The Activity of Love: December 2015
Table of Contents
The Activity of Love (extract from a letter)
I trust God is keeping you very near Himself and that He maintains the freshness of His grace and love in your soul. We need to be constantly renewed — “they shall renew their strength,” it is said, “like eagles”; without that, spiritual energy does not keep up. And it is not progress in knowledge that effects that, although this is profitable for helping others in the truth. What is important is the keeping oneself near God. There love maintains itself and grows. His love in our souls finds its activity and comfort in exercising itself towards poor sinners and towards the saints; one seeks the glory of the Lord in them and their own well-being. God gives you to enjoy Himself, but God reveals Himself not only as infinite blessedness in Himself, but also in the activities of His love in which He finds His delight. And when His love is shed abroad in our hearts, we enjoy assuredly what He is, but this love is active towards us by His grace. Activity, unless renewing itself in communion with Him, may be sincere, but will degenerate into routine and into a habit of acting, and this is dangerous, for the soul gets far from God without knowing it. But abiding in His love in Jesus and His Word abiding in us, we can count on an answer to the requests we address to Him in our hearts.
J. N. Darby (extract from a letter)
Divine Love in the Believer: 1 John 4
The Apostle John in his epistles brings out the nature of God in the saints. He shows us the character of the life that is communicated, the life which is in God the Father derived through the Son. It is first given in Christ, and then it is manifested in the saints. The traits of God are brought out wholly in Christ but through the Christian.
The Power
The Holy Spirit dwelling in us gives us the power of enjoyment, that there may be no vacillation or uncertainty. He affirms the testimony in the public manifestation of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the capacity of enjoying the source of the life is by the power of the Holy Spirit dwelling in us. God is love, and this is first openly seen at the cross of Christ; then in the new nature we have a capacity to enjoy that love. But all fear must be taken away, because fear has torment, and torment is not enjoyment, and thus He shows what removes the fear. “Perfect love casteth out fear.” If it is asked, How do you know God loves you? I reply, I have a certain and constant proof of this in the gift of His Son, and then, besides that, I have the daily and hourly enjoyment of God as my Father, and I know it because I am enjoying it.
Love One Another
I may prove to another the love of God by certain acts, such as the gift of His Son, which is an open manifestation of God’s love, but this does not take away from the daily enjoyment of God, the capacity for which I get in the new nature and by the power of the Spirit. It is remarkable to see how the Apostle guards from mysticism (focusing on the testimony we are giving) by bringing the mind back to the plain statement of the gospel: “We have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Saviour of the world.” In verse 7 he begins by saying, “Beloved, let us love one another.” Here we have the love of God in exercise in the new nature, and the characteristic of this nature is to recognize it in another. If I have this divine nature, I certainly will love it in another. I may have many prejudices to overcome, but there is the attractive power in the thing itself. I do not treat it as a mere duty; it is there in the nature, and being divine it is much above angels, although they are higher as to creation. Nevertheless, we need something more than the new nature, because it is a dependent nature, and therefore needs something else. Christ, when down here as man, lived a dependent life. He said, “I live by [or, on account of] the Father.” The old man sets himself up and pretends to be independent, and then he comes under the power of Satan.
A Dependent Nature
But the new nature is a dependent nature, and it says, “Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do?” Life in Christ leans on God’s power, and delights to do so. The Holy Spirit is the power. We are “strengthened with all might by His Spirit in the inner man” (Eph. 3:16), and there is full blessing, both in the individual and in the church of God. Although we have the new nature, we need also the power of the Holy Spirit to remove the obstacles to its display. Labor will not do. You may labor on the cold snow, but the sun must shine before it melts. So the Holy Spirit is needed to dissolve the thick ice of our hearts and melt away that which is in us to obstruct and hinder its full manifestation.
Love Is of God
“God is love, and every one that loveth is born of God and knoweth God.” When I am born of God, I have this nature and am brought into a position to refer everything up to God, for the nature we get from God has God for the object of that new nature to act upon. When I see the traits of this new nature, I say, He is born of God. I see the love that is in natural affection. In mere natural affection, selfishness is the ground of it all, but in the saint, he that loves is born of God. While selfishness is the spring of everything apart from God, we find in a soul that is born of God another principle which takes a man clean out of himself. In the world a man makes himself a fortune by some new invention that makes the world more comfortable, and what is this but selfishness? And all that gives an impulse to the progress of the world is selfishness, for God is left out. But for the believer it is different, though we are in a world where we all have to follow our various occupations and callings. In a Christian it is not selfishness; it is the activity of love; he is born of God, and love is the principle of God’s nature. It may be very feeble in me, but I ought not to be satisfied that it should remain so. No, that which is born of God came down from God and returns to God again; therefore, “be ye imitators of God as dear children.”
Returns to God
This perfect love came down from God that it might return to God again, for whom did Christ come to glorify in this world but His Father? So all that Christ did returned to God a sweet-smelling savor, or else it would have been lost. There are many beautiful qualities in a creature of God, but the question is, Do they return back to God again? If not, then it becomes sin. I get a good thing, I enjoy it and leave God out, and this is man’s sin. There may be a great deal of selfishness under the guise of liberality. A Christian will help his brother and look up to God as doing it to God because He loves God, but if he helps him and says to himself, I have done well, it is not love; it is self-righteousness. The new nature has God for its source and God as its object; the new nature acts in us like God, so that others can see it, but then it looks up and knows God. “Every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God,” and it is a great comfort to say in everything, I have found God.
Our Love — His Love
After such manifestation of God’s love, let us not be thinking of our love to God. Who am I that I should be coupling His love with mine? The moment I begin to think of my love to God, that moment it ceases; it is gone, like the manna that had worms and stank. Heaven will be when I have entirely forgotten myself and am filled with God. That very same love which will fill heaven was manifested in the cross. God’s love is not exhausted, though my need may be and is great, and my failures many.
So in the present life we see that, when the Apostle realized the privilege of getting up to the Giver of every good and perfect gift, he returns to the very simplest truth: “The Father sent the Son to be the Saviour of the world.” Thus we see the saint who knows most of the heart of God is the best evangelist. The fathers in Christ will be the most careful to take account of the weakest babe in Christ.
Bible Treasury (adapted)
Christian Devotedness (abridged)
The spring and source of all true devotedness is divine love filling and operating in our hearts, as Paul says: “The love of Christ constraineth us” (2 Cor. 5:14). Its form and character must be drawn from Christ’s actions. Hence, grace must first be known for oneself, for thus it is that I know love and that this love is shed abroad in the heart. We learn divine love in divine redemption.
The First Effect
The first effect of love is to lead the heart up, thus sanctifying it. We bless God, adore God, thus known; our adoring delight is in Jesus. But thus near to God and in communion with Him, consciously united to Christ by the Holy Spirit, divine love flows into and through our hearts. We become animated by it through our enjoyment of it. It is really “God dwelling in us,” as John expresses it; “His love shed abroad in our hearts,” as Paul says. It flows thus forth as it did in Christ. Its objects and motives are as in Him, save that He Himself comes in as revealing it. It is the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord; not the less God, but God revealed in Christ, for there we have learned love. Thus, in all true devotedness, Christ is the first and governing object; next, “His own which are in the world,” and then our fellow-men: first their souls, then their bodies, and every need they are in. His life of good to man governs ours, but His death governs the heart. “Hereby perceive we the love of God, because He laid down His life for us” (1 John 3:16). “The love of Christ constraineth us; because we thus judge, that if one died for all, then were all dead: and that He died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto Him who died for them, and rose again” (2 Cor. 5:14-15).
Love Toward Others
We must note, too, that it is a new life in us which both enjoys God and to which His love is precious, which alone is capable of delighting in the blessedness that is in Him, and in which His divine love operates towards others. It is not the benevolence of nature, but the activity of divine love in the new man. Its genuineness is thus tested, because Christ has necessarily the first place with this nature, and its working is in that estimate of right and wrong which the new man alone has and of which Christ is the measure and motive. “Not as we hoped,” says Paul (it was more than he hoped), speaking of active charity, “but first gave their own selves to the Lord, and unto us by the will of God” (2 Cor. 8:5).
But it is more than a new nature. Our bodies are the temples of the Holy Spirt, and God’s love is shed abroad in the heart by the Holy Spirit which is given to us. And as love springs up like a well in us unto eternal life, so also living waters flow out from us by the Holy Spirit which we have received. All true devotedness, then, is the action of divine love in the redeemed, through the Holy Spirit given to them.
The Right Object
There may be a zeal which compasses sea and land, but it is in the interest of a prejudice, or the work of Satan. There may be natural benevolence clothed with a fairer name and irritated if it is not accepted for its own sake. There may be the sense of obligation and legal activity, which, through grace, may lead farther, though it is the pressure of conscience, not the activity of love. The activity of love does not destroy the sense of obligation in the saint, but alters the whole character of his work. “Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.” In God, love is active, but sovereign; in the saint, it is active, but a duty, because of grace. Yet we owe it all — and more than all — to Him that loved us. Every right feeling in a creature must have an object, and, to be right, that object must be God, and God revealed in Christ as the Father, for in that way God possesses our souls.
Hence Paul, speaking of himself, says, “I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me” (Gal. 2:20). His life was a divine life. Christ lived in him, but it was a life of faith, a life living wholly by an object, and that object Christ, and known as the Son of God loving and giving Himself for him. Here we get the practical character and motive of Christian devotedness — living to Christ.
Engaged With His Love
What is supposed here is not a law contending or arresting a will seeking its own pleasure, but the blessed and thankful yielding of ourselves to the love of the blessed Son of God, and a heart entering into that love and its object by a life which flows from Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit. Hence, it is a law of liberty. Hence, too, it can only have objects of service which that life can have, and the Holy Spirit can fix the heart on, and that service will be the free service of delight. Flesh may seek to hinder, but its objects cannot be those the new man and the Holy Spirit seek. The heart ranges in the sphere in which Christ does. It loves the brethren, for Christ does, and all the saints, for He does. It seeks the all for whom Christ died, yet knowing that only grace can bring any of them, and endures “all things for the elect’s sake, that they may obtain the salvation which is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory.” It seeks “to present every man perfect in Christ Jesus” — to see the saints grow up to Him who is the Head in all things and walk worthy of the Lord. It seeks to see the church presented as a chaste virgin unto Christ. It continues in its love, though the more abundantly it loves, the less it be loved. It is ready to endure hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ.
Love Delights to Serve
The governing motive characterizes our whole walk, for the Christian judges of everything by Christ. If something hinders His glory in oneself or another, it is cast away. It is judged of not as sacrifice, but cast away as a hindrance. How blessedly self is gone here! “Gain to me” has disappeared. What a deliverance that is! We have the privilege of forgetting self and living to Christ. Self likes to be served; love delights to serve. When we are in glory, Christ girds Himself and serves us. And shall not we, if we have the privilege, imitate, serve and give ourselves to Him, who so loves us? Living to God inwardly is the only possible means of living to Him outwardly. All outward activity not moved and governed by this is fleshly and even a danger to the soul; it tends to make us do without Christ and brings in self. It is not devotedness, for devotedness is to Christ, and this must be in looking to being with Him. I dread great activity without great communion, but I believe that, when the heart is with Christ, it will live to Him.
Devotedness
The form of devotedness, of external activity, will be governed by God’s will and the competency to serve, for devotedness is a humble, holy thing, doing its Master’s will, but the spirit of undivided service to Christ is the true part of every Christian. We want wisdom: God gives it liberally. Christ is our true wisdom. We want power: We learn it in dependence through Him who strengthens us. Devotedness is a dependent as it is a humble spirit. So it was in Christ. It waits on its Lord. It has courage and confidence in the path of God’s will, because it leans on divine strength in Christ. He can do all things. Hence it is patient and does what it has to do according to His will and Word, for then He can work, and He does all that is done which is good.
J. N. Darby (abridged)
The Effect of Love
“The love of Christ constraineth us” (2 Cor. 5:14).
Every true believer has experienced the love of God, for it was the love of God that sent His Son into this world to die for us. He had compassion on us when we were not only sinners, but lost sinners, and it was His love that found a way by which we could be brought back to Him. We might call this the compassionate love of God. But in the verse at the head of this article, we read of another effect of love — the love of Christ — it constrains us. In the sense in which the word is used here, it has the meaning of compelling or forcing one to a particular course of action. It is the practical side of the love of God; it is the effect it has on those who have experienced it. The word “constrain” is a stronger word than the expression “to make willing.” It is the same root word as is translated “compel” in Luke 14:23, where the servant was to compel those out in the highways and hedges to come to the great supper. It is doing something of necessity.
The Love of Christ
In keeping with the context, it is the love of Christ that is spoken of, not the love of God. When the name of God is connected with something, the thought is usually nature and/or power. When the name of Christ is brought in, the practical effect is usually in view. (Thus we have the Spirit of God and the Spirit of Christ, the power of God and the power of Christ, and the grace of God and the grace of Christ.) When the love of Christ is felt in our souls, there is a constraining power connected with it.
There are several things to be noticed in connection with this love. Scripture does not say that the love of Christ should constrain us or can constrain us; it simply makes the statement that it does constrain us. When we believe, we receive a new life in Christ, and this new life is characterized by love — the love of God. Before that, we could not even love as God loves, for “love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God” (1 John 4:7). The enjoyment of that love will have its effect on each one of us, just as natural love, between two people, compels them to act in certain ways.
Of course, we can get away from the Lord, and then we will not feel the effect of that love, although His love towards us never changes. But just as iron filings will not respond to a magnet if they are too far away from it, so we will not feel the effect of the love of Christ if we live at a distance from Him. It is the believer that lives close to his Saviour who enjoys His love and feels its constraining power in his life.
The Effects
This constraining power of the love of Christ has several effects on us. First of all, it tells us that “He died for all” (2 Cor. 5:15). His love did not discriminate, for the love of God reaches out to every individual in this world. All may come to feel the effect of that love and to enjoy the free salvation that God, in His love, wants to give. Second, it tells us that if “one died for all, then were all dead” (2 Cor. 5:14). We sometimes do not realize the full implications of our lost condition, but here we are reminded that we were not only lost, but dead towards God. Ephesians 2:1 also tells us that before we were saved, we “were dead in trespasses and sins.” One who is dead can do nothing for himself; he is totally dependent on another, if he is to be given life. Third, as a result of such love, we are compelled to live, not to ourselves, but to Him who died for us. His love demands that kind of response. Fourth, we are reminded that Christ not only died, but rose again. His resurrection assures us of our resurrection and also gives us the power to live for His glory down here, for the power comes from a risen Christ in glory. Truly, as the hymn says, “Love that transcends our highest powers, demands our soul, our life, our all.”
True Love
True love in our own hearts will not only give us to live for the glory of Christ, but it will also have an effect on others. In 1 Corinthians 13, we are reminded that speaking in tongues, understanding all mysteries, and having all knowledge are nothing if we do not have love. Even the world understands this, although they do not have new life in Christ, and thus do not have divine love operating in their own souls. A salesman once remarked to me, “People will not buy something from you if they do not like you, no matter how good your product may be.” On the positive side, it has been well said that “what comes from the heart goes to the heart.” Even children can quickly sense whether we love them and will warm up to us or shun us according to their perception of us.
The Activity of Love
As believers, we need to remember this in our interaction with others, whether in the world or among other believers. If we bring the gospel before souls, they must feel the love in our hearts for them, as well as hearing the facts of the gospel. Our own attitude toward them should reflect God’s character in every way. This does not mean that all will respond to the gospel, for our blessed Master surely manifested God’s character in perfection, yet was rejected by many. But we can either commend or detract from the gospel by our attitude and spirit.
Showing this love toward our brethren is important too, for souls will much more readily warm up to one whose heart is full of love. Also, if correction is needed, the reaction will be much better if love is clearly there, rather than simply a harsh rebuke, no matter how well deserved it may be. Our actions too are important, for words are hollow without the actions that should accompany them. “God commendeth His love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Rom. 5:8). God’s love was proven by the gift of His Son, and as another has remarked, “If God has not won your heart and mine, what more could He do to win it?” We, as believers, are called to show God’s love by our actions as well as our words. In this way we may “adorn the doctrine of God our Saviour in all things” (Titus 2:10).
W. J. Prost
Love and Brotherly Love
We are told in 2 Peter 1:7 to add “love” to “brotherly love” (JND). The common notion is that brotherly love is love, and indeed its most perfect form. This is a mistake. That brotherly love is a most sweet and precious fruit of grace is most true — precious in the heart that is filled with it and precious in its mutual development — but it is not love. The reason is simple: In brotherly love, brethren are the object, and though it surely flows from grace when genuine and pure, in us it easily clothes itself with the character which its object gives it. It tends to limit itself to the objects with which it is occupied and be governed by its feeling toward them. It is apt to end in its objects, and thus avoid all that might be painful to them or mar the mutual feeling and pleasant interaction of fellowship, and thus make them the measure of the conduct of the Christian. In a word, where brotherly love ends in itself as the main object, brethren become the motive and governing principle of our conduct, and our conduct as uncertain as the state of our brethren with whom we may be in contact. Hence Paul says, “Above all these things put on charity, which is the bond of perfectness” (Col. 3:14), while Peter, as we have noted, reminds us to add “to brotherly kindness, charity.”
Charity — Love
Charity is love, but will not this love exercise brotherly kindness? Undoubtedly it will, but it brings in God. “God is love.” “He that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him” (1 John 4:16). It brings in a standard of what true love is, which mere brotherly kindness in itself cannot. It is the bond of perfectness for God, and God in active love is its measure. Brotherly kindness by itself has the brother for its object; true love is governed by, exists in virtue of, the conscious presence of God. Hence, whatever is not consistent with His presence, with Himself, with His glory, cannot be borne by the heart which is filled with it. It is in the spirit of love that it thinks and works, but in the Spirit of God by whose presence it is inwardly known and active. Love was active in Christ when He said, “Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers”; in Paul when he said, “I would they were even cut off which trouble you.”
True Love
True love, because it is God’s presence (and we feel His presence), is intolerant of evil. In mere brotherly kindness, the brother being the object before my mind, I am apt to put man before God, cover up evil, keep kindness going, and so far exclude and shut out God. True love is His active presence, though it will be in love to man, but it gives to God all His rights. He is love, but He is never inconsistent with Himself. His love to us was shown in what was the most solemn proof of His intolerance of evil, the cross. There is no true love apart from righteousness. If God is indifferent to evil, is not righteous, then there is no love in grace to the sinner. If He abhors evil, cannot suffer it in His presence, then His dealings with us as sinners show the most perfect love. If I have children and they go wrong and I say, “Well, I am to show love to them,” and I take no account of their evil ways, or if some of them go wrong and I treat them as if there were no difference to my mind in their well doing or evil doing, this is not love, but carelessness as to evil. This is the kind of love looked for by unconverted man — namely, God’s being as careless as to evil as they are. But this is not divine love which abhors the evil, but rises over it, dealing with it either in putting it away or in needed chastenings. Now if God were indifferent to evil, there is no holy Being to be the object of my love — nothing sanctifying. God does not own as love what admits of sin.
J. N. Darby (adapted)
Brotherly Love: 2 Peter 1:7
When the heart is in communion with God, affection flows out freely towards those who are dear to Him and who, sharing the same nature, necessarily draw out the affections of the spiritual heart; brotherly love is developed.
Love
There is another principle which crowns and governs and gives character to all others; it is sometimes called charity, but it is properly called love. This is its root, the nature of God Himself — the source and perfection of every other quality that adorns Christian life. The distinction between love and brotherly love is of deep importance; the former is indeed, as we have just said, the source whence the latter flows. But as this brotherly love exists in mortal men, it may be mingled in its exercise with sentiments that are merely human — with individual affection, with the effect of personal attractions, or that of habit, of suitability in natural character. Nothing is sweeter than brotherly affections; their maintenance is of the highest importance in the church, but they may degenerate, as they may grow cool, and if the love of God does not hold the chief place, they may displace Him or shut Him out. Divine love, which is the very nature of God, directs, rules and gives character to brotherly love; otherwise, it is that which pleases us, that is, our own heart that governs us.
If divine love governs me, I love all my brethren. I love them because they belong to Christ; there is no partiality. I shall have greater enjoyment in a spiritual brother, but I shall occupy myself about my weak brother, with a love that rises above his weakness and has tender consideration for it. I shall concern myself with my brother’s sin, from love to God, in order to restore my brother, rebuking him, if needful. Moreover, if divine love is in exercise, can brotherly love be associated with disobedience? God will have His place in all my relationships. To display brotherly love in such a manner as to shut out the requirements of that which God is is to shut out God in the most plausible way, in order to gratify our own hearts.
Divine love acts according to the nature, character and will of God, and it is that which ought to direct and characterize our whole Christian walk and have authority over every movement of our hearts.
Governing Factors
The universality of this love with regard to all the children of God and its exercise in practical obedience to His will are the marks of true brotherly love. That which has not these marks is a mere carnal, party spirit, clothing itself with the name and the forms of brotherly love. Most certainly I do not love the Father, if I encourage His children in disobedience to Him.
Moreover, the semblance of love which does not maintain the truth, but accommodates itself to that which is not the truth, is not love according to God. It is a form of taking advantage of the name of love in order to promote the seductions of Satan.
In the last days, the test of true love is the maintenance of the truth. God would have us love one another, but the Holy Spirit, by whose power we receive this divine nature and who pours the love of God into our hearts, is the Spirit of truth, and His office is to glorify Christ.
The Remembrancer (adapted)
Christian Love
“A new commandment give I unto you, that ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another” (John 13:34).
What a lofty standard of love is set before us in the above words! We are to love one another as Christ loved us. Now, how did Christ love us? Well, He loved us notwithstanding all our infirmities, all our failures, and all our sins. He did not love us because we had none of these things, but despite them. His love rose above every barrier and proved itself superior to every hindrance. Many waters, even the dark waters of death, could not quench the love of Jesus. He loved us and gave Himself for us.
Our Model
Now, this is to be our model. We are to love one another as Christ loved us. “Herein perceive we the love of God, because He laid down His life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.” “My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue, but in deed and in truth.” “This is His commandment, that we should believe on the name of His Son Jesus Christ, and love one another, as He gave us commandment.” “Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God, and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God. He that loveth not, knoweth not God; for God is love.” “Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us, and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another. No man hath seen God at any time. If we love one another, God dwelleth in us, and His love is perfected in us.”
True Love
This is Christian love. It is the outflow of the divine nature in the believer. It may express itself in various ways. It may sometimes have to rebuke, reprove and smite. Our great Exemplar had occasionally to do so in reference to those whom, notwithstanding, He loved with an everlasting and unchangeable love. It is a mistake to suppose that love is blind or cannot be faithful. Such love would not be worth having. Indeed, it should be called by some other name, not love. True love sees my faults and can reprove them. It can occupy itself with my faults in order to deliver me from them. It will take occasion even from my very errors and infirmities to display itself in its own elevated and holy activities. “Love suffereth long, and is kind; love envieth not; love vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil, rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth; beareth all things, believeth all things, endureth all things. Love never faileth. ... And now abideth faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love” (1 Cor. 13:4-8,13).
Sectarian and Clique Love
But there are two kinds of spurious love which we may just glance at, in contrast with the lovely moral picture presented in the above quotations. These are sectarian love and clique love. We have to watch against these. We are in great danger of loving persons merely because they hold the same opinions as we do; this is love of a sect. Or to love a person because their habits, tastes and predilections are agreeable to us is love of clique; neither of these is Christian love. We may traffic largely in both and not yield obedience to the “new commandment” — not love others as Christ loved us. It is not Christian love to love our opinions or our own image. It is Christian love to love the image of Christ wherever we see it.
May we have grace to apply our hearts to the study, the cultivation, and the exhibition of genuine Christian love! May we drink more deeply into the spirit of Christ, and then we shall love people, not because they agree with us or suit us, but because they are agreeable to Christ and reflect His blessed image. Oh! for a vast increase of Christian love!
Things New and Old (adapted)
He Loved Them Unto the End
These precious words are found in John 13:1. Most of us know that “to the end” there means continually, through every day. That is, He has loved and loves us with a love that nothing can stop; nothing can make Him cease to love us. We are loved with a love that will never cease to love us!
It is a little remarkable too, in that connection, that we find a passage in Hebrews 13 which says, “Let brotherly love continue.” What does that mean? Exactly what it says, that it is never to cease. Our brethren cannot act worse toward us than the disciples did toward the Lord. “This is My commandment, that ye love one another, as I have loved you” (John 15:12). This means that we are to love our brethren in the same way He did in spite of everything.
Peter and John
The way in which this love has to manifest itself, of course, has to do with the way in which others conduct themselves. We find John lying on the Saviour’s breast, and we find Peter denying Him with oaths and cursing. He loved them both with the same love, but that love had to manifest itself according to the ways of each. I speak of the principle now. Of John it is written: “He then lying on Jesus’ breast saith unto Him, Lord, who is it?” (John 13:25). This interaction is communion.
What about the way Peter denied Him with oaths and cursing? There is no communion in this. The cock crows and he remembers the words that Jesus spoke unto him, and their eyes meet. Peter’s eye catches the Lord’s, and the Lord’s eye catches Peter’s. What is the result? The poor failing one went out and wept bitterly. The Lord’s love to Peter was not one whit less at that time.
Martha
I was thinking a little of Martha’s service to the Lord; it had become a burden (Luke 10:40-42). When service to the Lord becomes a burden, it loses its worth in His sight. And when does it become a burden? When love to Himself is not the spring, so that we hear the dear soul saying, “Lord, dost Thou not care that my sister hath left me to serve alone? Bid her therefore that she help me.” Her service has become a burden because He is not known as He should be, though in a sense He is still the object of her service; nevertheless, it is a burden.
Elijah
Then there is that wonderful servant of God, Elijah. It is very interesting to note how we first meet him, and how we see him depart. He comes before us first directly from the presence of the Lord; out of a hidden place he comes forth saying, “As the Lord God of Israel liveth, before whom I stand, there shall not be dew nor rain these years, but according to my word” (1 Kings 17:1). A passage from the New Testament (James 5:17) tells us he had been in communion with God about it. It was his love to the Lord and his people that led him. In substance he was saying, “Lord, if nothing else will bring the people to their senses — to a sense of their sin — withhold the rain.” It was a hard thing to ask, yet it was love that led to it. The Lord honored the request.
At the close of Elijah’s life he is carried to heaven in a whirlwind. Next we see him in the glory itself, and he is there with the Lord and Moses (Matt. 17:3). But what preceded his going to heaven? He was overcome with evil. In what way was he overcome? He made intercession against Israel! He said, “Lord, they have killed Thy prophets, and digged down Thine altars; and I am left alone, and they seek my life.” Then he asked to die. He was overcome of evil in that way.
We are told to not be overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good (Rom. 12:21). The love with which we are loved is the love with which we are to love. It is the love of Christ — it never can be overcome of evil. It is the remedy for us when we feel the danger of being overcome with evil, of being cast down when we see evil coming in like a flood.
Washing the Disciples’ Feet
Now in John 13 it says, “Having loved His own which were in the world, He loved them unto the end.” After saying this, He laid aside His garments, poured water into a basin, and began to wash the disciples’ feet and to wipe them with the towel wherewith He had girded Himself. Instead of being carried away with the thought that “now I am going to leave the world and depart to the Father,” He was thinking of them. He says, as it were, I know I will be up there, but I will not be happy without their fellowship and communion, and since without My services I cannot have it so, I will suit Myself to their need; I will take a position — an attitude — toward them that will maintain them in fellowship with Me while absent from them, until they do not need that service any more. His love never forgets its object. Oh what a humbling, blessed truth! How we feel more and more our utter unworthiness of it! Nothing humbles like grace — like love. That is how He loves us.
It was only after He had rendered them that service that He sat down. It is a type of the service in which He is now engaged in order to maintain us in communion with Himself. He does it, so to speak, because His love cannot do without us.
Happiness
There in the upper chamber is the only place that I remember that the Lord calls the attention of the disciples to the fact that He is their Lord and Master. “Know ye what I have done to you? Ye call Me Master and Lord: and ye say well; for so I am. If I then, your Lord and Master, have washed your feet; ye ought also to wash one another’s feet” (vss. 12-14). Never had He said this before. Then He adds, “If ye know these things, happy are ye if ye do them.” The little, two-letter word there is important: “Happy are ye, if ye do them.” Happiness is a result of washing one another’s feet.
All those who know what communion with Christ is know also that this is not possible without His present priestly work for us — what He did for His disciples. It is utterly impossible for us to restore our souls. “He restoreth my soul.” We are dependent on Him for the restoration of the soul as well as for its salvation. We cannot get on without this service — we cannot get on without the Lord. There is another thing, brethren: We cannot get on with one another without knowing how to do it with Him.
Communion
He says distinctly, “If I wash thee not, thou hast no part with Me.” And how often have we felt the communion broken — a cloud between. How is it going to be removed? There is just one way, and that is to put our feet into His hands. That is all. We will never get the cloud removed in any other way. “If I wash thee not, thou hast no part with Me.” It is just so, unless there is this service one to another. Think of the love that we are loved with — the love of Christ.
What the heart feels the need of is personal communion with Christ. What He looks for and values above everything else is personal devotedness to Himself, and no amount of service can ever compensate, can ever make up to Him, for communion with Himself. If there is devotedness, there will be communion; if there is communion, there will be service.
W. Potter (adapted)
The Activity of Divine Love
“Jesus of Nazareth ... who went about doing good” (Acts 10:38).
There is nothing negative about this verse; it does not say, “Who did no harm.” There was One who, in His pathway through this world of misery and need, was actively engaged in doing good. His love was unwearied and in spite of rebuffs and even hatred, He “went about doing good.” The ungrateful response of those to whom He came is told in the words of the Psalms: “For My love they are My adversaries. ... They have rewarded Me evil for good, and hatred for My love” (Psa. 109:4-5).
Still that blessed One went steadily forward “doing good,” and at last we read of Him weeping over (not the fact that He was rejected, but) those of that guilty city because of the terrible judgments that were soon to fall on them (Luke 19:41-44).
May we, His redeemed ones, who are left in this same world a little longer, be better transcripts of the One to whom we belong — that One who “went about doing good.” The needs are great and the “night is far spent.” A few verses from the epistles may remind us of our opportunities and privileges:
“Put them in mind to be subject to principalities and powers, to obey magistrates, to be ready to every good work. ... For we ourselves also were sometime foolish, disobedient, deceived. ... But according to His mercy He saved us” (Titus 3:1-5).
“As we have therefore opportunity, let us do good unto all men, especially unto them who are of the household of faith” (Gal. 6:10).
We must not, however, disregard any direct word or any principle of Scripture in doing good. Here we need to keep a balance and remember that we must “strive lawfully.” Our enemy is very subtle and would entangle us with associations and unequal yokes in our seeking to do good. But, fellow-Christian, if we are really seeking to “redeem the time” (it is fast going) and look to Him for His guidance, we shall find abundant opportunities. Then, shall we not as a “royal priest” dispense royal bounty and “show forth the praises of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light” (1 Peter 2:9)?
P. Wilson
The Labor of Love
“Remembering without ceasing your work of faith, and labor of love, and patience of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ, in the sight of God and our Father” (1 Thess. 1:3).
Suppose I go laboring and the spirit of love is in my work, what a difference there will be when the whole service is stamped with the character of this love! If it is only in preaching the gospel, how fully shall I set forth God’s love to a lost world, if the love of Christ is freshly springing up in my own soul! But how often have we to reproach ourselves with going on in a round of Christian duty, faithful in general intention, but not flowing from the fresh realization of the love of Christ to our souls!
The Young Christian
By Thy Life I Live
I love, my God, 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 life I live;
I am as nothing, and rejoice to be
Emptied and lost and swallowed up in Thee.
Thou, Lord, alone art all Thy children need,
And there is none beside;
From Thee the streams of blessedness proceed;
In Thee the blest abide,
Fountain of life, and all-abounding grace,
Our source, our center, and our dwelling
place.
Madame Jeanne Marie Guyon
(1648-1717)