Morning, February 4, edited from Spurgeon’s Morning and Evening

“Even as the Lord loves the sons of Israel.” — Hosea 3:1

Believer, look back through all your experience, and think of the way in which the Lord your God has led you in the wilderness, and how he has fed and clothed you every day—how he has borne with your ill manners—how he has put up with all your complaining, and all your longing after the your old sensuous, selfish life—how he has opened the rock to supply you, and fed you with manna that came down from heaven. Think of how his grace has been sufficient for you in all your troubles—how his blood has been a pardon to you in all your sins—how his rod and his staff have comforted you. When you have in this way looked back upon the love of the Lord, then let faith evaluate his love to come in the future, for remember that Christ’s covenant and blood have something more in them than the past. He who has loved you and pardoned you, shall never cease to love and pardon. He is Alpha, and he shall be Omega also: he is first, and he shall be last. Therefore, come to think that, when you shall pass through the valley of the shadow of death, you need not fear evil, for he is with you. When you shall stand in the cold floods of Jordan, you need not fear, for death cannot separate you from his love; and when you shall come into the mysteries of eternity you need not tremble, “For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Now, soul, is not your love refreshed? Does not this make you love Jesus? Does not a flight through limitless planes of the atmosphere of love ignite your heart and compel you to enchant yourself in the Lord your God? Surely as we meditate on “the love of the Lord,” our hearts burn within us, and we long to love him more.