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THE K I N G ’S BUS I NES S
He kept the law of love, and we are in Him, and His righteousness is ful filled in us, Love is manifested by deeds. God’s love is so manifested. Our love for God will be manifested in our obedi ence to His law of love ; the surrender of our wills to His Holy will; making Him the supreme object' of our lives. We can give Him pleasure; we can fill His heart with joy; we can prove to th e .world our love for Him by our devotion to His interests. To love God with all our hearts is possible, because He commands it and His commandments are not grievous. When the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit, it will be easy to love God. As we know Him better through His Son who is our Saviour, we cannot help loving Him bet ter. We should, therefore, read His Word which reveals Himself to us; we should seek His companionship and fel lowship, so that we may grow into Him. (3) MAN’S RELATION TO MAN. “And thy neighbor as thyself.” This is as impossible for the natural man as is the first clause of the com mandment, yet it is as obligatory. But to the new man it is possible. When the law of God Is operative in the life of a believer there is the most beau tiful blending of law and love. God’s law is the expression of His life, and the inner spirit of law is love. “Love worketh no ill.”,;, The nature of man is selfish. The central force is toward himself. Love of self leads to all known crimes. We are to “owe no man anything but love” (Rom. 1:14). Love is a debt which every Christian owes to his fellow men, and one which he can pay—one hun dred cents on the dollar—if he will. * The Christian is under the sway of a new law. The centripetal force Of his being is love, for God, and thé cen trifugal force is love for his fellows.
bred in the soul of man through the love which proceeds from the heart of God. Love is never coerced. It is -won. God wins men’s love by His revelation of Himself. “The heavens declare His glory, and the firmament showeth His handiwork.” God revealed His love foi Israel by choosing them above all peo ple, and by His manifest grace and pa tience with them, but the full mani festation of God’s love was shown in the crucifixion of His Son. There were and are many manners and methods' by which men can be con strained to, believe in God’s goodness for them. The provision He has made for them through nature; His benefi cent laws. He had given to Israel pe culiar proof of His favor in His effort to win their love. Hear His sorrow ful cry in the last days of His min istry, (Matt. 23:37): “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would 1 have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wing, and ye would not I” And to both Israel and to ' a lost world He has manifested the fullness of His love by His death upon the cross (John 15:13): “Greater love hath, no man than this that a man lay down his life for his friends.“ The love of God is not only sacri ficial, -but a holy love. God is the Creator; we are His creatures. He is infinite; we are finite. He is worthy of our worship, our praise, our lové, our devotion. The demand of the Great Commandment is impossible of fulfill ment for the natural man. (Rom. 8:7, 8.) “Because the carnal mind is enm ity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God.“ Therefore, Jesus, our Savior, came to fulfill the law for us. (Rom. 8:3, 4.) “For what the law could not do, in tthat it was weak- through the flesh, God sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh ; That the righteousness of the law m ight he fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.“
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