A discovery and a belief of God’s love to us, when we were sinners, rebels, and traitors, only can produce love in our hearts to Him. But the belief in this love of God to us in all its freeness, fullness, immensity, and eternity, works by love to Him with invincible strength, and with unwearied diligence in God’s service. And as the effect is always proportioned to its cause, so the clearer our apprehension of, and the more firm our belief is in God’s love towards us, the more ardent will be our love to Him, and the more active our diligence in His service. Here is the mystery, as well as the difficulty of the faith that works by love; for mysterious indeed, it is to all but those who thus live, and even they know but little of it.
Nothing can conduce more to strengthen our faith in the free love of God, than an enlarged knowledge of the dignity, and the glory of the person of Christ; for by this we know the love of God, in that He gave His Son to die for us. The greatness of the gift which love has bestowed, proves the greatness of the love itself. And as we increase in the knowledge of the gift, so also shall we grow in the knowledge of the love that bestowed it.
“God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son.”
If you would know His love, consider His gift; for His love is as great as His gift, and it will heighten both, if we consider the objects of this love, on whom this gift was bestowed—a world of sinners—yet in their sin, and in the very height of their enmity against God.
O! the height and depth of that love which comprehends two such extremes! What can be conceived more distant from, or more unsuitable to each other! But, behold, divine love brings them both together, and gives the Son of God to man in the extreme of his guilt and misery.