Our Love to Christ (and other devotionals)

Our Love to Christ

"Jesus Christ, whom not having seen, ye love: in whom, though now ye see Him not, yet believing, ye rejoice greatly with joy unspeakable and full of glory" (1 Peter 1:8)

What a wonderful description of the Christian life! People who had never seen Christ yet truly loved Him and believed on Him, so that their hearts were filled with unspeakable joy. Such is the life of Christians who really love their Lord.

We have seen that the chief attribute of the Father and of the Son is love to each other and love to man. This love should be the chief characteristic of the true Christian. The love of God and of Christ is shed abroad in his heart and becomes a well of living water, flowing forth as love to the Lord Jesus.

This love is not merely a blessed feeling. It is an active principle. It takes pleasure in doing the will of the beloved Lord. It is joy to keep His commandments. The love of Christ to us was shown by His death on the Cross; our love must be exhibited in unselfish, self-sacrificing lives. Oh that we understood this: In the Christian life love to Christ is everlasting!

Great love will beget great faith: faith in His love to us, faith in the powerful revelations of His love in our hearts, faith that He through His love will work all His good pleasure in us.

The wings of faith and love will lift us up to heaven, and we shall be filled with joy unspeakable. The joy of the Christian is an indispensable witness to the world of the power of Christ to change hearts and fill them with heavenly love and gladness.

O ye lovers of the Lord Jesus, take time daily in the inner chamber with Him anew to drink in His heavenly love. It will make you strong in faith, and your joy will be full.

Blessed Father, I pray that love, joy, and faith will be my life each day through the grace of our Lord Jesus. Amen

~Andrew Murray~
________________________

Love to the Brethren

"A new commandment I give unto you, that ye love one another, even as I have loved you, that ye also love one another" (John 13:34; 15:12)

The Lord Jesus told His disciples that as the Father had loved Him, even so He loved them. And now, following His example, we must love one another with the same love. "By this shall all men know that ye are My disciples, if ye have love one to another" (John 13:35). He had prayed: "that they all may be one, as Thou, Father, art in Me, and I in Thee, that the world may believe that Thou hast sent Me" (John 17:21). If we exhibit the love that was in God toward Christ and in Christ to us, the world will be obliged to confess that our Christianity is genuine and from above.

This is what actually happened. The Greeks and Romans, Jews and heathen, hated each other. Among all the nations of the world there was hardly a thought of love for each other. The very idea of self-sacrifice was a strange one. When the heathen saw that Christians from different nations, under the powerful workings of the Holy Spirit, became one and loved one another even to the point of self-sacrifice in time of plague or illness - they were amazed and said: "Behold how these people love one another!"

Among professing Christians there is a certain oneness of belief and feeling of brotherhood, but Christ's heavenly love is often lacking, and we do not bear one anothers burdens or love others heartily.

Pray that you may love your fellow-believers with the same love with which Christ loved you. If we abide in Christ's love and let that love fill our hearts, supernatural power will be given us to take all God's children unto our hearts in love.

Dear Father, as close as is the bond of love between the Father and the Son, between Christ and His followers, so close must the bond of love be between all God's children. Amen

~Andrew Murray~