The Love of Christ Constrains — Alan Redpath

Welcome to our convention meeting. We're going to open with a familiar hymn, 187. Praise my soul, the King of Heaven, to his feet thy tribute bring. May we bring the tribute of our hearts in this time of worship.

Hymn 187. Let's unite our hearts in prayer.

Almighty God, our loving Heavenly Father, we thank you for this further opportunity to join with those in the family of God and to praise our God and Father. Father, we praise thee because thou art a great God and greatly to be praised.

We praise thee for all thy wondrous works. As we look round about us and see the splendor of this universe, thy handiwork, Lord, we rejoice. As we recognize afresh thy power and thy might. But we thank thee, Heavenly Father, that thou hast revealed thyself to us in the person of thy Son, Jesus Christ.

And we thank you there that we see love and compassion, mercy, long-suffering, patience and grace. O Heavenly Father, we thank thee that in Jesus we see the face of the living and the true God. We thank you that we see the full expression of thy love as we turn our thoughts to Calvary and see the Son of God who loved us and gave himself for us.

We thank thee for that work of atonement, recognizing that salvation is of the Lord. And through the perfect work of the cross, we are indeed, as the hymn has reminded us, ransomed, healed, restored and forgiven.

So we praise thee, Almighty God, for that wondrous work of redemption, for the wonder, the miracle of rebirth to be adopted by thy Spirit and brought into the family of God. This morning, Heavenly Father, we give thee worship as thy dearly loves the children and we come with a sense of need.

We long this morning to hear the Father's voice. We just pray, Heavenly Father, that thou prepare our hearts that by thy Spirit, Lord, thou would give to us a sense of expectancy, that thou would give us ears to hear, hearts to understand, and wills to respond, that everything might get down to thy praise, glory and honor, for Jesus' sake.

Amen. Good morning, everyone. Thank you very much. Let's sing a chorus together, shall we? Not in the book. We had it last evening. Thank you, God, for sending Jesus. Thank you, Jesus, that you can. Holy Spirit, won't you teach me more about his lovely name?

The New Creation in Christ

Open your New Testament to 2 Corinthians, chapter 5. 2 Corinthians 5, and we read some verses here, and then sing that chorus again as a prayer for our morning hour. 2 Corinthians 5, and we'll read from verse 10.

I'm reading from the Authorized Version. For we must all appear before the judgment feet of Christ, that everyone may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad.

Knowing therefore the terror of the Lord, we persuade men, that we are made manifest unto God, and our trust also are made manifest in your consciences. For we commend not ourselves again to you, but give you occasion to glory on our behalf, that you may have somewhat to answer them, which glory in appearance, and not in heart.

For whether we be beside ourselves, it is to God, or whether we be sober, it is for your cause, for the love of Christ constraineth us. Because we thus judge, that if one died for all, then were all dead, and that he died for all that they which live, should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them, and rose again.

Wherefore, henceforth know we no man after the flesh, yea, though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now henceforth know we him no more. Therefore, if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature, all things are passed away, behold, all things are become new, and all things are of God, who has reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ, and has given to us the ministry of reconciliation.

To wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them, and has committed unto us the word of reconciliation. Now then, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us.

We pray you, in Christ's stead, be ye reconciled to God, for he hath made him to be sin for us, he who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. This is the word of the Lord.

Shall we sing that chorus with bowed head and bowed heart before the Lord? Thank you God for sending Jesus. And prayer, be still and know that he is God. The smallest of meetings becomes the greatest, when we recognize the presence of the Lord Jesus, and that he has something to say to each one of us from his word.

Ask him to speak to your heart. Thank you dear Lord for all that you have been saying to us thus far this week, and we come to you this morning as hungry as ever, for if we hunger and thirst after righteousness, we shall be filled.

Therefore Lord, we trust you to fulfill that promise, to hide the messenger behind the Lord, that he may be the only one who shall matter. Help me to make much of you, Lord Jesus, to get the glory in each one of our lives today.

In Jesus' name, Amen. Now you have your New Testament open at 2 Corinthians chapter 5, I hope. 2 Corinthians chapter 5. Let me just read verse 17 to you, as it appears in the authorized version. Therefore, if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature.

Old things are passed away. Behold, all things are become new. Slight difference in the RSV or the NIV, both of which put it this way. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old is gone, the new has come.

That's Paul's definition of a Christian. That's one of the most dynamic and revealing definitions of a man or woman of God that you can find anywhere in the New Testament. If anyone, not the few people who decide to live their lives on a different standard from others, but if anyone is in Christ, that is, in whose life the miracle of the new birth has taken place, they've been born from above.

And like the branch is in the tree, the vine, and the vine, the tree, is in the soil, he's in Christ. And he's a new creation. New, as the real word is, not in the sense of buying a new coat or buying something new like that, but in the sense of being a totally different kind of person altogether.

I rather like the Living Bible paraphrase of it, which says, when anyone becomes a Christian, he becomes a brand new person inside. He's not the same anymore. A new life has begun. That's thrilling. Because at the moment of new birth, there's come to live within us a new life.

And because of that, we should be governed by a new principle, arrested by new motives, moving in new company, and surrendered to a new objective. This isn't a question of somebody reforming their lives and making them a bit more religious and trying to be good and getting some new things in place of some old ones.

Not changing a few practices, but if anyone is in Christ, he's a totally different kind of person. All things have passed away. All things have become new. Notice the contrast. If anyone, all things. The Holy Spirit isn't in us and hasn't come in order to produce a few super deluxe people who call themselves Christians, a few super deluxe people, and leaving the rest of us all third class.

But he's come, as Watchman Nee would say, to enable us to live a normal Christian life. And that prompts me to ask this question this morning to you. I've already been asking it to myself. What sort of a person am I?

If anyone is in Christ, he's a new creation, all right? What sort of people are we? If that's the New Testament definition of a Christian, how come that I am what I am? And in the light of some conditions that exist in Britain today, I believe that's one of the most significant questions we as Christians should face.

We claim to be in Christ and therefore have him in us. And therefore what kind of people are we? You notice that this verse begins with the word, therefore. And of course, whenever you have that word, you ask what it's there for.

It's the outcome of reasoning and argument, and in defining the terms of what a Christian really is, Paul comes to the conclusion, absolutely inevitable conclusion, that if this man is in Christ, he's a totally different kind of person, and there will be certain evidences and characteristics about him.

Going back to the context in a moment, look at verse 11. What we are is known to God, and I hope also known in your own consciences. In other words, there are some things about us because we're in Christ which are so self-evident that we don't have to argue for them.

They are clear to God, and I hope they're clear to you. But remember, as Paul goes on in his argument in verse 12, we're not commending ourselves to you, we're not boasting, but we are giving you reason to glory on our behalf, and to answer people who simply judge by outward appearances and profession instead of inward reality.

Then Paul begins to produce those evidences in support of his argument. If any man's in Christ, he's a totally different kind of person. What are the evidences? Well, there's one in verse 14. There is a fervor which is revealed through my life constantly.

The Love of Christ as a Constraining Power

The love of Jesus constrains me. I want to stay with that for a moment. The love of Jesus, not my love for him, but the love of Christ. How do I define that? However can anybody ever express what the love of Jesus is?

I don't know. It's too much for me. That love was eternal. It had no beginning, no ending. It was long before the foundation of the world. It was absolutely selfless. Our dear Lord had nothing to gain, had he?

By that stoop he took from the throne down to the manger, the love of Christ. Why, the highest place that heaven affords was his by sovereign right. But he besook it all, humbled himself, made himself nothing, of no reputation.

The love of Jesus that was so patient, that went on loving when he came to his own, even though they didn't love him and didn't receive him. And yet he loved them to the end. The love of Christ. They took him right to Calvary.

They bared his heart to the spear and the sword of the justice of God buried itself in his heart. The love of Jesus. They took him through all the shame and all the spitting and the despising. And as Paul sums it up in the last verse of this chapter, the love of Christ who was made sin for us.

I love the living Bible paraphrase of verse 21. God took the sinless Jesus and poured into him all our sins. And in exchange, he poured all God's goodness into us. Oh, I must say that again. God took the sinless Christ and poured into him all our sins.

And in exchange, he poured all God's goodness into us. If I really saw that in my heart, boy, it almost makes me want to hit the ceiling. That's the Christian life. Not self-improvement, but Christ's replacement.

Him instead of me, poured into Jesus all my sins. All of it poured into him. And in exchange, he poured all God's goodness into me. Did you know that the only good thing about you is Jesus? The only good thing about me is Jesus.

Thank the Lord I don't have to sweat it out and try and be better. Oh no, good not that long ago I was hopeless. But a great thing to take by faith every day the life of Jesus to live in me. That's Christian living.

And the Holy Spirit had shown this to Paul. And it wasn't any theory. He got something of the glory of the love of Christ in his heart. And it constrained him. Now this is something. That word constrained is difficult to translate into the English language from the original.

It has many meanings. It could be used for instance this way. The love of Jesus restrains us. Like the rein on a horse holds the animal back. Holds it in check. Keeps it on the right path. Turns it round to bend.

Paul says the love of Jesus has so brought hold of me. It keeps me back from doing the thing that otherwise I would do. And I'd be so ashamed. And it would so breathe the Lord. It's the love of Jesus that holds me in check.

Stops me from doing it. Another meaning would be of course the RSV has the love of Christ controls us. Or the NIV the love of Christ compels us. Or the love of Christ caresses me. I sometimes look up commentaries.

You know I have to confess to you that most of them seem to comment on everything except the thing I'm looking for. And sometimes this is very self assertive. I don't agree with what they're saying. But Jameson, Fawcett and Brown, their commentary upon this verse says,.

There is an irresistible object which has so controlled the life of the Christian that he lives with one objective in view to the elimination of any other possible consideration. Oh, I want to swallow that.

I digest it. Let me repeat it. There is an irresistible object which has so controlled the life of a Christian that he lives with one objective in view to the elimination of any other possible consideration.

Just like a river in flood is dammed up and restrained and then hemmed in, in order to be constrained and takes all its power and flows and bursts into the ocean. So the love of Christ holds me like that.

And that love makes it impossible for me to consider another alternative. If any man be in Christ, you see, he's a totally different kind of person. Something has gripped him and possessed him till everybody says he's a fool.

He's a fanatic. And even possibly some one or two might be saying to me this morning, You know, you're going too far. As a Christian life is lived by faith. All right. That's fine. But faith works by love.

And if my faith hasn't got hold of me, so that in some measure I'm gripped, like I've been describing by the love of Jesus, it isn't saving faith, no matter how orthodox it is. It's the ex-surgeon, I think, I'm right in saying, who said, If your faith does not drastically change your behavior, it will never change your destiny.

That means thinking through. If my faith doesn't revolutionize my behavior, it will never change my destiny. The love of Christ grips you. That's the fervor that's revealed in Paul's life. And after all, I would remind you, that people who count for anything in the world, whether good or bad, are people who are controlled by just one thing, one principle.

People who are something for a little while, and something else for longer, don't accomplish anything. They're rather like a jet stream that comes out of a plane and it just vanishes in a few seconds, meaningless.

But a man who's gripped by one principle is the reason why you have in history men like Caesar, Alexander, Napoleon, Stalin, Mussolini, Hitler, Khrushchev, all the rest of them, bad men, evil men, men of one passion, one principle.

But that's also why you have Hudson Taylor, John and Charles Wesley, Whitefield, Johnson, Finney, Leo Moody, C .D. Stout. I wouldn't venture to come into the present generation, but if I did, and was tactless enough to do so, I might speak of men like Billy Graham, men like George Bower, but I would have to speak of people like, oh, hundreds of them would come to my mind, one lady I think of, whom I went to see, a missionary with the Africa Inland Mission in Zaheer.

I went into her little wooden hut, talked with her. She was 72 years of age. She'd been there 40 years. Nobody knew her. She translated two or three languages, Zandi and others, the Bible, into those languages.

And I said to her, when do you expect to come on your next furlough? And she looked at me and she said, in heaven, the love of Christ. I stand beside a person like that and feel so ashamed. And Paul had looked into the heart of God, but the love of Jesus impelled him, constrained him, along one particular line, to the exclusion of any other attraction.

And somebody might say, oh, that must be awful bondage. The Christian must find that kind of life is terrible. Oh, no. That which consumed Paul's whole life and governed every principle of living seven days a week was so tremendous that nothing in any secondary consideration.

It is the love of God that impels me, he said, to will and to do His good pleasure. There's nothing can drag me from it. No rival. I'm the happiest man in the world. And some people might say, well, now that's terribly emotional, of course.

But is it emotion? The fervor? It was based not only that fervor that constrained, but was based on facts that thrilled him. Listen to them, verse 14. We thus judged with spirits and lights and minds and eyes that if one died for all, then we all died.

Paul rejoiced in this constraint, for that which gripped his life was not mere emotion, but that emotion was based on two tremendous facts that I must take a moment or two to share with you. The first fact was the fact of substitution.

Substitution and Identification with Christ

And the next one was the fact of identification. Bearing shame and scoffing root in my place condemned, he stood, sealed my pardon with his blood. Hallelujah, he's my savior. Substitution. He died for all.

He was wounded for our transgressions, bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement which procured our peace was laid upon him, Isaiah 53. The great fact of the substitutionary death of our Lord Jesus is, of course, basic.

When we accept it, it's that which lights the fire in our heart. It's that which causes the flame to begin to burn. But that's not the only fact. There is identification. He died for all, then the all died.

Now let me put this very simply to you, but let the fire begin to burn again in my heart and yours, as I think of it. Paul would tell us, as I see in the cross, that in my first birth, I was involved in a life of condemnation, a life of rejection, guilt, sin and judgment.

I was involved by my second birth in the Lord Jesus, in his life, a new life. And that life came into my heart by God's Holy Spirit. And that life, oh, it's already died. It's been to Calvary. And that life rose from the dead and ascended to heaven and received from the Father the right for us all to live.

And that life, which has been bearing shame and scoffing at me, has borne all my sin. That life, triumphs over death, rose to heaven. And that life has come back to live in me. The fact of identification.

In my second birth, I was involved in this new life, which has already died and risen from the dead. Therefore, I died in him and in him I was buried. I rose with him, ascended with him and blessed for all, today in 1986, my feet are on the ground, but my heart's in heaven.

And I have resurrection life there, living in me, day by day. I'm identified with him. Therefore, his victory is my victory. Yes. His triumph over temptation is mine. His resources are my resources. His grace is sufficient.

His strength has made perfect in weakness. Oh, yes. His patience, his love. I'm identified with him just as I was one with Adam by my first birth and one with Jesus in my second. Now, I'm not sure how many of us have really realised that.

I owe, under God, an awful lot to many people, none more than to Major Iain Thomas, who is principal, as you know, of Catenary Hall. Years and years ago, I don't know how many now, I have to work it out on the computer, I think it must be, I don't know, 86?

Gosh. Yes, well, I'll leave it at that. But, you know, in a little mission hall in the north of London, I was sweating away, trying to do something about it, and he was speaking and said to the congregation, there weren't more than a dozen there, what do you think God expects of you?

And I sort of wished I could get under the seat, because I was making such a mess of it, and my life was a complete failure. I'd been a Christian for some seven, eight years, but it didn't mean much. And I thought the whole thing was off-putting.

I couldn't get it. And when he said that, oh, I know, he was going to tell me, I ought to be some tremendous person, I know I will be that. And then he said, do you want to know? Nothing but failure. I picked up my ears and sat on my seat, and said, my, I'm a candidate.

What's he mean? He said, God expects of you nothing but failure, but he's given you the Holy Spirit that you need never fail. And that transformed my Christian life. What was the second blessing? Do I believe in the second?

Yes, of course I do, because I believe in the third. And a day without a blessing, a million of them. But there was a crisis when I realised it's no more I who live, but he who lives in me. And he is adequate for everything, I confess.

Stupid fellow. Here I've been a Christian for 50 years, I'm only in kindergarten, learning that. It takes years and years and years, a lifetime to learn it. Do you remember when Paul joined the club? And he had a thorn in the flesh.

And immediately when that thorn came, I'm not discussing what it was, personally I believe it was his lack of eyesight, because he said to the Galatian church, how gladly you'd have plucked your eyes out for me, which it isn't.

But when that thorn came, he says, three times I besought the Lord, take it away, Lord I can't go on, this is too much. And the answer from heaven, no, my grace is sufficient for you. My strength is made perfect in weakness.

Most gladly therefore would I glory in my infirmity that the power of Christ may rest on me. If you think that through and pray it through, I wonder if that's why you've been allowed to go through something that you would million times rather have shame from.

He's adequate, he's the opposite to all that I am, and it's simply stupid to narrow the gap between his holiness and my sinfulness. Try and make myself a bit more holy, polish myself up, make me a bit better.

So, that old nature of mine, I had no ability to overcome. Once with Paul, the things that I didn't want to do I did, and the things that I hated, well, those I did. I was poor, wretched, miserable, and in the flesh, in myself, I'm no different now, I won't be long before I'm 80.

Wonderful. I find heaven becomes more wonderful as I approach it. But the problem is getting there. Because you get weaker in yourself, more helpless, hopeless, and more completely cast on God for daily strength and daily enabling for everything.

That's wonderful when you learn to do it. But I have to realize that I could leave this service this morning and be capable in one minute of committing any sin you can imagine, but for the grace of God.

The only good thing about Alan Redspath of Jesus. Always wonderful to know that. Christian living doesn't improve your old nature, at least it isn't worse. It replaces that with Jesus. Hallelujah. Excuse me, I can't help getting excited.

The Plane's Ascent and the Law of the Spirit of Life

I'm going to tell you... Oh yes, I'm all right so far. Tell you a little story, which you know may have left you. You can go to sleep for a couple of minutes. Maybe you've been there already, I don't know.

But it comes to my mind because it's something that I'll never forget. Do you like flying? I don't. I've had too many incidents. I don't call them accidents, but incidents that make me very... I'm not scared, but I'm very careful when I get in a plane.

And some years ago now, doesn't matter how many, when I was at Caponry, I began traveling in various parts of the world in missions. And, of course, you have a British passport, so would I. Have you ever read the inside page of a British passport?

It's really quite fantastic. It's got word of something like this, Her Majesty's Principal Secretary of State requests a safe custody of the bearer of this document into whatever country he may wish to travel and that he may receive with every, you know, respect or something.

Well, that gets you to London Airport. And at that point, you have to have a visa. That's a wretched business. That means getting a photograph. And I know a place in Edinburgh, I was living there at the time, how I had been, where you can get a passport photo, 12 of them, for 50p.

I don't know if the place is still open, but it was then. So I went and got this, and you got in a little booth, you know, you sit in it, and you put your 50p in a slot, and out comes a dozen passport photos.

And then a very charming young lady comes and touches them up and rubs off whatever it is, and stamps it on the back, unfinished proof. And I took it home, I didn't bother to look at it. But when I got home, I got the shock of my life.

When I opened it, I thought, it's surely not as bad as that. Well, it was. It was terrible. And I saw on our piano the family photograph, which was taken in Chicago, had me looking like a film star, and I thought, that's really me.

And then, of course, my wife came into the room, and you know that a good wife always knows what her husband is thinking. And she looked over my shoulder and said, now dear, don't get any wrong ideas, that's really you.

Isn't it interesting that that photograph is called an unfinished proof? And Jesus is the one who always knows about the unfinished proof. Well, it was that photograph that got me eventually to travel for the first time into Africa, Ethiopia, and down to Johannesburg.

I had to come back then. I got into a plane at Joburg, a Boeing 747, British Airways, if you'll excuse my commercial. And I got into it. I don't know how many people it holds, but it was full. And I thought, there's too many people around here.

And didn't somebody tell me the other day that this thing weighs one and a half million pounds? You'd better get it off the ground with a weight like that. And I got in there and sat down, and a steward came and sat beside me.

So I thought I'd have a word with him. And I said, do you like flying this plane? He said, no, sir, not at all. I said, why? It's too often going wrong. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh. He said, yes, as a matter of fact, he said it was taken out of service two or three weeks ago through engine failure.

And again last week. And I said, thank you for telling me. So I looked at the cockpit and said, Lord bless him tonight. And we got along the runway, you know, and it began to rev up and all that. And then it began to go.

And I have a little watch here with a stopwatch on it, and it tells me the seconds. And I knew that a 747 jet, fully loaded with passengers and gas, takes 46 seconds to get off the ground. It might take a second or two more with wind speed.

And we went off and I checked it. And I saw my little watch going round. And at 35 seconds, suddenly it began to slow down. And I just held my breath. And then I tell you a roar, like I've never heard a plane roar in my life.

And it shook. The whole thing shook. And it went on and on. 40, 46, now a long way short of the required speed of take-off. 48, 50, 55, 58. Lord, how long is this runway? 58 and 60 and 62 seconds. And we made it.

Only just when I saw the lights at the end of the runway coming under. And we went up and up and up and up. And the plane was vibrating. I don't know how it didn't split in two. It was shaking terribly.

And no words from the captain. No smoking signs kept on. The statin seatbelts kept on, went on for half an hour. And then suddenly he came on the intercom. And he said, he had an awful Oxford accent. Good evening, ladies and gentlemen.

I'm sorry I have been so long in speaking to you, but I have to tell you some sad news. I have lost an engine. Now, what would you say to that? How would you react? I said, well, I said to myself, don't worry about that, old boy.

I'd gladly get up and jump and get it for you. But of course, that wasn't what he meant. He meant he'd lost the power of the thing. And he said, our next stop, our next stop is Nairobi. And with a full load of passengers and a full load of guests, I don't think we'll make it.

And so he said, with your permission, how unnecessary, with your permission, we'll return to Jo 'burg and we'll land you there and you'll be put on another plane and you'll make London that way. Well, we were, otherwise I wouldn't be here to tell you.

He made it, but you know, you may say some humour in that, but to me it's an amazing illustration of what the life of Jesus is. I'll tell you why. That plane moved along that runway, full blast, all the time controlled by the law of gravity, held to the ground.

At 35 seconds, an engine cut. Three engines are put on emergency power to make it. It was too late to return. And with three engines, it went on and on until at 62 seconds he had reached the required speed, about 150 knots, and he pulled the stick.

Excuse me, that's very amateurish language. But he turned the nose of the plane up into the air and immediately it's grabbed by another law that lifts it up, up, up, up, up and up, above the law of gravity, which still functions.

If we'd lost another engine, we'd have known that. It would have pulled us back. But that law of aerodynamics pulled it up and up and up to 30 ,000 feet. It was mastered by a new law. Get it? Oh, the law of the spirit of life in Christ has set me free from the law of sin and death.

There is now no condemnation. That makes me want to jump up and hit the roof. Free in Christ. Brother, sister, do you know anything about that inward pull of the life of Jesus? The constraining power that lifts you up above the thing of which you're ashamed and you hate, and Jesus pulls you up and you have victory in Christ.

Excuse me, but I couldn't help that. Finally. Though I do remember that Paul wrote to the church at Philippi and in chapter 3, verse 1, halfway through, he said, Finally, brethren. Says again in chapter 4, that this really is you'll be there for lunch.

Fellowship with Christ and One Another

Oh, but you see, I want you to understand the tremendous thing that happens as a result of that upward pull. Fellowship, there is, these are facts and they're absolutely constrained. But there's a fellowship that's recognized in daily life.

Look, he died for all, verse 15, 16. The thing which lives should not henceforth live unto themselves but unto him which died for them and rose again. Therefore, henceforth, know we no man after the flesh.

The RSV says, We regard no one from a human point of view. Though we have known Christ up that way, now henceforth know we him no more. Have you ever noticed the significance of that? A fellowship with heaven and a fellowship in the earth.

Vertical, horizontal, henceforth not living for themselves but unto him which died for them and rose again. The love of Jesus, oh dear friend, get it, and let me get it to you. The love of Jesus has been answered in my heart in which he has come to dwell by the love of Christ burning like a fire.

The holiness that is in me is responding to heaven. Love knows no limit to endurance, no end to its trust, no fading of its hope. It can outlast anything. It is the one thing that stands when everything else has fallen.

That's the love which the Spirit of God has begotten in my heart when I've been born again with a new nature in me capable of re-loving, echoing back love to heaven. It's expressed very beautifully by F .W. Faber.

Do you remember this hymn, one verse of it? Jesus, Jesus, dearest Lord, forgive me if I say for very love thy sacred name a thousand times a day. I love thee so I know not how my transport to control.

Thy love is like a burning fire within my very soul but burn, burn, oh love, within my heart. Burn fiercely night and day till all the dross of earthly care is burned and burned away. Oh Jesus, Jesus, sweetest Lord, who art thou not to me?

Each hour brings joy unknown, each day new liberty. Lord, do I know anything of that? Love which answers your love, deep that calls unto deep. In a life so cold, so barren, so dead, the Holy Spirit has come and killed the flame of sacred love.

It's not that my old nature loves God. It's absolutely incapable of doing that. If you sense the love of Jesus in your heart, if you sense the Holy Spirit pulling, pulling, pulling, the upward lift, it's not you, don't think you're getting better, don't think you're getting good, it's the Spirit of God in you echoing back the love in heaven that God has for us.