should we have had
a grain of love towards God unless it had been sown in us by the
sweet seed of His love to us. Love, then, has for its parent the
love of God shed abroad in the heart: but after it is thus
divinely born, it must be divinely nourished . Love is an
exotic; it is not a plant which will flourish naturally in human
soil, it must be watered from above. Love to Jesus is a flower
of a delicate nature, and if it received no nourishment but that
which could be drawn from the rock of our hearts it would soon
wither. As love comes from heaven, so it must feed on heavenly
bread. It cannot exist in the wilderness unless it be fed by
manna from on high. Love must feed on love. The very soul and
life of our love to God is His love to us.
"I love thee, Lord, but with no love of mine,
For I have none to give;
I love thee, Lord; but all the love is thine,
For by thy love I live.
I am as nothing, and rejoice to be
Emptied, and lost, and swallowed up in thee."