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"What Manner of Love" - 1 John 3:1
The chief expression of faith is irresistible grace! When trusting in the fullness of His love through the written word, I do reckon, believe, and exalt the grace of God in its irresistible virtues to have saved me, to presently save me, and finish my salvation to the end. "Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God: therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew Him not." (1 John 3:1) Behold the scripture commands! Look at, consider, understand, perceive, digest, comprehend, and know exactly, specifically, practically, relevantly what manner of love God has toward you. Behold in this study, Lord willing, what manner of love.
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RELATED SERMONS
“Why Weepest Thou?” – Sean Morris “Looking Unto Jesus” – Sean Morris “Pursued, Overtaken, & Blessed” – Sean Morris “Good Hope Through Grace” – Sean Morris |
- “Have mercy upon me, O LORD, for I am in trouble: mine eye is consumed with grief, yea, my soul and my belly. For my life is spent with grief, and my years with sighing: my strength faileth because of mine iniquity, and my bones are consumed… Blessed be the LORD: for He hath shewed me His marvellous kindness in a strong city. For I said in my haste, I am cut off from before Thine eyes: nevertheless Thou heardest the voice of my supplications when I cried unto Thee. O love the LORD, all ye His saints: for the LORD preserveth the faithful, and plentifully rewardeth the proud doer. Be of good courage, and He shall strengthen your heart, all ye that hope in the LORD.”
– Ps. 31:9-10, 21-24
- There are many times when a saint will feel the groaning of Psalm 31:9-10: “Have mercy upon me, O LORD, for I am in trouble: mine eye is consumed with grief, yea, my soul and my belly. For my life is spent with grief, and my years with sighing: my strength faileth because of mine iniquity, and my bones are consumed.” There will be many times where we will think or say things hastily that are fueled by a sore chastening of God justly exercised upon us because of our sin. At such times our hasty, unspiritual thoughts will be hopeless or depressive, like the psalmist wrote, “For I said in my haste, I am cut off from before Thine eyes.” However, by the blessed faithfulness of God, by His great mercies, He will magnify His love to where we confess and learn what the psalmist learned: Blessed be the LORD: for He hath shewed me His marvellous kindness in a strong city. Nevertheless Thou heardest the voice of my supplications when I cried unto Thee. O love the LORD, all ye His saints: for the LORD preserveth the faithful, and plentifully rewardeth the proud doer. Be of good courage, and He shall strengthen your heart, all ye that hope in the LORD. The road is rough, and faith is a fight, but God will draw us to Himself by a willing choice or bit and bridle, the easy way or the hard way.
The simple truths in the glad gospel of God do provide a certain entrance behind the holy veil.
They should convince saints to flee to His embrace having confidence they will not see a dispelling angry face.
Cease from striving in an endless chase to find this heavenly and holy embrace!
God’s own vows bear upon His mind as He looks after your sojourning throughout time.
If you stop your ears or close your eyes, or do all you can to embrace more lies,
Throughout all your groaning, in every weary sigh, the whispers of His love are still so nigh.
The chastening of God like a loving breeze does draw your soul back to its knees.
The experience of the psalmist in Psalm 31 is a biblical and perfect reflection of what I often suffer on account of my sin. Describing such a time, I wrote the following poem to represent this trial and seeming hopelessness, then my deliverance and praise of His name. The following content of the whole document is an exposition of what was revealed to me in that delivering love of God.
Irresistible Grace ** Irresistible Love
My musings of God in the knowledge of the Holy did persuade me of the experiential possibility of resistible grace.
This caused me to think that there is no assurance of delivering grace if ever I did, at present, sinfully provoke God to the face,
Even while feeling that I didn’t want to sin, striving and yet unable to escape the devil’s chase.
Drawn to salvation I was, drawn through perseverance I must be, but if presently under His angry blame, by sin overcome, handicapped, and lame: how will I ever escape the judgment of sinners and inevitably, eternally be the same?
My musings became a maze and I was lost for many days, terrifically terrorized by the annals of history, His wrath my heart did amaze – will I be of the few that are scarce to be saved in the “unsearchable” holiness of God’s ways?
If His present will could think to kill, God pursuing man though in dusty frame they lay still - if I think this is His will, that this is my case at present and now, to whence can I flee to make my heart still?
Gasping for air, dizzy in strength, fainthearted in fearfulness, He grabbed my hand,
He lifted me up upon the sea to stand, then guided me back from sea to land.
He simplified the maze, showed me a refuge in His ways, He comforted my heart that was fretting in craze.
Resistible grace, there is no greater calamity, sinners reliant upon themselves is a present-tense insanity, but in the refuge of His ark, the Sabbath of His loving heart, He directs man to see that His love is the same as at the salvific start.
By the promises of God He told me the way, that resistible grace is for those who fall away, but unto me He did solemnly and soundly say that irresistible grace is the faithful, salvific, and only way. It is the message of His divine love covenanted from above shining a perpetual emblem of first and finishing, irresistible love.
The love of God is the only escape, our only salvation, and there is no other way but to trust in the faithfulness of God that is active and living through unmerited favor (the favor God gives irrelevant of works, the favor God gives to the most unworthy and unlovely, the most vile and wicked, the favor that is not contingent, dependent, or conditional to any merit that you could have) – and there is a sure way to be beset (or eventually damned), when one trusts in his own faithfulness and loses sight of God’s. The love of God must first be received, then the obedience to God that you seek can be accomplished – but only in this order and never reversed. Oh, but how subtly our flesh or the devil reverses the order! We must first be engrafted into the Vine, and when in the Vine, we must have the life of the Vine nourish, quicken, and animate the engrafted branch – then the branch can/will bear fruit.
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“I am the Vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in Me, and I in Him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without Me ye can do nothing.” (John 15:5)
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We have been connected to a “holy root” (Rom. 11:16), from which comes all the holiness that is in the Person of Christ. We have been made to partake “of the root and fatness of The Olive Tree” which is Christ Jesus, the root and fatness of The Vine of Christ, but how often do we try to obey the commandments of God without the nourishment of The Root? If you try to obey God and feel ill-nourished, powerless, impotent, or dry for the task, it is because you are trying to bear fruit without being filled with the virtue-life of The Vine, the nourishing power of the root which is the fatness for flowering fruitfulness. Somehow the devil has deceived you to “boast” in some other wellspring, trust some other sustenance than that of Christ “the Root,” “But if thou boast, thou bearest not the Root, but the Root thee” (Rom. 11:18). You cannot bear fruit except by the Vine, except being borne and nourished by the root; thus, cease striving to obey the commandments of God without first looking to the love of God wherein is virtue to obey. Branch of the Vineyard, dost thou see that the Father God Himself does look upon you for fruit? First look at the free lovingkindness, nourishment, life, and godliness of the Person of Christ (the love of God), then by that love and life-giving feed from the Vine, bring forth fruit unto the Fatherly Husbandman. First, receive His love, then by that love, obey. Relate to the Vine and be ever quickened to gladsome obedience unto a satisfied Fatherly Judge. Jesus says unto you, Christian, make “my joy” “remain in you” (John 15:11). It is the joy of the Son, Jesus Christ, to bring forth fruit to the Father; therefore let Christ have His own way within you, let Him bring forth fruit to the Father in and through you. Let Christ have His joy, be a channel only, that the Father may rejoice in Jesus Christ “formed in you” (Gal. 4:19)! Abounding fruitfulness (2 Peter 1) God does command, abounding fatness Christ does supply, to satisfy the Father throughout every season – “His leaf also shall not wither, and whatsoever He doeth shall prosper” (Ps. 1:3). Many men try to please the Father, but rather cease ye from man (and yourself), walk as Christ, and the Father will be well-pleased.
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"He spake also this parable; A certain man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard; and he came and sought fruit thereon, and found none. Then said he unto the dresser of his vineyard, Behold, these three years I come seeking fruit on this fig tree, and find none: cut it down; why cumbereth it the ground? And he answering said unto him, Lord, let it alone this year also, till I shall dig about it, and dung it…" (Luke 13:6-8)
"For the vineyard of the LORD of hosts is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah His pleasant plant: and He looked for judgment, but behold oppression; for righteousness, but behold a cry." (Isaiah 5:7) |
The Father is only pleased with a certain amount of fruit yielded by the branch. It is easy for us to be motivated by the waiting and expectant eyes of the Father that will judge our fruit without compromise. It is easy to remember that our Father is He “Who without respect of persons judgeth according to every man’s work” (1 Peter 1:17), and therefore it is easy to be gripped with a consciousness of an expectant, judging, righteous Husbandman. Nevertheless, all our strivings to bring forth the right measure of fruit to the Father will be to no avail if we don’t first look to The Vine. Jesus said, “without Me ye can do nothing.” The Father is only pleased with a certain amount of fruit, but the Son (The Vine) is pleased to accept us how we are in unmerited favor, fill us with His own life and power, empowering us to meet the required yield of fruit the Father demands. The Son (The Vine) is pleased to accept us because we have been engrafted into Him already. He is pleased to accept us freely and in unmerited favor. He knows our powerless estate to bring forth fruit. He knows we are dead and cursed. Jesus said, “Without Me ye can do nothing”, and herein is His matchless love – saying to us, without Me, DO NOTHING.
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“Just as I am, though tossed about with many a conflict, many a doubt,
Fightings and fears within, without, O Lamb of God, I come, I come. Just as I am, poor, wretched, blind: Sight, riches, healing of the mind, Yea, all I need, in Thee to find, O Lamb of God, I come, I come.” (“Just As I Am, Without One Plea”, Charlotte Elliott) |
We must relate to God in a dual manner, being filled with the Son of God’s unmerited favor and fruitfulness, then “in Him” looking unto the Father, expecting loving satisfaction in His eyes. You have become the abode of the Father and the Son, the place of joy wherein they have come to celebrate their love one toward another. You are the vessel and channel wherein the Son desires to cause the Father’s heart to rejoice. You are the storehouse wherein the Son has chosen to bring forth and store up much fruit to the Father’s delight. You are the cup of pleasure to the Father, of which He is blessed to drink from, for now thou dost overflow with Living Waters. The full expression of faith and revelation through this work of God in man results in a hiddenness of self within the transcendence of the Father’s glorious relationship to the Son of God and the Holy Ghost. It is a losing of yourself, becoming lost in the Trinity, till Their love One for Another does simultaneously make you aware of your absence and unworthiness yet present-tense participation and actual experience of this wondrous relationship - being dead, nevertheless living, yet not you but Christ (Gal. 2:20).
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"Herein is my Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit; so shall ye be my disciples. As the Father hath loved Me, so have I loved you: continue ye in my love. If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love; even as I have kept my Father’s commandments, and abide in His love. These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full." (John 15:8-11)
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First, you must receive the love of God, and then by that love which you have received - obey. You must become “rooted and grounded in love” to “know the love of Christ,” that “Christ may dwell in your hearts” being “filled with all the fullness of God” (Eph. 3:16-21). To “know the love of Christ,” as it is stated in Eph. 3, is not some understanding that is carnally in your mind. This spiritual understanding is like the first salvific “illumination” (Heb. 10:32), but it is a present-tense “enlightening” (Eph. 1:18) which comes by a personal revelation given by God to you. Therefore, this revelation does result in the experiential reality of Christ dwelling in your heart (the faculty and seat of your being, emotions, and will). In a spiritual sense, you must be rooted and grounded in love! The roots of the Tree do extend deep into the soil to give the tree strength to be immovable against the winds and weights that do shake it and to draw from the soil into the tree the nourishment of water necessary for growth. If the roots are deeply grounded and far-reaching to the watery regions of the underground soil, then the tree will be healthy and unshakable. The source of our health and unshakableness in Christ is by depth and nourishment in the love of God. Know the love of God; then you will know the fullness of the possessing, empowering, living Christ – being “filled with the fullness of God.” Cease from striving to be filled with the Spirit, and feast upon the full written and living revelation of the love of God in Christ; then, as you behold the love of God, you will be filled with the Spirit. It is easy to be “carried about with every wind of doctrine” (Eph. 4:14) when you are weak and shallow-rooted like “a reed shaken with the wind” (Matt. 11:7). “But we are not of them who draw back unto perdition; but of them that believe to the saving of the soul” (Heb. 10:39).
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“Exceeding greatness of His power to us-ward who believe, according to the working of His mighty power, which He wrought in Christ…” (Eph. 1:19-20)
“That your joy might be full.” (John 15:11) |
The Lord wants you to have a revelation of His love; the love of God that convinces you of the surpassing great power of God working in you that dwarfs all enemies of sin or wrestlings of hell, resulting in an inevitable victory and rejoicing. The revelation of God shows you the greatness of God’s power, yea, but that power must be appropriated to your daily life (words, thoughts, and deeds) to give you the means by which all your desires could be fulfilled, to be as holy as you thirst for “that your joy might be full” (John 15:11). Think of the words of Christ: “for Thine is the Kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen.” (Matt. 6:13) All saints can say this when worshipping God, because of the measure of grace and glory they have already tasted and experienced at their salvation. Praising the Father, they can say, “Thine is the Kingdom, and the power, and the glory!” But, dearly beloved, have you recognized that God has chosen you as His vessel by which He wants to shew forth His Kingdom, power, and glory throughout all the earth? God has not called you to glorify Him in your name but, Jesus said, “Whatsoever ye shall ask in My Name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If ye shall ask any thing in My Name, I will do it” (John 14:13-14). God will and desires to “lead you not into temptation” but deliver you from evil in the fullness of His Kingdom power and glory, to the end that you might have the appropriation of the fullness of His power wherein you might be conformed to the fullness of His Person – “till all shall see Christ only, always, living in me” (“Have Thine Own Way”, Adelaide A. Pollard). That is God’s own way!
Many say “Thine is the Kingdom,” but God would have you learn to live worthy of the calling He has given you in this great Kingdom! Give God the glory that He has the Kingdom, power, and glory to fulfill the chief purpose of delivering YOU from sinful temptations (Matt. 6:13). We know that God has surpassing great power, but what we don’t understand is that this power is “to us-ward” (Eph. 1:19). Think of all the Kingdom and power of God, and then attribute it to this single purpose: to deliver you from temptation. "And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil: For Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen" (Matthew 6:13). Pray for yourself as the apostles prayed for the Churches – “Wherefore also we pray always for you, that our God would count you worthy of this calling, and fulfill all the good pleasure of His goodness, and the work of faith with power: That the name of our Lord Jesus Christ may be glorified in you and ye in Him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ” (2 Thess. 1:11-12).
Many say “Thine is the Kingdom,” but God would have you learn to live worthy of the calling He has given you in this great Kingdom! Give God the glory that He has the Kingdom, power, and glory to fulfill the chief purpose of delivering YOU from sinful temptations (Matt. 6:13). We know that God has surpassing great power, but what we don’t understand is that this power is “to us-ward” (Eph. 1:19). Think of all the Kingdom and power of God, and then attribute it to this single purpose: to deliver you from temptation. "And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil: For Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen" (Matthew 6:13). Pray for yourself as the apostles prayed for the Churches – “Wherefore also we pray always for you, that our God would count you worthy of this calling, and fulfill all the good pleasure of His goodness, and the work of faith with power: That the name of our Lord Jesus Christ may be glorified in you and ye in Him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ” (2 Thess. 1:11-12).
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“And Elisha prayed, and said, LORD, I pray Thee, open his eyes, that he may see. And the LORD opened the eyes of the young man; and he saw: and, behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha.” (2 Kings 6:17)
"Are they not all ministering spirits, sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation?" (Hebrews 1:14) |
The Kingdom of God is glorious – full of power and virtue! God hath set the eyes of the hosts of heaven – even the “ministers” that are a flame of fire – God hath set their eyes upon you. You are the apple of His eye (He and all His hosts), the vineyard of His pleasure, the object of His complete investment unto all the powers of His immeasurable Kingdom in heaven. Can you consider all the “Kingdom, power, and glory” that is God’s and then imagine the faultless, inerrant, perfection with which God would perform His own fervent purpose to “lead you into no temptation but deliver you from evil”? This is why you don’t need to pray this prayer in “meaningless repetitions”, but simply ask once (Matt. 6:8). God wants you to understand that He is mindful of your needs, that He is a Father Who “knoweth what things ye have need of, before ye ask Him” (Matt. 6:8), and is fully intending, commanding, and overshadowing you to accomplish your needs before you even spoke. God is He “Who maketh His angels spirits, and His ministers a flame of fire” (Heb. 1:7) in the glory of His own Kingdom, that they might be “set forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation” (Heb. 1:14). Can you end the Lord’s Prayer to God with all of your heart, with the fullness of its meaning in your mind: “And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil: For Thine is the Kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen” (Matt. 6:13)?! Pray that God would open your eyes even as He did to the servant of Elisha – “I pray Thee, open his eyes, that he may see” (2 Kings 6:17). “The angel of the LORD encampeth round about them that fear Him, and delivereth them” (Ps. 34:7).
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“Thine is the Kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever.” – Matt. 6:13 |
The glory of an angel is one magnitude, but the glory of the Son is another. If the fierce eyes of flaming angels do set their mind to the task of deliverance, what of the exalted Son Himself Who has purposeful “eyes” “as a flame of fire” (Rev. 1:14)? If you caught a glimpse of His eyes, you would fall “at His feet as dead”, thus you would be ever delivered and free, for what can be compared with the power of the Son Who hath determined to destroy all your sin and every residue of the devil? Pray that God would open your eyes till you fall “at His feet as dead,” till you “yourself” see Christ only always living in you – “For He that is dead is freed from sin” (Rom. 6:7). Give glory to God and fall at His feet. Pray that God would open your eyes to see the Son of God Who died to set you free (John 8:32-33), Who came to the earth to “destroy the works of the devil” (1 John 3:8). He hath made your sin His enemy, your sanctification His warfare, yet can you imagine that HE will lose this fight and war that He has undertaken to accomplish in your soul? God has pledged Himself to you with His own word! If you are yet unbelieving – EVEN STILL – then you are “he that believed not God” and you have “made Him a liar” (1 John 5:10).
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“Death is swallowed up in victory.” – 1 Cor. 15:54
"But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?" (Romans 7:23-24) "For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death." (Romans 8:2) |
Will you believe that the Throne of the Lamb is impotent against all the works of the devil, winds of temptation, or any residue of death that would grievously defile your mind and heart? Will you believe that the “sceptre of righteousness”, which “is the sceptre of” Christ’s Kingdom, can be compared to the sceptre of iniquity (Heb. 1:8)? There is no wrestling, “nor wisdom nor understanding nor counsel against the LORD” (Prov. 21:30). “There are many devices in a man’s heart,” devices against the saints, and even devices of death in the body; “nevertheless the counsel of the LORD, that shall stand” (Prov. 19:21). Will you exclaim to God the glories of His Kingdom and so bid them to come into your heart, upon earth, as it is in heaven – exclaim and say – “Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory” (1 Cor. 15:54-55)? Christ came to defeat death and hath risen to reign in a life that rules in righteousness, “that as sin hath reigned unto death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord” (Rom. 5:21). Do you see a “warring” against your mind (Rom. 7:23), even “fleshly lusts which war against the soul” (1 Peter 2:11)? Are you aware of the “law of sin which is” in your members (Rom. 7:23-24)? Are you able to loudly lament, “O wretched man that I am” (Rom. 7:24)? Now look to His Kingdom and all the heavenly host exclaiming, “Death is swallowed up in victory!” “Seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God” (Col. 3:1). Shout the same Hallelujah that is resounding up there, and bid the Kingdom come into your heart, bid His will be done on earth, as it is in heaven, in your “earthen vessel.” Afterward, you will see that “the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made” you “free from the law of sin and death” (Rom. 8:2), that death, wretchedness, and the warring of sin is defeated. With the fullness of faith and revelation, acknowledging all of these things, is it possible for you to continue in sin (Rom. 6:1)? If God does open “the eyes of your understanding” (Eph. 1:18), you will exclaim the verdict of the Kingdom, the heavenly praise of the “victory,” namely, that God has forbidden a continuance of sin. Therefore, “How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein” (Rom. 6:2)? Possessed, empowered, resurrected, and relating to God in His Kingdom, the Lord Christ has given you a commandment – “Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof” (Rom. 6:12).
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"And hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus…"
(Ephesians 2:6) |
Do you live as though God hath not already said to Jesus Christ, “Sit on my right hand, until I make Thine enemies Thy footstool” (Heb. 1:13)? God hath made your sin Christ’s enemy, hath enthroned Him as the active impending force against all your foes, “that we may boldly say, the Lord is my helper, and I will not fear” (Heb. 13:6): therefore “there shall no evil befall thee,” “neither shall any plague” of sin “come nigh thy dwelling” (Ps. 91:10) – thou art risen “up together” and seated “together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus” (Eph. 2:6), and He, even He, has become “thy habitation” (Ps. 90:9). Glory, glory, glory “in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by Whom the world is crucified” unto you, and you “unto the world” (Gal. 6:14). God is putting all of Christ’s enemies under His feet – this is the channel of the glorious Kingdom power! Now you, right now, put all of your enemies under Christ’s feet, “that the name of our Lord Jesus Christ may be glorified in you and ye in Him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ” (2 Thess. 1:12). Christ drank the cup of God’s wrath, and there is not a drop left for you; now raise up your sins before the fierce face of God. Put them before His face, that He may be satisfied when He consumes them like the fat of lambs that became sin (Ps. 37:20). Put them before His face, that He may burn them away with His anger. Put every one of your sins with all the enemies of the Lord, “and hang them up before the LORD against the sun, that the fierce anger of the LORD” may be satisfied” (Num. 25:4).
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"To whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory…" (Colossians 1:27)
"It came even to pass, as the trumpeters and singers were as one, to make one sound to be heard in praising and thanking the LORD; and when they lifted up their voice with the trumpets and cymbals and instruments of musick, and praised the LORD, saying, For He is good; for His mercy endureth for ever: that then the house was filled with a cloud, even the house of the LORD; So that the priests could not stand to minister by reason of the cloud: for the glory of the LORD had filled the house of God." (2 Chronicles 5:13-14) |
Give glory to God – “the LORD reigneth; let the people tremble: He sitteth between the cherubims; let the earth be moved” (Ps. 99:1)! Give glory to God, give glory to Christ, even “Christ in you the hope of glory” (Col. 1:27). Glory in Christ Who reigneth in heaven, be moved with the earth and resolve with trembling that Christ reigneth in you – henceforth, let it be known unto you, and let it be beheld by all, that “sin shall not have dominion over you” (Rom. 6:14). Heart, mind, soul, strength subdued in glory, under a sceptre sublime. The Temple is filled with Shekinah glory “so that” the “royal priesthood” of the whole body of Christ cannot “stand to minister by reason of the cloud: for the glory of the LORD” has “filled the house of God” (2 Chron. 5:14). Give glory to God, and then obey God by walking in His glory, that these words will not be your end: “This evil people, which refuse to hear words, which walk in the imagination of their heart, and walk after other gods, to serve them, and to worship them, shall even be as this girdle, which is good for nothing. For as the girdle cleaveth to the loins of a man, so have I caused to cleave unto Me the whole house of Israel and the whole house of Judah, saith the LORD; that they might be unto Me for a people, and for a name, and for a praise, and for a glory: but they would not hear” (Jer. 13:10-11). Avoid such a fate, and be thou diligent therein to avoid it, thus say to God and confess the great remedy – “We have thought of Thy lovingkindness, O God, in the midst of Thy Temple” (Ps. 48:9). Be as those priests and holy people in the days of Solomon (2 Chronicles 5:13-4). Praise Him, sing to Him, play instruments to Him, and say to Him that “He is good; for His mercy endureth for ever” – then your house will be filled with the glorious mind of Christ, with all of your emotions captivated in the cloud of His presence.
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“The God of peace, that brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, that Great Shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant…”
(Heb. 13:20) |
The love of God must be appropriated in the wake of the unfathomable accomplishments and immeasurable expressions of His commended manners of love: --> To one, ever-present, irresistible purpose of God that none can stand against – to “make you perfect in every good work to do His will, working in you that which is wellpleasing in His sight through Jesus Christ; to Whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen” (Heb. 13:21). Jesus Christ died to make God “the God of peace” to you. Jesus Christ was “brought again from the dead”, that He might become the “Great Shepherd of the sheep.” Jesus Christ shed His blood to give you everlasting vows and timeless promises for you to trust in, even an incorruptible blood to seal them in before the favor of the Almighty. “Through the blood of the everlasting Covenant”, God does strive to teach you His love, unveil all its mysteries, until you become “perfect in every good work to do His will,” until He is “working in you that which is wellpleasing in His sight through Jesus Christ.” “The God of peace, that brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, that Great Shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant make you perfect in every good work to do His will, working in you that which is wellpleasing in His sight through Jesus Christ; to Whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen” (Heb. 13:20-21).
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"Now our Lord Jesus Christ Himself, and God, even our Father, which hath loved us, and hath given us everlasting consolation and good hope through grace, Comfort your hearts, and stablish you in every good word and work." (2 Thessalonians 2:16-17)
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Who can resist the person of Jesus Christ when He, “Himself”, does take upon Himself this supreme purpose? Who cannot believe when it is God, “our Father,” that hath already “loved us” and “given us” this manner of love “through grace?” What purpose? He is purposeful, and fiercely devoted, to work in us “every good word and work!” This is the “comforting” and “stablishing” of our hearts. Is not our sin the source of all discomfort? Is it not the Father’s natural affection to comfort His children? Your Creator God has made Himself your spiritual Father, hath taken upon Himself the form of a servant, hath so loved you that He follows you everywhere you go, will be with you all throughout time, thinks upon you every waking moment, watching beside you, guarding and protecting you, teaching and serving you – and with all this wondrous and lofty lovingkindness, it is His desire that we are comforted in our hearts! He desires that we would recognize that it is His duty to work in us “every good word and work,” and seeing He is faithful and full of everlasting love and grace, we have no reason to faint in this fearful, impossible calling. The love of God is that, though you are presently beset by sin, He does look upon you to conquer your sin with the fierceness of His hatred of it, the fervency of His love to you, with a replacement of that sin with “every good word and work”, wherein there can be nothing encircling your soul but the comfort of your establishment. Believe His word, trust His grace, and God will spiritually reveal to you the great revelation of His sustaining, persevering love! Till you can say with the Spirit-inspired psalmist: “Thou art my hiding place; Thou shalt preserve me from trouble; Thou shalt compass me about with songs of deliverance. Selah” (Psalm 32:7). “Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God” (1 Cor. 2:12). God wants to comfort you, all ye that are lost through Satan’s beguiling, your emotions in a graveyard of self-pity – look away from yourself - “not a striving to have faith…but a looking off to the Faithful One” (Hudson Taylor). Let God “comfort your hearts” by the wondrous truth that your perseverance is dependent upon His faithfulness and not your own. You may feel defenseless and insecure, but He is your defender and security; look unto Him and be ye enamored by His comfort and grace.
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“But God commendeth His love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”
(Rom. 5:8) |
My meditation concerning this verse is a very specific aspect of the love of God – that He loved us “while we were yet sinners” (Rom. 5:8). This certain aspect of His love is called the commendation of His love: that in this state and with this deed there can be no greater love (Rom. 8:32). “If God be for us, who can be against us? He that spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things” (Rom. 8:31-32)? God says “freely”! What stops me from freely receiving God’s love all the time? It is when I am convinced that God is not for me in some way, or perhaps presently angry with me. I do not have trouble trusting in God’s love when I know that I have put on Christ, but this love that I speak of now put Christ on me. If this love had its free course, then God would put Christ on me every day, remortify me, reactivate all the virtues that overcame me at the first. If we know that He first loved us while we were yet sinners, we can then understand that He will love us while we are sinning saints! If He loved us while we were sinners and put Christ on us, who can stop Him from loving us while we are sinning saints till He puts Christ on us evermore (in appropriation and spiritual renewal)?
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“For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: not of works, lest any man should boast.” (Eph. 2:8-9)
"Being confident of this very thing, that He which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ…" (Philippians 1:6) |
Salvific Love is “not of yourselves” (Eph. 2:8). The love of God by grace did work saving faith into your heart at the beginning; if from the beginning it was “not of yourselves,” how then can His “workmanship” “unto good works” not continue upon us? If God began the work, how then will He not continue it? When God saved you, He saved you by His own power and glory, stripping you of all self-righteousness and dead works, leaving you in a state of heart wherein you wholly magnified His name for His complete performance of regeneration – God made you a man that could not boast! God did astound you with the beginning of His works and did cause your soul to make its boast in God, but with the continuance of that performing work, God will finish you as “His workmanship” in “every good work” “until the day of Jesus Christ!” As you were astounded at the first, be ye astounded now. Look unto your heavenly Father with holy honor in your eyes and speak ye to Him with this in mind! As He began it, HE SAYS, He will be faithful to perform it to the end! Whatsoever He ever calls you to do, think upon every word or work of obedience you can imagine…now resign these things wholly to be God’s business and work and not your own, for “faithful is He that calleth you, Who also will do it” (1 Thess. 5:24). Look upon what HE will do - A course of consecutive, consistent, constant comforts as He divinely works every word and work convenient to the calling.
What particularly is consoling my mind is the expectation that ought to be held fast in a saint who has experienced this love already. If the love originated from the free will of God, then I can be assured that it will continue in the free will of God! There was a love of God that did pursue me, “draw me,” reveal to me, and unblind me to the blessed appearance of “the kindness and love of God” (Tit. 3:4). If God did appear in “kindness and love”, I need to look steadfastly to the end on this “kindness and love!” This love is the product of an electing love, and if I could trust that this election is not temporary, then I could rejoice truly in a persevering love that ever grants faith to experience the Covenanted and vowed love of God.
What particularly is consoling my mind is the expectation that ought to be held fast in a saint who has experienced this love already. If the love originated from the free will of God, then I can be assured that it will continue in the free will of God! There was a love of God that did pursue me, “draw me,” reveal to me, and unblind me to the blessed appearance of “the kindness and love of God” (Tit. 3:4). If God did appear in “kindness and love”, I need to look steadfastly to the end on this “kindness and love!” This love is the product of an electing love, and if I could trust that this election is not temporary, then I could rejoice truly in a persevering love that ever grants faith to experience the Covenanted and vowed love of God.
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“So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy.” (Rom. 9:16) |
Think of this expectation that can come from the persuasion that you are eternally elect of God. You can know, irrelevant of your works, no matter what you will or how you run, that God will show mercy to you which grants a perpetual manifestation of saving faith in your heart until you perpetually surrender to the saving love of God all your days. A sweet consolation this would be! But, except by prophetic revelation, we cannot know if we are the eternally elect who will never be blotted out of the book of life (Rev. 3). Thus, what manner of love is the resting of a saint on earth, still sojourning through time and trial? What can we trust in, what manner of love is to console us? Can we then turn to our willing and running as a means to obtain mercy? Nay, oh man, this is sure disaster! Resistible grace, there is no greater calamity, sinners reliant upon themselves is a present-tense insanity! Then what can we rest in – what is the Covenanted message of love toward us now?
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"My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous: And He is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world." (1 John 2:1-2)
2 Thess. 3:3, 5; Jer. 31:18; Ps. 141:4, 119:32, 36 |
God vows a love that encapsulates the same comforts, experience, promise, and perseverance that was appropriated by Romans 9:16. Rest saints, in the love of God that is covenanted to you by voice and promise – the love of God that delivers me from my sin and performs the good mind, will, and works of Christ within me. Being in Christ now, at present, is all the hope and glory that you will ever need! He is the “Secret Place” and safe “Shadow of the Almighty” (Psalm 91:1). Brethren, we know it is possible to fall away, but it is only possible if you call God a liar by unbelief! Though we do not believe in the manmade doctrine of “eternal security”, we must believe, trust, and adore the promises of God which do promise us eternal security! There is security, brethren, there is nothing to fear; God will perform every work and wipe away every tear!
I had deceived myself to think that this love was not a certain shadow, because I thought this was the love of eternal election alone. I was wrong; this love is the very message of commitment to us as His children – that His love is a commitment and covenant wherein He takes upon Himself the duty of our full salvation/sanctification. It is a defense against temptation with a manifestation of obedience, and therefore is a deliverance from unbelief with a manifestation of faith unto the keeping power of God. God promises to defeat any unbelief, reservation, or resistance against His lovingkindness, and to grant you perpetual manifestations of faith, enabling a full surrender into the love of God, which is a resolve with the feeling of dissolving into the love of God that salvificly drowns you in His will. Do you find yourself defensive or resistant against the love of God? This is rebellion, and God will defeat it. When this is my trust (feeling wholly delivered from temptation, see Matt. 6), I do feel as though I am dead, that there is nothing left living of myself, and that I cannot do anything but obey. At this time, I am able to say with a clear conscience, “How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein” (Rom. 6:2)? Seeing that God has taken upon Himself to personally defeat all uprisings of myself – any resistance I may stubbornly fall into – seeing that God defeats all of this, it is as if there is nothing left but Christ. And if Christ defeats me and lives, I cannot do anything but believe, because I am dead. How can a dead man resist God – or how can I not obey every word of God when I am fully possessed by God? When there is nothing left of me to hinder the work and will of God, there is nothing left but a ceaseless fountain of the working, willing, delivering, and empowering Person of God within. God defeated the evil hindrance and hallowed this house to be full of His hallowed incense – He is manifesting fruits of heaven in the heathen as a thick cloud of Shekinah pleasure. “Not a striving to have faith…but a looking off to the Faithful One” (Hudson Taylor). Cease from striving to believe (a manifestation of obedience), cease from striving against unbelief (a manifestation of sin), cease from even trying to look to Christ (present tense - mortify, put on, be filled with the Spirit); recognize first that God has already killed you and there is nothing left of you, thus how can you not look to Him, for He looketh in you. The manifestation of obedience overcoming all manifestations of conscious sin is the vowed love of God by promise, spiritually and lawfully a finished accomplishment, and presently an experience when fully trusted. How to get faith? Cease striving for it, because you are already fortified in it, even every spiritual blessing and all things that pertain unto life and godliness in Christ Jesus (Eph. 1:6, 2 Pet. 1:4).
God is devoted to me even while I am yet in sin, even after its ugly fingers have gripped or defiled my heart in some manner – the love of God has not ceased. The delight of God may have – yet not the love – for He ever waits for one look of faith for God to deliver from this encroaching enemy. Somehow I have been easily deceived that this is not the love of God. I think perhaps it is because of the perception that He is angered against sin, even to hellfire, when a saint is to be blamed. Yet there is an ever-present escape vowed to us that we might escape this anger, and it is the promised love of God unto vital, empowering obedience. In situations like this, I will feel stuck underneath His fierce countenance, because I will feel as though my only escape is the sovereign will of God manifesting saving faith in my heart…but my flesh deceives me from setting my mind on this, for, what does the experience of sovereign, elective love do? It manifests saving faith in the heart without the willing, running, or consciousness of the individual. Thus, I should not wait to see if God loves me (in the ways of God), nor feel handicapped as if He does not presently love me (in the ways of God of sovereign, eternal, elective love), but LOOK, the vows of His ever-present love are upon me (God in the ways of man/His covenanted voice), and He is angry until I trust in this delivering, unfathomable, empowering love that grants the faith/obedience that I need. Indeed, we have reason to be in terror, for “To day if ye will hear His voice, harden not your hearts” (Heb. 4:7). Only let the end of this fear drive you to the Covenanted salvation of God. Let this fear drive away hopelessness, any idea of mercilessness, any imagination that you are now helpless if God is presently angry with your behavior. By this fear look to the way of escape: “Seeing then that we have a great High priest, that is passed into the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our profession. For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched by the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are yet without sin. Let us therefore come boldly unto the Throne of Grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need” (Heb. 4:14-16). Your fear of God should drive you to a fearless and bold approaching to the grace, mercy, and help of God, softening any hardness of heart you presently have against obedience, so as to make the yoke of His service easy and free. God knows all the points of your temptation, and He says to come to the Throne of His power which is friendly to you because of the grace of the Great High Priest. Do you believe He can help you, in times of hopelessness? Then believe that He will help you now – fearfully flee to a fearless appropriation of mercy, grace, and obedience. Amen.
This love is the love He loved me with while I was yet a sinner, for He was angry enough to kill and send me to hell, loved me enough to die and plead His delivering, free love to me in the gospel, and desires that I do resign myself fully to this love. Thus He loved me while I was yet a sinner and is willing/waiting to give me all things while I am a sinning saint, thus the overcoming, conquering love that saved me at first is the persevering love that will save me to the end. He that delivered you from Egypt by His mighty power promises to deliver the Promised Land to you by the same power. He came down to deliver you then, and He will come down to fight for you now – believe His word and trust His grace.
When the chief experience of being dead has permeated my heart, I have a perception that Christ lives: He motivates, leads, thinks, and puts on my heart, so that if temptation is present it cannot find me, because I am dead and He liveth. When I am able to obtain this experience of trust and expectation, it comes by trusting the particular scriptures of His delivering mind and lovingkindness to me as a sinner. “Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil” embodies the “delivering” love of God…that, when temptation comes or sin is conceived, God still loves me and is desirous to deliver me. When I am protected in a fortress of care, active protection, and mindful defense wherein God defeats all my temptations that arise by His own understanding (not mine), it is then that I experience the reality of being dead. Truly, at this place of spiritual experience, I feel as though “my will is a gladsome bird imprisoned in a cage of grace”, for I find myself lost, hidden, and overcome by the active, working will/life/purpose of God. God is the fighter and fortitude against my temptation and members, encircling me as an able deliverer. “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble” (Ps. 46:1). “I will love Thee, O LORD, my strength. The LORD is my rock, and my fortress, and my Deliverer; my God, my strength, in Whom I will trust; my buckler, and the horn of my salvation, and my high tower” (Ps. 18:1-2).
I had deceived myself to think that this love was not a certain shadow, because I thought this was the love of eternal election alone. I was wrong; this love is the very message of commitment to us as His children – that His love is a commitment and covenant wherein He takes upon Himself the duty of our full salvation/sanctification. It is a defense against temptation with a manifestation of obedience, and therefore is a deliverance from unbelief with a manifestation of faith unto the keeping power of God. God promises to defeat any unbelief, reservation, or resistance against His lovingkindness, and to grant you perpetual manifestations of faith, enabling a full surrender into the love of God, which is a resolve with the feeling of dissolving into the love of God that salvificly drowns you in His will. Do you find yourself defensive or resistant against the love of God? This is rebellion, and God will defeat it. When this is my trust (feeling wholly delivered from temptation, see Matt. 6), I do feel as though I am dead, that there is nothing left living of myself, and that I cannot do anything but obey. At this time, I am able to say with a clear conscience, “How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein” (Rom. 6:2)? Seeing that God has taken upon Himself to personally defeat all uprisings of myself – any resistance I may stubbornly fall into – seeing that God defeats all of this, it is as if there is nothing left but Christ. And if Christ defeats me and lives, I cannot do anything but believe, because I am dead. How can a dead man resist God – or how can I not obey every word of God when I am fully possessed by God? When there is nothing left of me to hinder the work and will of God, there is nothing left but a ceaseless fountain of the working, willing, delivering, and empowering Person of God within. God defeated the evil hindrance and hallowed this house to be full of His hallowed incense – He is manifesting fruits of heaven in the heathen as a thick cloud of Shekinah pleasure. “Not a striving to have faith…but a looking off to the Faithful One” (Hudson Taylor). Cease from striving to believe (a manifestation of obedience), cease from striving against unbelief (a manifestation of sin), cease from even trying to look to Christ (present tense - mortify, put on, be filled with the Spirit); recognize first that God has already killed you and there is nothing left of you, thus how can you not look to Him, for He looketh in you. The manifestation of obedience overcoming all manifestations of conscious sin is the vowed love of God by promise, spiritually and lawfully a finished accomplishment, and presently an experience when fully trusted. How to get faith? Cease striving for it, because you are already fortified in it, even every spiritual blessing and all things that pertain unto life and godliness in Christ Jesus (Eph. 1:6, 2 Pet. 1:4).
God is devoted to me even while I am yet in sin, even after its ugly fingers have gripped or defiled my heart in some manner – the love of God has not ceased. The delight of God may have – yet not the love – for He ever waits for one look of faith for God to deliver from this encroaching enemy. Somehow I have been easily deceived that this is not the love of God. I think perhaps it is because of the perception that He is angered against sin, even to hellfire, when a saint is to be blamed. Yet there is an ever-present escape vowed to us that we might escape this anger, and it is the promised love of God unto vital, empowering obedience. In situations like this, I will feel stuck underneath His fierce countenance, because I will feel as though my only escape is the sovereign will of God manifesting saving faith in my heart…but my flesh deceives me from setting my mind on this, for, what does the experience of sovereign, elective love do? It manifests saving faith in the heart without the willing, running, or consciousness of the individual. Thus, I should not wait to see if God loves me (in the ways of God), nor feel handicapped as if He does not presently love me (in the ways of God of sovereign, eternal, elective love), but LOOK, the vows of His ever-present love are upon me (God in the ways of man/His covenanted voice), and He is angry until I trust in this delivering, unfathomable, empowering love that grants the faith/obedience that I need. Indeed, we have reason to be in terror, for “To day if ye will hear His voice, harden not your hearts” (Heb. 4:7). Only let the end of this fear drive you to the Covenanted salvation of God. Let this fear drive away hopelessness, any idea of mercilessness, any imagination that you are now helpless if God is presently angry with your behavior. By this fear look to the way of escape: “Seeing then that we have a great High priest, that is passed into the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our profession. For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched by the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are yet without sin. Let us therefore come boldly unto the Throne of Grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need” (Heb. 4:14-16). Your fear of God should drive you to a fearless and bold approaching to the grace, mercy, and help of God, softening any hardness of heart you presently have against obedience, so as to make the yoke of His service easy and free. God knows all the points of your temptation, and He says to come to the Throne of His power which is friendly to you because of the grace of the Great High Priest. Do you believe He can help you, in times of hopelessness? Then believe that He will help you now – fearfully flee to a fearless appropriation of mercy, grace, and obedience. Amen.
This love is the love He loved me with while I was yet a sinner, for He was angry enough to kill and send me to hell, loved me enough to die and plead His delivering, free love to me in the gospel, and desires that I do resign myself fully to this love. Thus He loved me while I was yet a sinner and is willing/waiting to give me all things while I am a sinning saint, thus the overcoming, conquering love that saved me at first is the persevering love that will save me to the end. He that delivered you from Egypt by His mighty power promises to deliver the Promised Land to you by the same power. He came down to deliver you then, and He will come down to fight for you now – believe His word and trust His grace.
When the chief experience of being dead has permeated my heart, I have a perception that Christ lives: He motivates, leads, thinks, and puts on my heart, so that if temptation is present it cannot find me, because I am dead and He liveth. When I am able to obtain this experience of trust and expectation, it comes by trusting the particular scriptures of His delivering mind and lovingkindness to me as a sinner. “Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil” embodies the “delivering” love of God…that, when temptation comes or sin is conceived, God still loves me and is desirous to deliver me. When I am protected in a fortress of care, active protection, and mindful defense wherein God defeats all my temptations that arise by His own understanding (not mine), it is then that I experience the reality of being dead. Truly, at this place of spiritual experience, I feel as though “my will is a gladsome bird imprisoned in a cage of grace”, for I find myself lost, hidden, and overcome by the active, working will/life/purpose of God. God is the fighter and fortitude against my temptation and members, encircling me as an able deliverer. “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble” (Ps. 46:1). “I will love Thee, O LORD, my strength. The LORD is my rock, and my fortress, and my Deliverer; my God, my strength, in Whom I will trust; my buckler, and the horn of my salvation, and my high tower” (Ps. 18:1-2).
“Thou sweet, beloved will of God, My anchor ground, my fortress hill,
My spirit’s silent, fair abode, In Thee I hide me and am still.
O Thou, that willest good alone, Lead Thou the way – Thou guidest best;
A little child, I follow on, And trusting, leaning upon Thy breast.
Thy beautiful, sweet will, my God, Holds fast in its sublime embrace
My captive will, a gladsome bird, Prisoned in such a realm of grace.
Within this place of certain good, Love evermore expands her wings,
Or nestling in Thy perfect choice, Abides content with what it brings.
Oh, lightest burden, sweetest yoke, It lifts, it bears my happy soul,
It giveth wings to this poor heart; My freedom is Thy grand control.
Thy wonderful, grand will, my God, With triumph now I make it mine;
And faith shall cry a joyous Yes! To every dear command of Thine.”
(Andrew Murray)
My spirit’s silent, fair abode, In Thee I hide me and am still.
O Thou, that willest good alone, Lead Thou the way – Thou guidest best;
A little child, I follow on, And trusting, leaning upon Thy breast.
Thy beautiful, sweet will, my God, Holds fast in its sublime embrace
My captive will, a gladsome bird, Prisoned in such a realm of grace.
Within this place of certain good, Love evermore expands her wings,
Or nestling in Thy perfect choice, Abides content with what it brings.
Oh, lightest burden, sweetest yoke, It lifts, it bears my happy soul,
It giveth wings to this poor heart; My freedom is Thy grand control.
Thy wonderful, grand will, my God, With triumph now I make it mine;
And faith shall cry a joyous Yes! To every dear command of Thine.”
(Andrew Murray)
How do I balance the near-annihilating wrath of God with the tender mercies of the LORD? The near-annihilating wrath of God should reveal to us the sinfulness of sin, specifically and especially the sin of unbelief in God’s awesome, praiseworthy, thankworthy, overwhelming, faithful love, and so, we should be pressed by this godly fear, and with it pushing behind us, we are forced into the direction of God’s “Throne of Grace”, from which He calleth us to boldly approach unto, with fearlessness, “in full assurance” (Heb. 10:22), that there we “obtain the mercy, and find grace to help in time of need” (Heb. 4:16). Run nowhere else but into the loving, keeping, preserving, persevering arms of a Great Savior, and the doctrine of the fear of God is working in you what it should. The fear of God enables one to fearlessly approach the Throne!