Thus saith the Lord God: I do not this for your sakes, O House of Israel,
but for mine holy name's sake-Ezek. 36:22.
The foundation of all God's love to us sinful men lies not in us, nor
anything about us, not in anything external to God Himself. He, and He
alone, is the cause and reason, the motive and the end, of His own love to
our world. And unless we have grasped that magnificent thought as the
foundation of all our acceptance in Him, I think we have not yet learned
half of the fullness which, even in this world, may belong to our
conceptions of the love of God-a love that has no motive but Himself; a love
that is not evoked even (if I may so say) by regard to His creatures' wants;
a love, therefore, which is eternal, being in that Divine heart before there
were creatures upon whom it could rest; a love that is its own guarantee,
its own cause-safe and firm, therefore, with all the firmness and serenity
of the Divine nature-incapable of being affected by our transgression,
deeper than all our sins, more ancient than our very existence, the very
essence and being of God Himself. "He frankly forgave them both" [Luke
7:42].
If you seek the source of Divine love, you must go high up into the
mountains of God, and learn that it, as all other of His (shall I say?)
emotions and feelings and resolutions and purposes owns no reason but
Himself, no motive but Himself; lies wrapped in the secret of His nature,
who is all-sufficient for His own blessedness, and all whose work and being
is caused by, and satisfied, and terminates in His own fullness. "God is
love" [1 John 4:8]; therefore, beneath all considerations of what we may
want-deeper and more blessed than all thoughts of a compassion that springs
from the feeling of human distress and the sight of man's misery-lies this
thought of an affection which does not need the presence of sorrow to evoke
it, which does not want the touch of our finger to flow out, but by its very
nature is everlasting, by its very nature is infinite, by its very nature
must be pouring out the flood of its own joyous fullness forever and ever
In Celebration of Life in Him,
Dr.Jim DeBruhl, gembeaux@bellsouth.net
