God of Love

“ It is my hope that the God of love, in the analogy of the spiritual order of things, may have kindled in our hearts his sacred fire, and will condescend to maintain and increase it in time and in eternity. ”

“ Those that dwell in love not only dwell in God, but do already dwell in heaven. As the perfection of love is the blessedness of heaven, so the sincerity of love is the earnest of that blessedness. Those that live in love and peace shall have the God of love and peace with them now, and they shall be with him shortly, with him for ever, in the world of endless love and peace. ”

“ This boy was loved by one who was capable with her witching loveliness of satisfying every desire, enthralling the imagination, rousing in the heart that passion which inspires the mind to regions where it throbs in harmony with the Divine, and touches—as might some dying desert-waif with his parched lips a cooling fountain—the very source of love itself. But the most of human love—how debased and debasing, how vile! God, for purposes of His own, links for mankind the Aphroditic passion to the love Divine. ”

“ Verily there is none other God but Me, the Almighty, the All-Wise. I can well inhale from thee the fragrance of My love and the sweet-smelling savour wafting from the raiment of My Name, the Most Holy, the Most Luminous. Be astir upon God’s Tree in conformity with thy pleasure and unloose thy tongue in praise of thy Lord amidst all mankind. Let not the things of the world grieve thee. ”

“ Where God the Son unveils his face,
And shows that Heaven is love.
Love that revolves through endless years—
Love that can never pall;
Love which excludes the gloom of fears,
Love to whom God is all! ”

“ She says to self over and over,
"God is love! God is love!
All is well."
And she wins a little oblivion,
Through saying "God is love,"
From the truth in her heart which cries:
"Love is life,
Love is a lover,
And love is God!" ”

“ Why is not the heart, that panteth over the world after love and friendship, overpowered with the full tide of the divine acts and expressions of love? Where is nature gone when she is not moved with the tender mercy of Christ? Methinks the affections of men are fallen into the yellow leaf. Of the poets which charm the world's ear, who is he that inditeth a song unto his God? Some will tune their harps to sensual pleasure, and by the enchantment of their genius well-nigh commend their unholy themes to the imagination of saints. ”

“ There only does it reach finest fruitage. Some day we shall recognize the meaning of that modest but tremendous little sentence,—God is love. This warm brooding something that comes, gentle as the dawning light in the grey east, fragrant as the dew of the new morning, irresistible in its pervasive persuasive presence as the rays of the growing sun, giving to us warmth, and life, and drawing out from within us warmth and life and beauty and strength, all in its own image, this is the thing called love. ”

“ It yet lives, and is, from under His own hand, above, around, beneath us; and by it we may understand that holy mystery—how God is Love, and Love is God-like. And we feel, and know, that never again to us from out the shade of the years, can ministers of grace or glad ideals come, except through such sweet enchantment. ”

“ I can believe that somewhere beyond the star-filled spaces, when this arc of mortal life merges into the perfect circle of eternity, there will be no barrier between you and me, because, if God is love, love must be God, and He has no limitations. ”

“ He shines with the glory reflected from the smile of a reconciled God; all the tints of heaven's rainbow glitter in his quivering wings, their motion is light, and their inscription is "joy." The fear of God leads us onward, the love of God bears us upward. ”

“ But remember, I beseech you, that this love of God is explained by our Apostle to be ‘in Christ Jesus our Lord.’ Love illimitable, all-pervasive, eternal; yes, but a love which has a channel and a course; love which has a method and a process by which it pours itself over the world. ”

“ But what is it that I love in loving thee? Not physical beauty, nor the splendor of time, nor the radiance of the light--so pleasant to our eyes--nor the sweet melodies of the various kinds of songs, nor the fragrant smell of flowers and ointments and spices; not manna and honey, not the limbs embraced in physical love--it is not these I love when I love my God. ”

“ I entreat the gods to bless and curse you with a heaven-storming, bliss-conferring and annihilating love, for that is all that is wanting to drive the last vestiges of humanity out of you, and make of you a demi-god with a halo of love-flames around your semi-divine head. ”

“ Holy love is a fire that begets a vehement heat in the soul, and consumes the dross and chaff that are in it, melts it down like wax into a new form, and carries it upwards as the sparks towards God and heaven. ”

“ Sacrifice everything to it, and love it with passion—not with the passion breathing with earthly desire, but a peaceful, heavenly passion. It cannot plant discord in the spirit, but ascends, like a resounding prayer, eternally to God. ”

“ So, if we plunge our hearts into that fountain of the love of Christ, as it flows it will clothe us with all the divine energies which are held in solution in the divinest thing in God—His own love. Plunged into the love we are filled with the fulness. ”

“ It draws the great God down into the small heart, it drives the hungry soul out to the full God, it brings together the two lovers, God and the soul, into a blissful place, where they speak much of love. ”

“ Thou shalt love him that loveth thee, and it sufficeth: more love will bring more strength. And, as soon as thou lovest him with all thy heart, thou shalt be perfect and entire, lacking nothing." Wait in peace for that hour, when the God of peace shall sanctify thee wholly, so that thy whole spirit and soul and body may be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ!" ”

“ As beloved of God, and as loving like God, He equally claims for Himself a place which none other can fill, and declares that the love which falls on us from His pierced and bleeding heart is really the love of God. ”

“ My holiness remains the light of Heaven and the Love of God. Is not what is beloved of You secure? Is not the light of Heaven infinite? Is not Your Son my true Identity, when You created everything that is? ”

“ In love has the Lord taken us to Himself. On account of the love He bore us, Jesus Christ our Lord gave His blood for us by the will of God; His flesh for our flesh, and His soul for our souls.
Chap. L.—Let us pray to be thought worthy of love.
Ye see, beloved, how great and wonderful a thing is love, and that there is no declaring its perfection. Who is fit to be found in it, except such as God has vouchsafed to render so? Let us pray, therefore, and implore of His mercy, that we may live blameless in love, free from all human partialities for one above another. ”

“ The only thing that can give a faint suggestion of the engrossing character of the divine hold upon His people is the first awakening of what we call romantic love in the youthful heart with its concentration of all the intensified impulses and forces and desires upon one object and its utter obliviousness to all other interests. This actually in some measure resembles the single-minded, world-forgetful affection we owe to God, and for that very reason is called worship. ”

“ It is Christ who first reveals the full measure of love, who makes us see the one adequate Object of love, and who {333} forges within our human spirits the invisible bonds of a love that binds us forever to Him who so loved us. Here in Him—"a Man loving all the world, a God dying for mankind" [37] —we see that we are infinitely beloved, that the foundations of an eternal Friendship are laid, that God is infinitely prone to love, and that true love spares nothing for the sake of what it loves—"O miraculous and eternal Godhead suffering on a Cross for me!" ”

“ AMID those fervent affections of love, such as the soul has shown in the preceding stanzas, the Beloved is wont to visit His bride, tenderly, lovingly, and with great strength of love; for ordinarily the graces and visits of God are great in proportion to the greatness of those fervors and longings of love which have gone before. And, as the soul has so anxiously longed for the divine eyes — as in the foregoing stanza — the Beloved reveals to it some glimpses of His majesty and Godhead, according to its desires. ”

“ And those souls whose inner being is lit by the love of God are even as spreading rays of light, and they shine out like stars of holiness in a pure and crystalline sky. For true love, real love, is the love for God, and this is sanctified beyond the notions and imaginings of men.
Let God’s beloved, each and every one, be the essence of purity, the very life of holiness, so that in every country they may become famed for their sanctity, independence of spirit, and meekness. ”

“ And, above all, He is that revelation in the supreme act of love and sacrifice upon the Cross. “In this have we come to know what love is, because He laid down His life for us.” We have come to know love, in its supreme manifestation of itself, for ever the test, the standard of all true love; and in coming to know love, we have necessarily come to know God. ”

“ Nothing but the love of Christ and the desire of His sweetness can lead us thus to feel, to comprehend and experience the presence of His Divinity.
The power of love alone is able to lift up the soul from earth to the heights of Heaven, nor is it possible to ascend to eternal beatitude except on the wings of love and desire. ”

“ If this is allegory, it is also close to literal truth. “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.” Is not love the better part of marriage? And how if the Lord thy God has been a gracious loving figure here on earth, who loved thee humanly as well as divinely, and died for thee at last? Will not the complete love required by the commandment become very ardent, very heart-filling? ”

“ I know, says he, that I did not make myself love God, by which he means a feeling of love; and this he takes to be true holiness, which has been wrought in his heart by the power of God. “Love is the fulfilling of the law; but love to God is not shed abroad in our hearts by the law, but by the Holy Ghost.” ”

“ Yea, all the passions or affections, all the appetites, and motions of the heart, being made most perfectly conformable to the motions and affections of the divine mind, partook of this conformity of the will of man to that of God. As, therefore, God is love, so all the affections and motions of man, in his first state, breathed nothing but pure love. As God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, are one in an unspeakable and eternal bond of love ”

“ And my will went forth from itself, becoming Divine; for, being united with Divine love, it no longer loves with its natural strength after a lowly manner, but with strength and purity from the Holy Spirit; and thus the will, which is now near to God, acts not after a human manner, and similarly the memory has become transformed into eternal apprehensions of glory. And finally, by means of this night and purgation of the old man, all the energies and affections of the soul are wholly renewed into a Divine temper and Divine delight. ”

“ Thou wouldst draw us to Thyself and Thy Heart forever, and make us eternally happy with Thy divine love. May the angels and saints, who already enjoy the unending bliss of possessing Thee, love Thee for us, thank Thee for us evermore. Out of nothingness Thou didst raise the world of angels to Thy throne into eternal happiness. ”

“ The immense stream of love that is now rising up to the God of men’s faith will bend to earth again and flow lovingly among all those beautiful human virtues with which we have endowed and embellished the godhead in order to make it worthy of our love. ”

“ Let every soul from sin awake,
Each in his heart sweet music make,
And sing with us for Jesus' sake,
For God is love.
REF.--God is love,
God is love.
Come, let us all unite to sing
That God is love.
2 Oh, tell us to earth's remotest bound,
God is love;
In Christ we have redemption found,
God is love ”

“ Whoever extolleth him as a God of love, doth not think highly enough of love itself. Did not that God want also to be judge? But the loving one loveth irrespective of reward and requital. ”

“ They seemed to love one another as—I hesitate to say passionately, for passion has in it always a shade of sadness, a touch of bitterness or anguish, but as whole heartedly, as simply and naturally as on that first day on which, meeting, they had recognised that a god was in them. ”

“ What is love in its lofty and purest forms, even as we see them here on earth; what is love except the infinite longing to bestow one's self? And when we proclaim that which is the summit and climax of the revelation of our Father in the person of His Son, and say with the last utterances of Scripture that 'God is love,' we do in other words proclaim that the very nature and deepest desire and purpose of the divine heart is to pour itself on the [Pg 173] emptiness and need of His lowly creatures in floods that keep back nothing. ”

“ When the divine love has wrought us to the same image, to the love of God, and thereupon to the love of the brethren, the children of God, for his sake, it is therein and so far perfected and completed, though this love of ours is not at present perfect, nor the ultimate end of the divine love to us. ”

“ But, properly speaking, only the god is changed - the deus; love has remained: there love to the superhuman God, here love to the human God, to homo as Deus. Therefore man is to me - sacred. And everything "truly human" is to me - sacred! "Marriage is sacred of itself. ”

“ Sin has blinded us, and kept us from knowing the way home into the love of God, and into the endurance of Christ. Still more, sin has biassed our hearts, and kept us from going along the way. Thus we need nothing short of a Divine direction. If the Lord does not make straight our way home we never shall arrive there.
How does our Lord direct our hearts? First, by constant and ever-increasing experience of His love. “God is love,” and as it is of the essence of love to communicate itself, God is ever revealing to our hearts and bestowing upon them His own Divine love. ”