January 15

Proving our love

“Hereby perceive we the love of God, because he laid down his life for us: and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. But whoso hath this world’s goods, and seeth his brother have need, and shutteth up his bowels of compassion from him, how dwelleth the love of God in him?” (1 John 3:16-17).

We cannot walk with Christ and have small hearts, for His heart embraced the world and broke for its redemption. We cannot walk with Christ and have cold, hard hearts, for His love constrains us and fills us with tender sympathy and pity.

The anointed soul has full sympathy with David Brainerd, the missionary: “I long to be a flame of fire, continually glowing in the divine service, preaching and building up Christ’s kingdom to my latest, my dying hour.” This desire springs up in the experience of pardon, but it does not become a passion inflaming all the soul like a mighty furnace, till love fills its utmost capacity.  


The feet of Jesus were ever hasting towards lost men. His mighty heart was ever yearning over the spiritually blind and dead. It is natural that the fullness of love to Christ should bring us into sympathy with this dominant passion of His holy soul, and that our footsteps should ever be toward the perishing. There is a grave mistake somewhere when a person imagines that he has mounted up to the plane of the “higher life” and feels no quickened impulse towards sinners dying in their sins around him. That ecstasy of delight must be spurious which inclines its possessor to sit still and selfishly enjoy the raptures of divine love, instead of going forth to communicate and widely diffuse the joy.
—Daniel Steele.

Oh, for a passionate passion for souls,
Oh, for a pity that yearns;
Oh, for a love that loves unto death,
Oh, for a fire that burns.
—Amy Carmichael.

Let me never fancy I have zeal till my heart overflows with love for every man living.—Henry Martyn.

Adoniram Judson went as a missionary to Burma. He so burned with the desire to preach the Gospel before he learned the language that he walked up to a Burman and embraced him. The man went home and reported that he had seen an angel. The living Christ was so radiant in Judson’s countenance that men called him “Mr. Glory-face.” When Christian workers really come to know the love God has given unto them, the Gospel will become irresistible.

Read full article...