When the Holy Spirit reveals the love of Christ, and sheds abroad the love of God in our hearts, this (natural) love is penetrated with a new principle, as it discovers a new Object. Everything that it beholds in that Object gives it new depth and new colors. As it sees the holiness, the beauty, and the glory, it takes the deep hues of conscious sinfulness, unworthiness, and nothingness. As it sees even a glimpse of the love that passeth knowledge, it takes the glow of wonder and gratitude. And when it sees that love drawing close to its deepest need with blood-purchased pardon, it is intensified and stirred, and there is no more time for weighing and measuring; we must pour it out, all there is of it, with our tears, at the feet that were pierced for love of us.
And what then? Has the flow grown gradually slower and shallower? Has our Lord reason to say, "My brethren have dealt deceitfully as a brook, and as a stream of brooks they pass away"? It is humiliating to have found that we could not keep on loving Him, as we loved in that remembered hour when "Thy time was the time of love." We have proved that we were not able. Let this be only the steppingstone to proving that He is able!
Are you shining for Jesus. dear one?
You have given your heart to Him;
But is the light strong within it,
Or is it but pale and dim?
Can everybody see it—
That Jesus is all to you?
That your love to Him is burning
With radiance warm and true?
Is the seal upon your forehead.
So that it must be known
That you are "all for Jesus,"—
That your heart is all His own?