LOVE’S RESPONSE

John 20: 15-18; 2 Corinthians 5: 14, 15; John 12: 3-8

I am sure, beloved brethren, there is only one thing that will deliver us from that principle that characterises man. The principle of self-exaltation, and that one thing is the love of God, the love of Christ. That is the cure for it and that alone. One characteristic of love is it seeks not its own. It never thinks of itself; it is always occupied in the good of others. Therefore what we all need is really to be established and built up in the love of God and the love of Christ. I am sure of this, there is nothing that is really acceptable to the Lord in any way that is not the fruit of love. It must be, whether in receiving the truth or in service, or in worship, it is only what is the fruit of love, divine affection formed in the heart that is acceptable to the Lord.

What I have before me is to shew three different ways in which the love of Christ works. In the case of Mary Magdalene, the way in which it works is very much what our brother referred to just now. It became the point of attachment between her soul and the Person who had been the means of her deliverance from the seven-fold power of the devil. She had tasted that the Lord was gracious. She knew He was good, and her heart was attached to the Person who brought the grace. and wrought the work which delivered her. It is a very great thing when that is the way grace works in the soul. I think very often through a faulty presentation of the gospel, the work of Christ being preached merely as a means of delivering a person from the oppression of sin, it does not have the effect of endearing the Lord Himself to that person. The grace is presented merely as meeting man’s need. Many a one gets his burden removed without being attached to the Person who has done it. Where that link has been formed, and there is nothing to hinder it, the natural effect is it binds the soul to the Person, and as in the case of Mary Magdalene, she follows Him. If you follow Him you will come to where He is. You will find yourself in association with Him where He is. It will land you on a new platform, in a new order of things, where all things are of God: where all is perfection and all is eternal. It brings you into the resurrection sphere, and it is a great thing to reach it. I fear many of us may not have reached it yet. It is the sphere where God is working and displaying Himself. What do we know of it? What is it to be free of ourselves and our things, and to be occupied with God, and the display He is making of Himself, to be occupied with what He is doing? What do we know of it? Where does that begin? In the resurrection of Christ where He began a new creation, according to His own pleasure and eternal purposes of glory. It begins with Christ risen from the dead. What do we know of that? and to be formed according to such a scene as that?

It is not the sense of our need that makes us follow Him. It is the sense of our need that made us look to Him at the beginning; but what attracts the soul to Himself is affection. His love forms a bond between our souls and Himself, so that we say, I must follow Him. Where this is the case the soul can never be satisfied apart from the Person who attached it to Himself. And in following Him I get the sense of what it is to be associated with Him in a scene outside of man, and all that came in by Adam, a scene where all is of God, a scene where there is nothing but rest, eternal rest; a scene of God’s own satisfaction, God's delight, and there I may delight. That is what I get by following Him, I find “the light of life”, John 8: 12.

That we see in Mary Magdalene, and what did she get? She got “the light of life”. “He that followeth me shall not walk in darkness but shall have the light of life”. She followed Him to the cross, to the grave, but she found Him in resurrection.

One of the great marks of love is keeping His word. He that loveth me keepeth my word. That is how love works. It makes us follow Him, and it makes us value His word. To whom will He communicate His word? Is it to the one of great mind and learning? No, it is to the heart that loves Him; it is to the heart that treasures it. The word is kept in the affection. If a person loves you, and you love that person, if he writes to you, how you value that communication because of the person who wrote it. “If a man love me, he will keep my words”. He will treasure them in his heart. That is the one who gets his word. In Mary Magdalene the Lord found one who valued His word, and He gave His word to her, assuring her of her association with Himself, a man risen from the dead. He had come from God and was going back to God, and He says, “go to my brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father, and to your Father; and to my God, and your God”.

That is the first thing. It was no question about her blessing, her good, no thought of her need. She was thinking of a Person, valuing Him, valuing His word and she got on. And we should get on a good deal more if we had more of that spirit—if we were more following the Lord, saying in our hearts I must reach Him, I must have His word. That is what I want above all things, and if we really loved His word we should get it.

I pass on to the next passage I read. In 2 Corinthians 5, we get another way in which love works. The apostle had spoken of the judgment seat of Christ, a very serious and solemn subject. But the judgment seat of Christ was not the motive of his life; he says, “the love of Christ constraineth us”. The love of Christ was the motive of his life, vv 14, 15. All his life was the expression of devotedness to a Person—the whole life. It may be passed by many of us in a very common-place way, or it may be passed by others more in public serving the Lord; but what made up the whole life of Paul was, I live to Him. I have an object before me, and in everything to Him I live. How acceptable that was to the Lord! A life laid upon the altar for the Lord! and every bit of such a life in us is acceptable to the Lord. However hidden it may be, however small the service, if it be the fruit of the love of Christ, it connects us with Him. We have the privilege to live to Him. He who died for us lives. A living Person. He lived to God, and every bit of our life that is on that principle is fruit to Him, acceptable to Him. We may get a lot of praise from man; we may shine before man, but nothing is acceptable before God that is not the fruit of that love, and everything not done from that motive has nothing in it for Him, nothing that He delights in. He loves, surely, to look down and see one that is living to Him in a world like this. “That they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them, and rose again”. Can we say, beloved friends, that He governs our life? Is our one desire to please Him? to live to Him who died for us and rose again? Does His love constrain us? Is it the spring of our life?

Now I turn to the last instance in John 12. I take it that Mary in her action gives us the expression of real true worship. What governed her action was that she was consciously in the presence of the Son of God. It was the greatness and glory of the Person that stood before her, so that she felt nothing could be wasted that was spent upon such a Person. Had it been spent upon the greatest servant that ever lived, it would have been waste to spend it on his feet—but on that Person, the Son of God, nothing could be waste that was spent on His feet. She was consciously in the presence of the Son of God.

But there was another thing. She knew the Person loved her, and she loved Him. If it was the Son of God—well—the Son of God loved her and she loved the Son of God, and her action was the fruit of love. Love spending itself upon its object. She poured everything out at His feet in love. I do not believe any service or worship is acceptable to the Lord, if it is not the fruit of divine affection in our soul. “The Father seeketh such to worship him”, John 4: 23. Divine love seeks response. It is as children we worship. What gratifies the Father’s heart who is the source of all this divine love, is a response, an answer. And the Spirit of God has been given to form that response in us, to give us to appreciate the love revealed to us—the love that called us, the love that has taken pleasure in us, and in love and affection we worship Him. It is the fruit of love.

If we were really together in the power of the Spirit, and consciously in the presence of the Father’s love, and in the enjoyment of it, we could not help worshipping. There would be a stream of worship going up to the Father, the fruit of divine affection wrought by God’s Spirit in the heart, and this is what would be gratifying to the heart of God our Father.

May God grant that we may be built up in the love of God, the love of Christ, and that He may work this in us, as in these examples we have had before us, and it will be to the delight of His heart and for our immense joy and blessing.

From Truth for the Time vol 9 (1897)