“Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us, and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.” 1 John 4:10
In one of Charles Wesley’s great hymns concerning the love of God, he begins like this: “O Love divine, what hast thou done! Th’incarnate God hath died for me! The Father’s co-eternal Son bore all my sins upon the tree! The Son of God for me hath died: My Lord, my Love, is crucified.” What is Wesley seeking to communicate to us as he worships the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit? It is that there is a love in this universe that sinful man cannot produce, or know, unless it is revealed to him in truth, and by God the Holy Spirit. Paul calls it a “fruit of the Spirit,” certainly to make sure that every believer knows that is not only of God alone, but that He IS love. Love is not a thing, but a Person. And it is in the attitude and act of loving, that He reveals the nature and power of such love.
It was Amy Carmichael, missionary to India many years ago who wrote the following, as a commentary on the story of the prodigal son. The hymn she wrote however, centers upon the love of the father for the prodigal, and this she expresses most wonderfully in the last stanza. “My Father, very wonderful Thy loving, The Father ran – O give and give again. The love that runs, compassion ever moving, To welcome home the troubled sons of men.” Like Wesley, Carmichael seeks to express a glimpse into this eternal love of God, revealed in its marvelous work in the saving of men from sin and destruction. These “troubled sons of men” of whom Carmicael speaks, are the whole of mankind, groping about in darkness, without hope until the “bright beams” of the knowledge of Christ, and the love of God, shine into their hearts to bring them to faith and life. So, if God is love, and the lost sinner has no capacity to know or produce such love, what are we to do? How is man to know such love, and then, “give and give” again?
In Watchman Nee’s brief, but great commentary, on the letter to the Ephesians, he writes that Paul’s message to the believers is first to “SIT,” not to run, stand, or fight. Why does he begin like this? It is for the same reason for which the Lord’s message to Israel, specifically to Jerusalem, after drinking “the cup of the Lord’s fury, …the dregs of the cup of trembling,” that He commands her to “Awake, Awake, put on strength, O Zion, put on thy beautiful garments.” (Is. 52:1) He then tells her, “Shake thyself from the dust; arise, and SIT down, O Jerusalem: loose thyself from tthe bands of thy neck, O captive daughter of Zion.” (v.2) Why such language, especially with regard to saying that one is to “Sit.” Sitting is that position that one takes before God in order to listen. The normal preoccupations of life which are so common and distracting, are put to the side, in order to hear what God has to say. For the Ephesian believers, they had need, at the beginning of their walk of faith, to sit down and look upon Christ, and understand what His salvation truly is, and how it is to be known and lived. When God speaks, and reveals His love to the heart, there comes the conviction that this love is not of this world, but of God, who IS love. The revelation of this love is specific to the individual heart, melting all resistance to it, and unveiling the beauty of Christ in His eternal love for the sinner.
With regard to Israel and Jerusalem, there was the need to sit and hear the Lord’s words concerning the new beginning, the point of a new departure and experience of responding in faith to this love God. The only viable response to such love is first in its reception.
Dear Father, Love through us today. In Jesus’ name, Amen.