Love to God the return of his Love to us – Charles Spurgeon

LOVE to God is like a great mountain. The majority of travelers view it from afar, or traverse the valley at its base: a few climb to a halting-place on one of its elevated spurs, whence they see a portion of its sublimities: here and there an adventurous traveler climbs a minor peak, and views glacier and alp at closer range; fewest of all are those who scale the topmost pinnacle and tread the virgin snow. So in the church of God. Every Christian abides under the shadow of divine love: a few enjoy and return that love to a remarkable degree: but there are few, in this age sadly few, who reach to seraphic love, who ascend into the hill of the Lord, to stand where the eagle’s eye has not seen, and walk the path which the lion’s whelp has never trodden, the high places of complete consecration and ardent self-consuming love. Now, mark you, it may be difficult to ascend so high, but there is one sure route, and only one, which the man must follow who would gain the sacred elevation. It is not the track of his works, nor the path of his own actions, but this, “We love him because he first loved us.”