LOVE WORKS FOR ITS OWN SATISFACTION

^[p. 107] LOVE WORKS FOR ITS OWN SATISFACTION

I believe there is much conveyed in the Lord’s words to Peter “Lovest thou Me”, to promote devotedness. As loving is the highest and most enjoyable activity in God, so must it be in us. And in loving the Lord we are loving One who first loved us, in fact there could not be love otherwise, because if we love God we must know Him. How could we love one whom we do not know? In loving the Lord we love One who in no way checks our love, but who on the contrary draws it out and increases it, for He has Himself produced it in us by revealing His own love. It is said that love must have an ideal; that is, it has a standard to which, when it is true, its objects, in order to satisfy it, must come up; though among men, it is only that they fancy it. Love is an activity which cannot view with indifference the state of its object. With man therefore it is an advantage that love is blind. But with God, the activity of His love puts away in the cross of His Son the entire offending thing in judgment. That is, He righteously gets rid of our condition which is painful to His love, and hence, having “graced” us in the Beloved, His love has nothing to check it. It is not that He loves us in spite of our faults, but He can rest in His love, for there is nothing in us (as we are in Christ, entirely new before Him) any more to offend Him.

What a complete satisfaction to His love! The very exactitude and inexorability of His righteousness subserve His love. Lessen the righteousness and you lessen the love. The love cannot allow anything in me that would be below the divine standard, for the standard of divine love is perfect in His eyes, and therefore God’s standard must be what answers to Himself. We, in our love, are obliged to tolerate and excuse, because even in our ideas of perfection, we must make allowance for imperfection, or we must condemn ourselves, or be dishonest. God commends his love to us while we were yet sinners. He from His own side removes every atom of the offending thing,

^[p. 108] so that we now, in the life of His Son, may make our boast in God through Him by whom we have received the reconciliation. Everything has been removed by His love that we may have full access to Him and make our boast in Him, that we may be with Him on the happiest terms, and then His love dwells in us and surrounds us, and nothing can separate us from it. See Romans 8, end. In my flesh there is plenty to pain His love, but He has judged it from His side for ever, and I am called to do so, and as I love Him I do. “All things work together for good to them that love God” (Romans 8: 28). If I love Him, I love what suits Him. I am not surprised to see judgment on everything that is unsuited to Him. See the opening of Deuteronomy 11, “If thou love”, etc., and in 1 Corinthians 2: 9, “Which God hath prepared for them that love him”. If I love Him, I love His perfection, for after all, the thing that satisfies love is that the object is according to its standard of perfection. Hence the Lord shall see of the travail of His soul and be satisfied, and He will present us to Himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle, or any such thing, but holy and without blemish. Now the more we love the Lord the more are our souls filled with His perfection, and the less we can bear that which is unsuited to Him, and the more do we seek to be conformable in every thing to His mind, and to seek His pleasure. This activity, the spring of love, imparts the greatest charm to, and is the reward of devotedness. The eagle delights to lead her offspring into the same power as herself; this is a feeble type of divine love, which will have its objects like in nature, and in ability. That is the nature of Christ’s love for us, and eventually we shall be perfectly like Him. Hence as we love Him, we seek that all who belong to Him should be here like Him. If we have learned in any little measure to fly, we take the place of the eagle mother, and encourage the young brood to fly. This is the delight of love, and this devotedness is of the highest order. The satisfaction of love is that there should be nothing in its object to check it, but that it should be according to its own standard of perfection, and this delight and satisfaction Christ will have in the church when He presents her to Himself glorious, without spot or blemish or any such thing.