Morning, June 11, edited from Spurgeon’s Morning and Evening

“We love because he first loved us.” — 1 John 4:19

There is no natural light on the planet except that which proceeds from the sun; and there is no true love to Jesus in the heart but that which comes from the Lord Jesus himself. From this overflowing fountain of the infinite love of God, all our love to God must spring. This must always be a great and absolute truth, that we love him for no other reason than because he first loved us. Our love to him is the pleasant offspring of his love to us. Anyone may have cold admiration, when studying the works of God, but the warmth of love can only be kindled in the heart by God’s Spirit. How great a wonder it is that we should ever have been brought to love Jesus at all! How marvelous it is that when we had rebelled against him, he should, by a display of such amazing love, seek to draw us back. Indeed, we never would have had a grain of love towards God unless it had been sown in us by the precious seed of his love to us. Love, then, has for its parent the love of God shed abroad in the heart: but after it is accordingly divinely born, it must be divinely nourished. Love is an exotic flower; it is not a plant which will flourish naturally in human soil, it must be watered from above. Love to Jesus is a flower of a delicate nature, and it would soon wither if it received no nourishment except that which could be drawn from the rock of our hearts. As love comes from heaven, so it must feed on heavenly bread. It cannot exist in the wilderness unless it be fed by manna from on high. Love must feed on love. The very soul and life of our love to God is his love to us.

“I love thee, Lord, but with no love of mine,

For I have none to give;

I love thee, Lord; but all the love is thine,

For by thy love I live.

I am as nothing, and rejoice to be

Emptied, and lost, and swallowed up in thee.”