Morning & Evening Devotional Reading–

August 7– Morning

 by C. H. Spurgeon, revised and edited by W. C. Neff

“The upright love you.”.” 

—Song of Solomon 1:4

Believers love Jesus with a deeper affection than they dare to give to any other being. They would sooner lose father and mother then part with Christ. They hold all earthly comforts with a loose hand, but they hold him tight to their chests. They voluntarily deny themselves for his sake, but they will not deny him.

It is a very weak love that can be dried up with the fire of persecution; the true believer’s love is a deeper stream than this. Men have tried to divide the faithful from their Master, but their attempts have been fruitless in every age. Neither crowns of honor nor frowns of anger have untied this more-than-Gordian knot.

The intensity of the love of the upright, however, is not so much to be judged by how it appears as by what the upright long for. We mourn each day that we cannot love enough. If only our hearts were capable of holding more and reaching further. Like Samuel Rutherford we sigh and cry, “Oh, for as much love as would go round about the earth and over the heaven of Heavens that I might love the beautiful Christ.” The fact is that our longest reach is but an inch of love, and our affection is but a drop in the bucket compared with what he deserves. Oh, if we could only give all the love in all hearts in one great mass– a gathering together of all loves to him who is altogether lovely! [M&E]