“The life of the justified should be a loving one. It is love that has made him what he is, and shall he not love in return?
Shall he not love Him that begat, and him also that is begotten of Him? The deep true spring of love is thus revealed to us by the Lord Himself:
‘A certain creditor had two debtors; the one owed five hundred pence, the other fifty. And when they had nothing to pay, HE FRANKLY FORGAVE THEM BOTH. Tell me therefore, which of them will LOVE him most?’ (Luke 7:41-42)
Thus love produces love. The life of one on whom the fulness of the free love of God is ever shining must be a life of love.
Suspense, doubt, terror, darkness, must straiten and freeze; but the certainty of free and immediate love dissolves the ice, and kindles the coldest spirit into the warmth of love.
‘We love Him because He first loved us.’
Love to God, love to the brethren, love to the world, spring up within us as the heavenly love flows in. Malevolence, anger, envy, jealousy, receive their death-blow.
The nails of the cross have gone through all these, and their deadly wound cannot be healed.
They that are Christ’s have crucified the flesh, with its affections and lusts. Sternness, coldness, distance, depart; and are succeeded by gentleness, mildness, guilelessness, meekness, ardour, long-suffering.
The tempers of the old man quit us, we know not how; and in their place comes the:
‘charity which suffereth long, and is kind, which envieth not, which vaunteth not itself, which is not puffed up, which doth not behave itself unseemly, which seeketh not her own, which is not easily provoked, which thinketh no evil, which rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth, which beareth all things, which believeth all things, which never faileth.’ (1 Cor. 13:4–8)
Gentle and loving and simple should be the life of the justified: meek and lowly should they be, who have been loved with such a love.”
–Horatius Bonar, The Everlasting Righteousness; or, How Shall a Man be Just with God? (Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth, 1873/2020), 150-151.
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