Kept for the Master's Use

Chapter XI.
Our love kept for Jesus.

Not as a mere echo from the morning-gilded shore of Tiberias, but as an ever new, ever sounding note of divinest power, come the familiar words to each of us, ‘Lovest thou Me?’ He says it who has loved us with an everlasting love. He says it who has died for us. He says it who has washed us from our sins in His own blood. He says it who has waited for our love, waited patiently all through our coldness.

And if by His grace we have said, ‘Take my love,’ which of us has not felt that part of His very answer has been to make us see how little there was to take, and how little of that little has been kept for Him? And yet we do love Him! He knows that! The very mourning and longing to love Him more proves it. But we want more than that, and so does our Lord.

He has created us to love. We have a sealed treasure of love, which either remains sealed, and then gradually dries up and wastes away, or is unsealed and poured out, and yet is the fuller and not the emptier for the outpouring. The more love we give, the more we have to give. So far it is only natural. But 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 colours. 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 stepping-stone to proving that He is able!

There will have been a cause, as we shall see if we seek it honestly. It was not that we really poured out all our treasure, and so it naturally came to an end. We let it be secretly diverted into other channels. We began keeping back a little part of the price for something else. We looked away from, instead of looking away unto Jesus. We did not entrust Him with our love, and ask Him to keep it for Himself.

And what has He to say to us? Ah, He upbraideth not. Listen! ‘Thus saith the Lord, I remember thee, the kindness of thy youth, the love of thine espousals.’ Can any words be more tender, more touching, to you, to me? Forgetting all the sin, all the backsliding, all the coldness, casting all that into the unreturning depths of the sea, He says He remembers that hour when we first said, ‘Take my love.’ He remembers it now, at this minute. He has written it for ever on His infinite memory, where the past is as the present.

His own love is unchangeable, so it could never be His wish or will that we should thus drift away from Him. Oh, ‘Come and let us return unto the Lord!’ But is there any hope that, thus returning, our flickering love may be kept from again failing? Hear what He says: ‘And I will betroth thee unto Me for ever’ And again: ‘Thou shalt abide for Me many days; so will I also be for thee.’ Shall we trust His word or not? Is it worthy of our acceptation or not? Oh, rest on this word of the King, and let Him from this day have the keeping of your love, and He will keep it!

The love of Christ is not an absorbing, but a radiating love. The more we love Him, the more we shall most certainly love others. Some have not much natural power of loving, but the love of Christ will strengthen it. Some have had the springs of love dried up by some terrible earthquake. They will find ‘fresh springs’ in Jesus, and the gentle flow will be purer and deeper than the old torrent could ever be. Some have been satisfied that it should rush in a narrow channel, but He will cause it to overflow into many another, and widen its course of blessing. Some have spent it all on their God-given dear ones. Now He is come whose right it is; and yet in the fullest resumption of that right, He is so gracious that He puts back an even larger measure of the old love into our hand, sanctified with His own love, and energized with His blessing, and strengthened with His new commandment, ‘That ye love one another, as I have loved you.’

In that always very interesting part, called a ‘Corner for Difficulties,’ of that always very interesting magazine, Woman’s Work, the question has been discussed, ‘When does love become idolatry? Is it the experience of Christians that the coming in of a new object of affection interferes with entire consecration to God?’ I should like to quote the many excellent answers in full, but must only refer my readers to the number for March 1879. One replies: ‘It seems to me that He who is love would not give us an object for our love unless He saw that our hearts needed expansion; and if the love is consecrated, and the friendship takes its stand in Christ, there is no need for the fear that it will become idolatry. Let the love on both sides be given to God to keep, and however much it may grow, the source from which it springs must yet be greater.’ Perhaps I may be pardoned for giving, at the same writer’s suggestion, a quotation from Under the Surface on this subject. Eleanor says to Beatrice:—

There is no love so deep and wide as that which is kept for Jesus. It flows both fuller and farther when it flows only through Him. Then, too, it will be a power for Him. It will always be unconsciously working for Him. In drawing others to ourselves by it, we shall be necessarily drawing them nearer to the fountain of our love, never drawing them away from it. It is the great magnet of His love which alone can draw any heart to Him; but when our own are thoroughly yielded to its mighty influence, they will be so magnetized that He will condescend to use them in this way.

Is it not wonderful to think that the Lord Jesus will not only accept and keep, but actually use our love?

‘Of Thine own have we given Thee,’ for ‘we love Him because He first loved us.’

Chapter XII.
Our Selves kept for Jesus.

‘For Thee!’ That is the beginning and the end of the whole matter of consecration.

There was a prelude to its ‘endless song,’—a prelude whose theme is woven into every following harmony in the new anthem of consecrated life: ‘The Son of God, who loved me, and gave Himself for me.’ Out of the realized ‘for me,’ grows the practical ‘for Thee!’ If the former is a living root, the latter will be its living fruit.

‘For Thee!’ This makes the difference between forced or formal, and therefore unreasonable service, and the ‘reasonable service’ which is the beginning of the perfect service where they see His face. This makes the difference between slave work and free work. For Thee, my Redeemer; for Thee who hast spoken to my heart; for Thee, who hast done for me—what? Let us each pause, and fill up that blank with the great things the Lord hath done for us. For Thee, who art to me—what? Fill that up too, before Him! For Thee, my Saviour Jesus, my Lord and my God!

And what is to be for Him? My self. We talk sometimes as if, whatever else could be subdued unto Him, self could never be. Did St. Paul forget to mention this important exception to the ‘all things’ in Phil. iii. 21? David said: ‘Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless His Holy Name.’ Did he, too, unaccountably forget to mention that he only meant all that was within him, except self? If not, then self must be among the ‘all things’ which the Lord Jesus Christ is able to subdue unto Himself, and which are to ‘bless His Holy Name.’ It is Self which, once His most treacherous foe, is now, by full and glad surrender, His own soldier—coming over from the rebel camp into the royal army. It is not some one else, some temporarily possessing spirit, which says within us, ‘Lord, Thou knowest that I love Thee,’ but our true and very self, only changed and renewed by the power of the Holy Ghost. And when we do that we would not, we know that ‘it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me.’ Our true self is the new self, taken and won by the love of God, and kept by the power of God.

Yes, ‘kept!’ There is the promise on which we ground our prayer; or, rather, one of the promises. For, search and look for your own strengthening and comfort, and you will find it repeated in every part of the Bible, from ‘I am with thee, and will keep thee,’ in Genesis, to ‘I also will keep thee from the hour of temptation,’ in Revelation.

And kept for Him! Why should it be thought a thing incredible with you, when it is only the fulfilling of His own eternal purpose in creating us? ‘This people have I formed for Myself.’ Not ultimately only, but presently and continually; for He says, ‘Thou shalt abide for Me;’ and, ‘He that remaineth, even he shall be for our God.’ Are you one of His people by faith in Jesus Christ? Then see what you are to Him. You, personally and individually, are part of the Lord’s portion (Deut. xxxii. 9) and of His inheritance (1 Kings viii. 53, and Eph. i. 18). His portion and inheritance would not be complete without you; you are His peculiar treasure (Ex. xix. 5); ‘a special people’ (how warm, and loving, and natural that expression is!) ‘unto Himself’ (Deut. vii. 6). Would you call it ‘keeping,’ if you had a ‘special’ treasure, a darling little child, for instance, and let it run wild into all sorts of dangers all day long, sometimes at your side, and sometimes out in the street, with only the intention of fetching it safe home at night? If ye then, being evil, would know better, and do better, than that, how much more shall our Lord’s keeping be true, and tender, and continual, and effectual, when He declares us to be His peculiar treasure, purchased (See 1 Pet. ii. 9, margin) for Himself at such unknown cost!

I know what some of us are thinking. ‘Yes; I see it all plainly enough in theory, but in practice I find I am not kept. Self goes over to the other camp again and again. If is not all for Jesus, though I have asked and wished for it to be so.’ Dear friends, the ‘all’ must be sealed with ‘only.’ Are you willing to be ‘only’ for Jesus? You have not given ‘all’ to Jesus while you are not quite ready to be ‘only’ for Him. And it is no use to talk about ‘ever’ while we have not settled the ‘only’ and the ‘all.’ You cannot be ‘for Him,’ in the full and blessed sense, while you are partly ‘for’ anything or any one else. For ‘the Lord hath set apart him that is godly for Himself.’ You see, the ‘for Himself’ hinges upon the ‘set apart.’ There is no consecration without separation. If you are mourning over want of realized consecration, will you look humbly and sincerely into this point? ‘A garden enclosed is my sister, my spouse,’ saith the Heavenly Bridegroom.

But yielding, by His grace, to this blessed setting apart for Himself, ‘The Lord shall establish thee an holy people unto Himself, as He hath sworn unto thee.’ Can there be a stronger promise? Just obey and trust His word now, and yield yourselves now unto God, ‘that He may establish thee to-day for a people unto Himself.’ Commit the keeping of your souls to Him in well-doing, as unto a faithful Creator, being persuaded that He is able to keep that which you commit to Him.

Here comes in once more that immeasurably important subject of our influence. For it is not what we say or do, so much as what we are, that influences others. We have heard this, and very likely repeated it again and again, but have we seen it to be inevitably linked with the great question of this chapter? I do not know anything which, thoughtfully considered, makes us realize more vividly the need and the importance of our whole selves being kept for Jesus. Any part not wholly committed, and not wholly kept, must hinder and neutralize the real influence for Him of all the rest. If we ourselves are kept all for Jesus, then our influence will be all kept for Him too. If not, then, however much we may wish and talk and try, we cannot throw our full weight into the right scale. And just in so far as it is not in the one scale, it must be in the other; weighing against the little which we have tried to put in the right one, and making the short weight still shorter.

So large a proportion of it is entirely involuntary, while yet the responsibility of it is so enormous, that our helplessness comes out in exceptionally strong relief, while our past debt in this matter is simply incalculable. Are we feeling this a little? getting just a glimpse, down the misty defiles of memory, of the neutral influence, the wasted influence, the mistaken influence, the actually wrong influence which has marked the ineffaceable although untraceable course? And all the while we owed Him all that influence! It ought to have been all for Him! We have nothing to say. But what has our Lord to say? ‘I forgave thee all that debt!’

Then, after that forgiveness which must come first, there comes a thought of great comfort in our freshly felt helplessness, rising out of the very thing that makes us realize this helplessness. Just because our influence is to such a great extent involuntary and unconscious, we may rest assured that if we ourselves are truly kept for Jesus, this will be, as a quite natural result, kept for Him also. It cannot be otherwise, for as is the fountain, so will be the flow; as the spring, so the action; as the impulse, so the communicated motion. Thus there may be, and in simple trust there will be, a quiet rest about it, a relief from all sense of strain and effort, a fulfilling of the words, ‘For he that is entered into his rest, he also hath ceased from his own works, as God did from His.’ It will not be a matter of trying to have good influence, but just of having it, as naturally and constantly as the magnetized bar.

Another encouraging thought should follow. Of ourselves we may have but little weight, no particular talents or position or anything else to put into the scale; but let us remember that again and again God has shown that the influence of a very average life, when once really consecrated to Him, may outweigh that of almost any number of merely professing Christians. Such lives are like Gideon’s three hundred, carrying not even the ordinary weapons of war, but only trumpets and lamps and empty pitchers, by whom the Lord wrought great deliverance, while He did not use the others at all. For He hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty.

Should not all this be additional motive for desiring that our whole selves should be taken and kept?

I know that whatsoever God doeth, it shall be for ever. Therefore we may rejoicingly say ‘ever’ as well as ‘only’ and ‘all for Thee!’ For the Lord is our Keeper, and He is the Almighty and the Everlasting God, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning. He will never change His mind about keeping us, and no man is able to pluck us out of His hand. Neither will Christ let us pluck ourselves out of His hand, for He says, ‘Thou shalt abide for Me many days.’ And He that keepeth us will not slumber. Once having undertaken His vineyard, He will keep it night and day, till all the days and nights are over, and we know the full meaning of the salvation ready to be revealed in the last time, unto which we are kept by His power.

And then, for ever for Him! passing from the gracious keeping by faith for this little while, to the glorious keeping in His presence for all eternity! For ever fulfilling the object for which He formed us and chose us, we showing forth His praise, and He showing the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness towards us in the ages to come! He for us, and we for Him for ever! Oh, how little we can grasp this! Yet this is the fruition of being ‘kept for Jesus!’

Chapter XIII.
Christ for Us.

‘So will I also be for Thee.’—Hos. iii. 3.

The typical promise, ‘Thou shalt abide for Me many days,’ is indeed a marvel of love. For it is given to the most undeserving, described under the strongest possible figure of utter worthlessness and treacherousness,—the woman beloved, yet an adulteress.

The depth of the abyss shows the length of the line that has fathomed it, yet only the length of the line reveals the real depth of the abyss. The sin shows the love, and the love reveals the sin. The Bible has few words more touching, though seldom quoted, than those just preceding this wonderful promise: ‘The love of the Lord toward the children of Israel, who look to other gods, and love flagons of wine.’ Put that into the personal application which no doubt underlies it, and say, ‘The love of the Lord toward me, who have looked away from Him, with wandering, faithless eyes, to other helps and hopes, and have loved earthly joys and sought earthly gratifications,—the love of the Lord toward even me!’ And then hear Him saying in the next verse, ‘So I bought her to Me;’ stooping to do that in His unspeakable condescension of love, not with the typical silver and barley, but with the precious blood of Christ. Then, having thus loved us, and rescued us, and bought us with a price indeed, He says, still under the same figure, ‘Thou shalt abide for Me many days.’

This is both a command and a pledge. But the very pledge implies our past unfaithfulness, and the proved need of even our own part being undertaken by the ever patient Lord. He Himself has to guarantee our faithfulness, because there is no other hope of our continuing faithful. Well may such love win our full and glad surrender, and such a promise win our happy and confident trust!

But He says more. He says, ‘So will I also be for thee!’ And this seems an even greater marvel of love, as we observe how He meets every detail of our consecration with this wonderful word.^[6]

1. His Life ‘for thee!’ ‘The Good Shepherd giveth His life for the sheep.’ Oh, wonderful gift! not promised, but given; not to friends, but to enemies. Given without condition, without reserve, without return. Himself unknown and unloved, His gift unsought and unasked, He gave His life for thee; a more than royal bounty—the greatest gift that Deity could devise. Oh, grandeur of love! ‘I lay down My life for the sheep!’ And we for whom He gave it have held back, and hesitated to give our lives, not even for Him (He has not asked us to do that), but to Him! But that is past, and He has tenderly pardoned the unloving, ungrateful reserve, and has graciously accepted the poor little fleeting breath and speck of dust which was all we had to offer. And now His precious death and His glorious life are all ‘for thee.’

2. His Eternity ‘for thee.’ All we can ask Him to take are days and moments—the little span given us as it is given, and of this only the present in deed and the future in will. As for the past, in so far as we did not give it to Him, it is too late; we can never give it now! But His past was given to us, though ours was not given to Him. Oh, what a tremendous debt does this show us!

Away back in the dim depths of past eternity, ‘or ever the earth and the world were made,’ His divine existence in the bosom of His Father was all ‘for thee,’ purposing and planning ‘for thee,’ receiving and holding the promise of eternal life ‘for thee.’

Then the thirty-three years among sinners on this sinful earth: do we think enough of the slowly-wearing days and nights, the heavy-footed hours, the never-hastening minutes, that went to make up those thirty-three years of trial and humiliation? We all know how slowly time passes when suffering and sorrow are near, and there is no reason to suppose that our Master was exempted from this part of our infirmities.

Then His present is ‘for thee.’ Even now He ‘liveth to make intercession;’ even now He ‘thinketh upon me;’ even now He ‘knoweth,’ He ‘careth,’ He ‘loveth.’

Then, only to think that His whole eternity will be ‘for thee!’ Millions of ages of unfoldings of all His love, and of ever new declarings of His Father’s name to His brethren. Think of it! and can we ever hesitate to give all our poor little hours to His service?

3. His Hands ‘for thee.’ Literal hands; literally pierced, when the whole weight of His quivering frame hung from their torn muscles and bared nerves; literally uplifted in parting blessing. Consecrated, priestly hands; ‘filled’ hands (Ex. xxviii. 41, xxix. 9, etc., margin)—filled once with His great offering, and now with gifts and blessings ‘for thee.’ Tender hands, touching and healing, lifting and leading with gentlest care. Strong hands, upholding and defending. Open hands, filling with good and satisfying desire (Ps. civ. 28, and cxlv. 16). Faithful hands, restraining and sustaining. ‘His left hand is under my head, and His right hand doth embrace me.’

4. His Feet ‘for thee.’ They were weary very often, they were wounded and bleeding once. They made clear footprints as He went about doing good, and as He went up to Jerusalem to suffer; and these ‘blessed steps of His most holy life,’ both as substitution and example, were ‘for thee.’ Our place of waiting and learning, of resting and loving, is at His feet. And still those ‘blessed feet’ are and shall be ‘for thee,’ until He comes again to receive us unto Himself, until and when the word is fulfilled, ‘They shall walk with Me in white.’

5. His Voice ‘for thee.’ The ‘Voice of my beloved that knocketh, saying, Open to me, my sister, my love;’ the Voice that His sheep ‘hear’ and ‘know,’ and that calls out the fervent response, ‘Master, say on!’ This is not all. It was the literal voice of the Lord Jesus which uttered that one echoless cry of desolation on the Cross ‘for thee,’ and it will be His own literal voice which will say, ‘Come, ye blessed!’ to thee. And that same tender and ‘glorious Voice’ has literally sung and will sing ‘for thee.’ I think He consecrated song for us, and made it a sweet and sacred thing for ever, when He Himself ‘sang an hymn,’ the very last thing before He went forth to consecrate suffering for us. That was not His last song. ‘The Lord thy God ... will joy over thee with singing.’ And the time is coming when He will not only sing ‘for thee’ or ‘over thee,’ but with thee. He says He will! ‘In the midst of the church will I sing praise unto Thee.’ Now what a magnificent glimpse of joy this is! ‘Jesus Himself leading the praises of His brethren,’^[7] and we ourselves singing not merely in such a chorus, but with such a leader! If ‘singing for Jesus’ is such delight here, what will this ‘singing with Jesus’ be? Surely song may well be a holy thing to us henceforth.

6. His Lips ‘for thee.’ Perhaps there is no part of our consecration which it is so difficult practically to realize, and in which it is, therefore, so needful to recollect?—‘I also for thee.’ It is often helpful to read straight through one or more of the Gospels with a special thought on our mind, and see how much bears upon it. When we read one through with this thought—‘His lips for me!’—wondering, verse by verse, at the grace which was poured into them, and the gracious words which fell from them, wondering more and more at the cumulative force and infinite wealth of tenderness and power and wisdom and love flowing from them, we cannot but desire that our lips and all the fruit of them should be wholly for Him. ‘For thee’ they were opened in blessing; ‘for thee’ they were closed when He was led as a lamb to the slaughter. And whether teaching, warning, counsel, comfort, or encouragement, commandments in whose keeping there is a great reward, or promises which exceed all we ask or think—all the precious fruit of His lips is ‘for thee,’ really and truly meant ‘for thee.’

7. His Wealth ‘for thee.’ ‘Though He was rich, yet for our sakes He became poor, that ye through His poverty might be made rich.’ Yes, ‘through His poverty’ the unsearchable riches of Christ are ‘for thee.’ Seven-fold riches are mentioned; and these are no unminted treasure or sealed reserve, but all ready coined for our use, and stamped with His own image and superscription, and poured freely into the hand of faith. The mere list is wonderful. ‘Riches of goodness,’ ‘riches of forbearance and long-suffering,’ ‘riches both of wisdom and knowledge,’ ‘riches of mercy,’ ‘exceeding riches of grace,’ and ‘riches of glory.’ And His own Word says, ‘All are yours!’ Glance on in faith, and think of eternity flowing on and on beyond the mightiest sweep of imagination, and realize that all ‘His riches in glory’ and ‘the riches of His glory’ are and shall be ‘for thee!’ In view of this, shall we care to reserve anything that rust doth corrupt for ourselves?

8. His ‘treasures of wisdom and knowledge’ ‘for thee.’ First, used for our behalf and benefit. Why did He expend such immeasurable might of mind upon a world which is to be burnt up, but that He would fit it perfectly to be, not the home, but the school of His children? The infinity of His skill is such that the most powerful intellects find a lifetime too short to penetrate a little way into a few secrets of some one small department of His working. If we turn to Providence, it is quite enough to take only one’s own life, and look at it microscopically and telescopically, and marvel at the treasures of wisdom lavished upon its details, ordering and shaping and fitting the tiny confused bits into the true mosaic which He means it to be. Many a little thing in our lives reveals the same Mind which, according to a well-known and very beautiful illustration, adjusted a perfect proportion in the delicate hinges of the snowdrop and the droop of its bell, with the mass of the globe and the force of gravitation. How kind we think it if a very talented friend spends a little of his thought and power of mind in teaching us or planning for us! Have we been grateful for the infinite thought and wisdom which our Lord has expended upon us and our creation, preservation, and redemption?

Secondly, to be shared with us. He says, ‘All that I have is thine.’ He holds nothing back, reserves nothing from His dear children, and what we cannot receive now He is keeping for us. He gives us ‘hidden riches of secret places’ now, but by and by He will give us more, and the glorified intellect will be filled continually out of His treasures of wisdom and knowledge. But the sanctified intellect will be, must be, used for Him, and only for Him, now!

9. His Will ‘for thee.’ Think first of the infinite might of that will; the first great law and the first great force of the universe, from which alone every other law and every other force has sprung, and to which all are subordinate. ‘He worketh all things after the counsel of His own will.’ ‘He doeth according to His will in the army of heaven, and among the inhabitants of the earth.’ Then think of the infinite mysteries of that will. For ages and generations the hosts of heaven have wonderingly watched its vouchsafed unveilings and its sublime developments, and still they are waiting, watching, and wondering.

Creation and Providence are but the whisper of its power, but Redemption is its music, and praise is the echo which shall yet fill His temple. The whisper and the music, yes, and ‘the thunder of His power,’ are all ‘for thee.’ For what is ‘the good pleasure of His will’? (Eph. i. 5.) Oh, what a grand list of blessings purposed, provided, purchased, and possessed, all flowing to us out of it! And nothing but blessings, nothing but privileges, which we never should have imagined, and which, even when revealed, we are ‘slow of heart to believe;’ nothing but what should even now fill us ‘with joy unspeakable and full of glory!’

Think of this will as always and altogether on our side—always working for us, and in us, and with us, if we will only let it; think of it as always and only synonymous with infinitely wise and almighty love; think of it as undertaking all for us, from the great work of our eternal salvation down to the momentary details of guidance and supply, and do we not feel utter shame and self-abhorrence at ever having hesitated for an instant to give up our tiny, feeble, blind will, to be—not crushed, not even bent, but blent with His glorious and perfect Will?

10. His Heart ‘for thee.’ ‘Behold ... He is mighty ... in heart,’ said Job (Job xxxvi. 5, margin). And this mighty and tender heart is ‘for thee!’ If He had only stretched forth His hand to save us from bare destruction, and said, ‘My hand for thee!’ how could we have praised Him enough? But what shall we say of the unspeakably marvellous condescension which says, ‘Thou hast ravished (margin, taken away) my heart, my sister, my spouse!’ The very fountain of His divine life, and light, and love, the very centre of His being, is given to His beloved ones, who are not only ‘set as a seal upon His heart,’ but taken into His heart, so that our life is hid there, and we dwell there in the very centre of all safety, and power, and love, and glory. What will be the revelation of ‘that day,’ when the Lord Jesus promises, ‘Ye shall know that I am in My Father, and ye in Me’? For He implies that we do not yet know it, and that our present knowledge of this dwelling in Him is not knowledge at all compared with what He is going to show us about it.

Now shall we, can we, reserve any corner of our hearts from Him?

11. His Love ‘for thee.’ Not a passive, possible love, but outflowing, yes, outpouring of the real, glowing, personal love of His mighty and tender heart. Love not as an attribute, a quality, a latent force, but an acting, moving, reaching, touching, and grasping power. Love, not a cold, beautiful, far-off star, but a sunshine that comes and enfolds us, making us warm and glad, and strong and bright and fruitful.

His love! What manner of love is it? What should be quoted to prove or describe it? First the whole Bible with its mysteries and marvels of redemption, then the whole book of Providence and the whole volume of creation. Then add to these the unknown records of eternity past and the unknown glories of eternity to come, and then let the immeasurable quotation be sung by ‘angels and archangels, and all the company of heaven,’ with all the harps of God, and still that love will be untold, still it will be ‘the love of Christ that passeth knowledge.’

But it is ‘for thee!’

12. Himself ‘for thee.’ ‘Christ also hath loved us, and given Himself for us.’ ‘The Son of God ... loved me, and gave Himself for me.’ Yes, Himself! What is the Bride’s true and central treasure? What calls forth the deepest, brightest, sweetest thrill of love and praise? Not the Bridegroom’s priceless gifts, not the robe of His resplendent righteousness, not the dowry of unsearchable riches, not the magnificence of the palace home to which He is bringing her, not the glory which she shall share with Him, but Himself! Jesus Christ, ‘who His own self bare our sins in His own body on the tree;’ ‘this same Jesus,’ ‘whom having not seen, ye love;’ the Son of God, and the Man of Sorrows; my Saviour, my Friend, my Master, my King, my Priest, my Lord and my God—He says, ‘I also for thee!’ What an ‘I’! What power and sweetness we feel in it, so different from any human ‘I,’ for all His Godhead and all His manhood are concentrated in it, and all ‘for thee!’

And not only ‘all,’ but ‘ever’ for thee. His unchangeableness is the seal upon every attribute; He will be ‘this same Jesus’ for ever. How can mortal mind estimate this enormous promise? How can mortal heart conceive what is enfolded in these words, ‘I also for thee’?

One glimpse of its fulness and glory, and we feel that henceforth it must be, shall be, and by His grace will be our true-hearted, whole-hearted cry—

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