Heavenly Object

It is by having the Lord Jesus in glory before us as the Object of or souls in everything practically, which alone gives us power of truth. The moment we have anything of our own as an object, so far we slip aside, and there is that which is not the full truth; for He alone is the truth, and He alone gives us the truth in perfect love. Hence it is only in proportion as we are filled with Him, and have Him to the exclusion of all our own evil, that we ourselves walk in the truth. Let us have our hearts fixed on any one thing or person save the Lord Jesus, evil slips out, and it is good for us to know and own this.

We begin upon a redemption accomplished by the Lord Jesus, which has brought us into the very presence of the Father, and which calls upon us to walk to walk according to the grace which has brought us there, and which maintains us there. We may not yet realize it, but we are done with ourselves by virtue of the work of the Savior; we are brought nigh to the Father, brought to be at home with Him, and from that position we are called upon to take up everything here that becomes us below. It is not only that the Father will have us conformed to His Son by and by, but that is what He has in view now. The child does not remain always a child, but becomes and adult: and so should it be with us; He would have us grow.

This then is the object of the gifts of Christ, He is bent upon blessing souls even now in the world, and that is the object of all ministry. It is not something left for our thoughts and arrangements, but it is all in the hands of the Lord. It is He who loves His saints, who will bless them; and who makes His individual servants, that have to do with the saints, to be immediately connected with Himself, and to have His objects before their eyes in that which they have to discharge to Him and not to them. For as soon as the Church becomes the great object before the soul, the blessing is of a lower character altogether, inferior in all its spiritual lineaments. There may be right feelings toward one another, but there is that which is much higher than loving one’s brethren, divine though it be; and if you know nothing above brotherly love as the object, you will not really walk in love.

One of the main things we have to guard against is Satan’s endeavoring to persuade people that, because “God is love,” therefore love is God. But it is not so. If I say that God is love, I bring out what He is in the active energy of His holy nature. But this is not all that God is. He is light as much as He is love; and I must own His love without the denial of His light. What is the first effect of His breaking in upon a sinner: It is that of making nothing of him. Is not this Love? Yes, but it is God’s love that deals with me in the truth and light of what He is, and of what the sinner’s awful condition is. So the effect produced on the heart of him that is renewed is not merely faith in the Savior, but repentance toward God; it is the judgment of his whole moral condition in His sight.

This is connected with the Father’s dealings with the soul in the growth process. Where there is the healthful action of a saint in the presence of the Father, the room will not be less full of divine love, yet there will be the maintenance of the holiness and majesty of God. We would not wish to be spared pain for the purpose of slipping through at God’s expense. There never has been one trial of heart gone through with the Father by which we have not been blessed. We might have the blessing in a still fuller way without so much failure on our part. But supposing we do not lay hold of the Lord Jesus so as to be lifted above ourselves, then we must learn painfully what we are. But our Father turns it all for blessing. He has brought us into His blessed presence. Hence we are in the Lore Jesus before God, and God is dwelling in us. The one is our great privilege, the other is our solemn responsibility, which flows from the fact that the Father Himself has made us His dwelling-place.

- Wm Kelly

Devotional by Miles J Stanford: http://www.abideabove.com/hungry-heart/

 

Hi U - Thanks for your input! I believe the article is referencing God's love (agapao), which is not the same as man's love (phileo), thus the latter love is not of God but of natural man.

A good example is when Jesus asked Peter 3 times if he loved (agapao) Him. The first two were agapao and the third was phileo. Hence Christ was asking Peter if he loved Him with a godly love, which comes only from God, and the third time Peter said he phileo Him.

The love of God could not come through man until the Spirit was in him to work it through him towards others. All of the usages of "love" in 1John 4:20 are agapao. It requires God and His love in and through the believer to claim he agapao his brother, thus agapao God, as you've indicated.[/QUOTE]

Blessings!