Christ's Love For Us # 2

Christ's Love For Us # 2

Had I ten heads, said Henry Voes, they should all be cut off for Christ. If every hair of my head, said John Ardley, martyr, were a man, they should all suffer for the faith of Christ. Let fire, racks, pulleys, said Ignatius, and all the torments of hell come upon me, so I may win Christ. Love made Jerome to say, "O my Saviour, did you die for love of me? - a love sadder than death; but tome a death more lovely than love itself. I cannot live, love you, and be longer from you." George Carpenter, being asked whether he did not love his wife and children, which stood weeping before him, answered, "My wife and children! my wife and children! are dearer to me than all Bavaria; yet, for the love of Christ, I know them not." That blessed virgin being condemned for Christianity to the fire, and having her estate and life offered her if she would worship idols, cried out, "Let money perish, and life vanish, Christ is better than all!" Sufferings for Christ are saints greatest glory; they are those things wherein they have most gloried Your cruelty is our glory,says Tertullian. It is reported of Babylas, that when he was to die for Christ, he desired this favor, that his chains might be buried with him, as the ensigns of his honor. Thus you see with what a superlative love, with what an overtopping love, former saints have loved our Lord Jesus; and can you, Christians, who are cold and low in your love to Christ, read over these instances, and not blush?

Certainly the more Christ has suffered for us, the more dear Christ should be unto us; the more bitter his sufferings have been for us, the more sweet His love should be to us,  and the more eminent should be our love to him. Oh, let a suffering Christ lie nearest your hearts; let Him be your manna, your tree of life, your morning star. It is better to part with all than with this pearl of price. Christ is that golden pipe through which the golden oil of salvation runs; and oh, how should this inflame our love to Christ! Oh that our hearts were more affected with the sufferings of Christ! Who can tread upon these hot coals, and his heart not burn in love to Christ, and cry out with Ignatius, "Christ my love is crucified?" If a friend should die for us, how would our hearts be affected with his kindness! and shall the God of glory lay down His life for us, and shall we not be affected with His goodness. Shall Saul be affected with David's kindness in sparing his life, and shall not we be affected with Christ's kindness, who, to save our life, lost His own? Oh, the infinite love of Christ, that He should leave His Father's bosom, and come down from heaven, that He might carry you up to heaven; that He that was a Son should take upon Him the form of a servant; that you of slaves should be made sons, of enemies should be made friends, heirs of wrath should be made heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ; that to save us from everlasting ruin, Christ should stick at nothing, but be willing to be made flesh, to lie in a manger, to be tempted, deserted, persecuted, and to die upon a Cross!

Oh, what flames of love should these things kindle in all our hearts to Christ! Love is compared to fire; in heaping love upon our enemy, we heap coals of fire upon his head. Now the property of fire is to turn all it meets with into its own nature: fire makes all things fire; the coal makes burning coals; and is it not a wonder then that Christ, having heaped abundance of the fiery coals of His love upon our heads, we should yet be as cold as corpses in our love to Him. Ah! what sad metal we are made of, that Christ's fiery love cannot inflame our love to Christ! Moses wondered why the bush consumed not, when he sees it all on fire; but if you please but to look into your own hearts, you shall see a greater wonder; for you shall see that, though you walk like those three children in the fiery furnace, even in the midst of Christ's fiery love flaming round about you; yet there is but little, very little, true smell of that sweet fire of love to be felt or found upon you or in you. Oh, when shall the sufferings of a dear and tender-hearted Saviour kindle such a flame of love in all our hearts, as shall still be a breaking forth in our lips and lives, in our words and ways, to the praise and glory of free grace? Oh that the sufferings of a loving Jesus might at last make us all sick of love! Oh, let Him forever lie between our breasts, who has left His Father's bosom for a time, that He might be embosomed by us forever!

~Thomas Brooks~

(The End)