Morning, August 7, edited from Spurgeon’s Morning and Evening

“The upright love you.” — Song of Solomon 1:4

Believers love Jesus with a deeper affection than they dare to give to any other being. They would sooner lose father and mother than part with Christ. They hold all earthly securities with a loose hand, but they carry him locked fast in their hearts. They voluntarily deny themselves for his sake, but they will not be driven to deny him. The fire of persecution can dry up a trickle of love; the true believer’s love is a deeper stream than this. Men have contrived to divide the faithful from their Master, but their attempts have been fruitless  in every age. Neither crowns of honor, nor frowns of anger, have untied this more than Gordian knot. This is no everyday attachment which the world’s power may eventually dissolve. Neither man nor devil have found a key which opens this lock. Never has the craft of Satan been faultier than when he has exercised it in seeking to tear in two this union of two divinely welded hearts. It is written, and nothing can blot out the sentence, “The upright love you.” The intensity of the love of the righteous, however, is not to be judged so much by what it appears to be as by what the upright long for. It is our daily lament that we cannot love enough. If only our hearts were capable of holding more, and reaching further. Like Samuel Rutherford, we sigh and cry, “Oh, for as much love as would go around about the earth, and over heaven—yes, even the highest heavens, and ten thousand worlds—that I might pour all out upon the beautiful, beautiful, and only beautiful, Christ.” Sadly, our longest reach is but a small span of love, and our affection is but as a drop in a bucket compared with his rewards. Measure our love by our intentions, and it is high indeed; it is accordingly, we trust, our Lord does assess it. Oh, that we could give all the love in all hearts in one great throng, a gathering together of all loves to him who is altogether lovely!

My notes:  Our pastor referenced Luke 14:26 yesterday; not that we should hate our families, but that the affection we have for them should so contrast in comparison with that we have for Jesus.