LEARN TO LOVE GOD FOR HIMSELF ALONE
By A. W. Tozer
We love him, because he first loved us. - - 1 John 4:19
The phrase, "the love of God," when used by Christians almost always refers to God's love for us. We must remember that it can also mean our love for God!
The first and great commandment is that we should love God with all the power of our total personality. Though all love originates in God
and is for that reason God's own love, yet we are permitted to catch
and reflect back that love in such manner that it becomes our love
indeed!
The Christian's love for God has by some religious thinkers been
divided into two kinds -- the love of gratitude and the love of
excellence. But we must carry our love to God further than love
of gratitude and love of excellence.
There is a place in the religious experience where we love God
or Himself alone, with never a thought of His benefits. There is,
in the higher type of love, a suprarational element that cannot
and does not attempt to give reasons for its existence-it only
whispers, "I love!"
In the perfection of love, the heart does not reason from admiration
to affection, but quickly rises to the height of blind adoration,
where reason is suspended and the heart worships in unreasoning
blessedness. It can only exclaim, "Holy, holy, holy," while scarcely
knowing what it means.
If this should all seem too mystical, too unreal, we offer no proof.
But some will read and recognize the description of the sunlit
peaks where they have been for at least brief periods and to
which they long often to return. And such will need no proof!
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Yours in Christ,
Paul N. F.