Evening, June 5

Charles Spurgeon · Morning and Evening: Daily Readings

"He that loveth not knoweth not God."

  1 John 4:8

   The distinguishing mark of a Christian is his confidence in the love of
   Christ, and the yielding of his affections to Christ in return. First,
   faith sets her seal upon the man by enabling the soul to say with the
   apostle, "Christ loved me and gave himself for me." Then love gives the
   countersign, and stamps upon the heart gratitude and love to Jesus in
   return. "We love him because he first loved us." In those grand old
   ages, which are the heroic period of the Christian religion, this
   double mark was clearly to be seen in all believers in Jesus; they were
   men who knew the love of Christ, and rested upon it as a man leaneth
   upon a staff whose trustiness he has tried. The love which they felt
   towards the Lord was not a quiet emotion which they hid within
   themselves in the secret chamber of their souls, and which they only
   spake of in their private assemblies when they met on the first day of
   the week, and sang hymns in honour of Christ Jesus the crucified, but
   it was a passion with them of such a vehement and all-consuming energy,
   that it was visible in all their actions, spoke in their common talk,
   and looked out of their eyes even in their commonest glances. Love to
   Jesus was a flame which fed upon the core and heart of their being;
   and, therefore, from its own force burned its way into the outer man,
   and shone there. Zeal for the glory of King Jesus was the seal and mark
   of all genuine Christians. Because of their dependence upon Christ's
   love they dared much, and because of their love to Christ they did
   much, and it is the same now. The children of God are ruled in their
   inmost powers by love--the love of Christ constraineth them; they
   rejoice that divine love is set upon them, they feel it shed abroad in
   their hearts by the Holy Ghost, which is given unto them, and then by
   force of gratitude they love the Saviour with a pure heart, fervently.
   My reader, do you love him? Ere you sleep give an honest answer to a
   weighty question!