Love's Foremost

It is right for us to desire to be among the most loving servants of the Lord Jesus. It would be an interesting question concerning a company just joining the church,—“Which of them will love him most?”

How can we reach this point? How can we love him most?

We would love him as did the penitent who washed his feet with tears: whence shall come such eminence of love?

The passage before us may help us to a conclusion on that point.

I. WE MUST FIRST BE SAVED IN THE SAME MANNER AS OTHERS.

The road to eminence in love is just the plain way of salvation, which all who are in Christ must travel. There is no new gospel of the higher life, and there need be no singularity of dress, abode, of vow, in order to attain the greatest heights of love.

1. All are in debt; we must heartily own this to be our own case.

2. None have anything to pay; we must confess this, without reserve, as being our own personal condition.

3. The loving Lord forgives in each case: personally we have exceeding great need of such remission. We must feel this.

4. In each case he forgives frankly, or without any consideration or compensation: it must be so with us. We must accept free grace and undeserved favor.

5. Out of this arises love. By a sense of free grace we begin to love our Lord; and in the same way we go on to love him more.

   • The more clear our sense of sinnership, and the more conscious our obligation to free grace, the more likely are we to love much.

II. WE MUST AIM AT A DEEP SENSE OF SIN.

1. It was the consciousness of great indebtedness which created the great love in the penitent woman. Not her sin, but the consciousness of it, was the basis of her loving character.

2. Where sin has been open and loud, there ought to be this specially humbling consciousness; for it would be an evidence of untruthfulness if it were not manifest. 1 Corinthians 15:9.

3. Yet is it frequently found in the most moral, and it abounds in saints of high degree. In fact, these are the persons who are most capable of feeling the evil of sin, and the greatness of the love which pardons it. 1 John 1:8.

4. It is to be cultivated. The more we bewail sin the better, and we must aim at great tenderness of heart in reference to it.

   • In order to cultivate it we must seek to get—
   • A clearer view of the law’s requirements. Luke 10:26, 27.
   • A fuller idea of God’s excellencies, especially of his holiness. Job 42:5, 6.
   • A sharper sense of sin’s tendencies in ourselves, towards God, and towards men; and also a more overwhelming conviction of its dreadful punishment. Romans 7:13; Psalm 51:3, 4; John 5:28, 29.
   • A deeper consciousness of the love of God to us. 1 John 3:1, 2.
   • A keener valuation of the cost of redemption. 1 Peter 1:18, 19.
   • A surer persuasion of the perfection of our pardon will also help to show the baseness of our sin. Ezekiel 16:62, 63.
   • By these means, and all others, we must endeavor to keep our conscience active, that our heart may be sensitive.

III. THIS WILL LEAD TO A HIGHLY LOVING CARRIAGE TOWARDS OUR LORD.

We shall so love him as to behave like the penitent in the narrative.

1. We shall desire to be near him, even at his feet.

2. We shall make bold confession, and shall do this at all risks; honoring him before gainsayers, and doing so though it may cause others to make unkind remarks.

3. We shall show deep humility, delighting even to wash his feet.

4. We shall exhibit thorough contrition, beholding him with tears.

5. We shall render earnest service; doing all that lies in our power for Jesus, even as this woman did.

6. We shall make total consecration of all that we have: our tears, our eyes, our choicest gifts, our hearts, ourselves, etc.

   • Thus shall we reach the goal we desire.
   • A company of those who “love him most”, dwelling in any place, would give a tone to the society around them.
   • We have enough of head-workers; now for heart-lovers.
   • Why should we not aim to be among the closest followers of our Lord, loving most, and living specially consecrated lives?

Experimental Remarks

A spiritual experience which is thoroughly flavored with a deep and bitter sense of sin is of great value to him that has had it. It is terrible in the drinking, but it is most wholesome in the affections, and in the whole of the after-life. Possibly much of the flimsy piety of the day arises from the ease with which men reach to peace and joy in these evangelistic days. We would not judge modern converts, but we certainly prefer that form of spiritual exercise which leads the soul by the way of Weeping cross, and makes it see its blackness before it assures it that it is “clean every whit.” Too many think lightly of sin, and therefore lightly of a Savior. He who has stood before his God, convicted, and condemned, with the rope about his neck, is the man to weep for joy when he is pardoned, to hate the evil which has been forgiven him, and to live to the honor of the Redeemer by whose blood he has been cleansed.

Many of the most eminent of the saints were, before Conversion, ringleaders in sin: instances will suggest themselves to all readers of church history. We naturally expect that a remarkable conversion should show itself by special fruits; we very properly doubt it if it does not. A virulent rebel, when he returns to his Lord, is bound to be valiant as well as loyal; for he remembers that he not only owes fealty to his Lord by nature, but he owes that life a second time to his Prince’s clemency. Those who were once far gone in sin ought always to be found in the thick of the battle against sin. Bold blasphemers ought to be enthusiasts for the honor of their Lord when they are washed from their iniquities. As they say reclaimed poachers make the best game-keepers, so should the greatest sinners be the raw material out of which the Lord’s transforming grace shall create great saints.

The Christian mentions a reminiscence of that saintly man, Mr. Penne-father. One day a member of his household knocked at the door of his study, and when at length it was opened, the good man was in tears. Being anxiously asked the cause, he replied, “My sins! my sins!” The sensitiveness of that holy soul, its quickened estimate of sin, its reverent conception of God’s righteousness, which the tearful exclamation manifested, commend his memory to our love and veneration. All who knew him loved him as a living manifestation of the seven beatitudes.

I have heard say that the depth of a Scotch loch corresponds with the height of the surrounding mountains. So deep your sense of obligation for pardoned sin, so high your love to him who has forgiven thee.—C.H.S.

Love to the Savior rises in the heart of a saved man in proportion to the sense which he entertains of his own sinfulness on the one hand, and of the mercy of God on the other. Thus the height of a saint’s love to the Lord is as the depths of his own humility: as this root strikes down unseen into the ground, that blossoming branch rises higher in the sky.—William Arnot.