(JOHN 21:16.)
CHRISTIAN discipleship implies love to Him who asked this question. It is not merely a true creed, a virtuous and beautiful life, but the heart’s love. Yes, nothing but our hearts will satisfy Him. I do not speak of conversion. A person may be converted, and yet he or she may not have set the affections wholly on Christ. But this is what He wants. “If He has this, all else will be held as His and used for Himself. For what will real, genuine love keep back?”
Love to Christ is not to exist only, but to be supreme among the affections of the Christian’s heart. Christ (is) everything and “in all” i.e., literally, “all things.” (Col. 3:11) If He is not everything to us, He is nothing.
It is His own personal wish that we should love Him. There may be very few on earth who think our love worth the having; but He desires and seeks it as part of the reward of His sorrows, bought with His blood. It is an element of “the joy that was set before Him” for which “He endured the cross and despised the shame.” It is on this love that He rests obedience to His will. “If ye love Me keep My commandments.” It is to this love He appoints holy service. “Lovest thou Me?” “Feed My lambs, My sheep, My whole flock.” Thus the Lord gives love something to do for Him―something that love is fit for doing―that only love can do―that love will have pleasure in doing. The only safeguard against the “isms,” “seducing spirits and doctrines of demons” by which we are surrounded, is found in Jude 20, 21: “Building up yourselves on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Ghost, keep yourselves in the love of God.” Thus doing, our hearts will become more fully His.
The cause for the repeated sins of the children of Israel is given in Psa. 78 “Their heart was not right with Him.” There is real power, freshness, and vitality where Christ has His place as the source and center of our hearts’ affections. Year by year our fellowship ought to become more close and delightful. After more than forty years of saving acquaintance with “the Friend of sinners” the writer has to say―
“This alone is my complaint,
That my love is weak and faint;
Yet I love Thee and adore―
Oh! for grace to love Thee more.”