LOVE AND OUR RELATIONSHIP WITH GOD
LOVE AND OUR RELATIONSHIP WITH GOD
My thought is just to touch on another element, an additional point, which is of the greatest possible moment in connection with the subject of our relationship with God. When we come to the question of our relationship with God the Father, it is not faith that we want, what I understand by faith is light from God, and the amount of light a man has is in proportion to his faith. The great divine thought is that we are to be in the light as God is in the light: God has come out in all the fulness of light, and His thought in regard to us is that we should be in the light as He is, but my light practically is measured by my faith. It may be said, we have the whole of the Scriptures, true — but how much do we know of them? I can say unhesitatingly, ‘I am sensible how little I know of them,’ indeed I was saying to a brother, ‘I feel as though I was but on the very threshold of christianity.’ One may well be aghast at one’s ignorance. I would not demur for a moment to admit, as I have said, the truth that we are in the light as God is in the light; but along with that, it is perfectly consistent to ask, how much faith have I in my heart? Faith, remember, is light from God; and through the entire line of God’s word, we have men presented in their various measures of faith, if you begin with Abel, it is seen to be so, “Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain” (Hebrews 11:4); so with Noah; take any of the patriarchs, the light they had was the promises God had given them.
What is our light now? It is the full revelation of God in Christ, but my own measure of light is according to what my faith has apprehended. It is perfectly true in that sense that faith must precede the work of the Spirit, that is you must have light from God.
[p. 2] As far as I understand, there are three steps in God’s work in every one of our souls. The first thing is, ‘new birth’; the second is the light that comes into our souls by the gospel testimony, and that is where comes in the very deep importance of all gospel preaching; I need not say, the preacher cannot convert a soul, but his office is to enlighten the soul as to God, and the great purpose of God now; the third thing is he receives the Spirit, and then takes place all the formative work in the soul of the believer, which is carried out by the Spirit, and then comes out the great and blessed question: if I am brought out of darkness into His marvellous light (1 Peter 2:9), the thought is that I should know God.
People’s general idea of the gospel is that God’s great object is to save their souls, forgive their sins, preserve them from judgment, or some kindred thing; but the object of the blessed God is infinitely above all that, His wonderful purpose in it being to make Himself so known to the heart of man that he may find his complete delight and joy in Him. To my mind no greater thing can be conceived than the fact that God should come into this dark and sinful scene, where all the wickedness of man rages, and that His gracious and persistent object and purpose should be, yea, that the very pleasure of God in gaining the heart of man is, so to make Himself known to him, that He might have his confidence and love, and that man might be completely at home in His presence.
Beloved brethren, may we not ask how far we have travelled on this road? Depend upon it, christianity has never been seen by us in anything like its full worth if we have not been led to see this.
But it is well for us to be clear on this point — that it is not faith that knows God thus, it is love! Quite true, apart from faith you could not know God at all, but when it becomes a question of relationship with your soul and God, then it is love that has to be brought [p. 3] in as we find in the epistle of John. “Every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God. He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love” (1 John 4:7,8); so again in the first chapter of Ephesians: “According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love” Ephesians 1:4 (not ‘in faith’).
I may say I know God practically, and my relations with Him are practically measured by my love. Without love a man is nothing for God, he may, according to 1 Corinthians 13, have faith to remove mountains, bestow all his goods to feed the poor, or give his body to be burned, but the absence of love leaves all worthless. I would say further, that void of this, we are nothing for the christian circle, because all our relations there are to be carried on in love. You find in Romans the first thing our hearts are made acquainted with by the Spirit is the love of God; it is His divine work in us. God has gained His end, inasmuch as I am made partaker of the divine nature when that is effected in me. If it is a question of being in relation with God, I know Him, and that according to His nature, there can be no true intercourse where there is not a kindred nature.
With regard to our relations with God, they are all carried on in love. We were chosen in Him that we should be before Him, holy and without blame, in love Ephesians 1:4. “And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God” (Romans 8:28). That is preceded by what we have in chapter 5, that is God’s love to us.
We may notice that there are three chapters in Romans that specially present God, and three chapters the christian. That is, in chapter 3 it is God revealed in righteousness; in chapter 4 in power; and in chapter 5 in love. As to the christian, in chapter 6 he is dead to sin; in chapter 7 he is married to another that he should bring forth fruit to God; and in chapter 8 it is seen that all things work together for [p. 4] good to them that love God. In chapter 5 it is God’s love to you—here it is your love to Him and what goes along with that is unbounded confidence. We know that all things work together for good Romans 8:28, that it is in the very nature of things. it is not, as people sometimes put it, that God will make or mould things to bring about good to them that love Him, but it cannot be otherwise. God has secured His end in having gained the full confidence of your heart, that heart where there was once nothing but distrust of God, or fears of everything going wrong; now you are assured that nothing can go wrong, because you are sensible that all things work together for good to them that love Him. I am ashamed of anyone who denies the thought that God should have pleasure in gaining the affections of man’s heart; He has, blessed be His name, so revealed Himself as to win the affections of the heart of man, and this effected, the heart confidently rests in the assurance, “That all things work together for good” Romans 8:28. It is not a question of my faith now, the point is, I love Him and I cease to be agitated by things around, I am not going to make the best of both worlds. Alas! How many christians there are who, on the one hand, want all the good of christianity, and at the same time seek to secure all the conveniences of this world that they possibly can, but this is not to be done: you cannot on the one side be entering into all the blessed truths that God has made known, and on the other securing to yourself a smooth path here.
If God has set to work in His boundless love to gain the affections of your heart, be assured that He is jealous to have nothing short of the entire affections, and believe me, I do not speak of a thing that I am practically a stranger to. I have not trod the path without tasting some of the pressures that belong to it, and perhaps, could I have foreseen the path before me I should have been ready to say I could not have gone through it.
[p. 5] There is one point further I will allude to, and that is: if you want to know the things that God has prepared for you, it is not faith that will teach you, you will get no true insight into them unless you love God. There are three points: first, you begin by loving God because He loves you. We love Him because He first loved us 1 John 4:19, that involves your being partaker of His nature, and you are assured as to everything here, you know all things work together for good Romans 8:28. Then you get a step further, loving God, you get an insight into the things He has prepared for them that love Him, and let me add this, if you and I want to know what it is to reach the “heavenly places”, it is not faith that will take us there. No, it is love that must bring that about and I will tell you why: because it is the pleasure of God to have you there that He might gratify Himself and make known the riches of His grace. He is set on securing His own pleasure and meeting the satisfaction of His own heart. Do not let us be afraid to be there, because God wants us there to gratify Himself, to suit His own heart, and if that is so, how rightly I say every bit of fear may be dispelled. In the presence of such thoughts may we not well say, ‘Do not be afraid to enter there’. Bear in mind, I again say, that it is not faith that secures an entrance into the ‘heavenly places’ nor yet (in that sense) the power of the Spirit, but it is love, and every heart ought to realise that nothing will meet the heart of God, or reach His wonderful desire for us, but that we should be in those ‘heavenly places’. I again remind you, that your faith is the measure of the light that you have from God; a man is in pitch darkness unless he has faith; you may have men of great learning and distinction in the religious world, or in the political world, but it matters not what natural abilities or acquirements a man may possess if he is destitute of faith — he has no light from God. Neither rank nor position, nor education, nor aught else will bring light from God,
[p. 6] a man who is a mere beggar on the dunghill may have his heart full of light because he is one who has faith.
I feel we could not have brought before us a more important truth than what we have been looking at, namely, that if it is a question of your present relation with God He has made Himself known to you and the first of your history is that you love God, and you never were, nor could have been, a partaker of the divine nature, until you knew His love. Knowing His love, we may well rest in it freed from agitation or disturbance by circumstances or whatever may be around us, reposing in His word we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to His purpose Romans 8:28. And to those who love Him, He gives a present entrance into those things that He has prepared for them.