OPEN your Bible and read a lovely verse which you have often repeated and know well.
You will find the verse I mean in, the first epistle of John, the fourth chapter. I want you to read it over slowly, and to think of it, as I am going to tell you about a little child whose ways illustrated the wonderful truth of it. “We love Him, because He first loved us.” Is it not a beautiful verse? And again, in the same chapter, we will read: “Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us, and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.” Is it not wonderful to you that God should so love us, even when we were utterly vile and wicked and only fit to be banished from Him? But “God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” (John 3:1616For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. (John 3:16).)
It was the deep reality of this love that was the means of bringing the little child of whom I am going to write to God, and of drawing her heart close to the Lord Jesus. It is one thing to know you are saved and to be happy in the thought, and yet to go on giving way to your naughty temper and will, and another thing, after you are saved, to try and live for and to the Lord Jesus.
Barbara, who was one of the lambs of the Good Shepherd, was a strong, high-spirited little child. She was one day lying on the floor busily engaged in playing with and arranging her toys, of which she was very fond, when suddenly a thoughtful expression passed over her face, and, stopping short in the midst of an animated conversation with her doll, she rushed up to her mother, and said―
“Mamma! tell me, is it really true that God loves me, little me? I mean does He really Love little Barbara?”
“Yes, my child,” said her mother. “God really loves you, little Barbara, and loved you so much that He sent His Son to die for you. He loved you, but He did not love your sin, which made you black all over in His sight; and it was because He loved you so much that He sent His only Son Jesus to suffer for you on the cross, that being washed in His blood you might be made perfectly clean and white, and thus fit to dwell with Him in glory. He loved you so much that He wanted to have you with Him, and He knew that nothing less than the precious blood of Jesus could make you clean and white and so God sent His Christ to bleed and die on the bitter cross, that all who believe in Him might not perish, but have everlasting life. (John 3:1616For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. (John 3:16).) And you know ‘We love Him because He first loved us.’”
“Does Jesus love me more, better than you do, mamma?”
“Yes, my child, far better. I have never died for you; the Lord Jesus has.”
“And does Jesus love me now?”
“Yes, my child. He loves you now, this moment, although in His glory.”
Hiding her face in her mother’s lap, little Barbara burst out in a flood of tears, saying, “Then I love Him! Then I love Him! Then I do love Him!” and rushing out of the room she cried as if her little heart would break.
There is no doubt that the little girl loved God; but upon the day this conversation took place the Holy Spirit gave her, in a new way, to rejoice in Christ’s love to her.
From that day forward Barbara was a living testimony that she was the Lord’s. All around her noticed a marked change in her little ways, and although quite strong and well she would constantly say, “Oh, how Barbara longs to go to Jesus now! I want to go to live with Him.” She would also always try and tell others how Jesus loved them,―in her own childish way,―with a beaming smile on her face; and if they did not heed it or seem touched with such divine love, she would look up in the most sorrowful way and say in the saddest tone, “But don’t you love Him back again? I do,” in so pleading a way that it might have melted many a hardened heart.
The love of Christ was such a real thing to her that she could not understand others being indifferent to it.
It may be that my little reader has been washed in the blood of Jesus, and does love the Good Shepherd. Then to you I would only say, let Him fold you closer and closer to Himself; because He will if we yield ourselves to Him. You know it says in that beautiful tenth chapter of the gospel of John, twenty-eighth and twenty-ninth verses: “I give unto them (My sheep) eternal life, and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of My hand. My Father, which gave them Me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of My Father’s hand.” See how safe the little lamb is folded in the Good Shepherd’s bosom. The cruel wolf may, and indeed does, come and prowl about and howl for that little lamb, so ready is he to devour it. But do you think the Shepherd will let go His little lamb? Ah! no. His word is “Never.” “No man shall pluck them out of My hand.” The little lamb is safe for ever.
E. O’N. N.