Daily Devotionals

Music For the Soul

Devotional: April 6th

THE PROOF OF GOD’S LOVE

God commendeth His own love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." - Romans 5:8

"GOD commendeth His love." That is true and beautiful, but that is not all that the Apostle means. The idea of commendation is certainly in it, but there is also another idea which in order precedes the commendation - viz., that of confirmation, or establishing as a certainty. Now these two things are ordinarily separated. We first of all prove a fact, and then we press it upon people, or " commend " it to their feelings; but in regard of the love of God these two are one. You cannot prove God’s love as you can a mathematical problem, as a bare intellectual process. You must prove it by showing it in operation; and the confirmation of its existence which is derived from the witness of its energy is at once the demonstration of it to the understanding and the commending of it to the heart and the feelings.

So, says Paul, God in one and the same act establishes the certainty of His love, for our understanding, and presses it upon our hearts and consciences. " He commends His love towards us." It must be kept in mind that Paul was writing to Roman Christians, a good many years after the death of Jesus Christ - to men and women that had never seen Christ, and whom Christ had never seen in the flesh. And to these people he says, " Christ died for us." You Roman believers that never heard about Him till long after His Crucifixion - He died for you. And God, not commended, but " commendeth, His love towards us " in that death - which, put into other words, is this: the Cross of Jesus Christ is for all the world, for every age, the standing and ever-present demonstration of the boundless love of God, God not merely "commends," but "proves," His love by Christ’s death. It is the one evidence which makes that often doubted fact certain. By it alone is it possible to hold the conviction that, in spite of all that seems to contradict the belief, God is Love.

If this be the summing-up of all religion, a practical conclusion follows. When we feel ourselves defective in the glow and operative driving power of love to God, what is the right thing to do? When a man is cold he will not warm himself by putting a clinical thermometer into his mouth, and taking his temperature, will he? Let him go into the sunshine and he will be warmed up. You can pound ice in a mortar, and except for the little heat generated by the impact of the pestle, it will keep ice still. But float the iceberg down into the tropics, and what has become of it? It has all run down into sweet warm water, and mingled with the warm ocean that has dissolved it. So do not think about yourself and your own loveless heart so much, but think about God, and the infinite welling up of love in His heart to you, a great deal more. " We love Him because He first loved us." Therefore, to love Him more, we must feel more that He does love us.

Then let me say, too, that if we love Him, it will be the motive power and spring of all manner of obediences and glad services. It is the mother-tincture, so to speak, which you can color, and to which you can add in various ways, and produce variously tinted and tasted and perfumed commixtures. Love lies at the foundation of all Christian goodness. It will lead to the subjugation of the will. And that is the thing that is most of all needed to make a man righteous and pure. So St. Augustine’s paradox, rightly understood, is a magnificent truth, " Love! and do what you will." For then you will be sure to will what God wills, and you ought.