“The love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us” (Rom. 5:5).
“That the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them” (John 17:26).
“The love of God is shed abroad in our hearts.” It has often been understood in this sense: It means the love of God to me. Oh, what a limitation! That is only the beginning. The love of God always means the love of God in its entirety, in its fullness as an indwelling power; a love of God to me that leaps back to Him in love, and overflows to my fellowmen in love—God’s love to me, and my love to God, and my love to my fellowmen. The three are one; you cannot separate them. Do believe that the love of God can be shed abroad in your heart and mine, so that we can love all the day.
“Ah!” you say, “how little I have understood that!” Why is a lamb always gentle? Because that is its nature. Does it cost the lamb any trouble to be gentle? No. Why not? It is so beautiful and gentle. Has a lamb to study to be gentle? No. Why does that come so easy? It is its nature. And a wolf—why does it cost a wolf no trouble to be cruel, and to put its fangs into the poor lamb or sheep? Because that is its nature. It has not to summon up its courage; the wolf-nature is there.
And how can I learn to love? Never until the Spirit of God fills my heart with God’s love, and I begin to long for God’s love in a very different sense from which I have sought it so selfishly, as a comfort and a joy and a happiness and a pleasure to myself. Never until I begin to learn that “God is love,” and to claim it, and receive it as an indwelling power for self-sacrifice. Never until I begin to see that my glory, my blessedness, is to be like God and like Christ, in giving up everything in myself for my fellowmen.—Andrew Murray.
O Lord, that I could waste my life for others,
With no ends of my own,
That I could pour myself into my brothers,
And live for them alone.
—Unknown.