To be near unto God - pagina 205

the love of God has come first, and that with all our imperfections and shortcomings it has been our deepest desire and will to have God's love be our supremest inspiration, and that it has prepared us for what is highest and best. And this is the mystery of being a Christian, that as we hide ourselves in the perfect love wherewith Jesus has loved God, through the glow of his love for God, we feel the spark of our love for God burn in our own heart, and that, when it goes out, Jesus kindles it again. 38

"WITH ALL THINE HEART." Underneath,

deeper than the heart, lives searches a person he tries not merely the heart, but enters still more deeply

the soul.

still

When God

his being. The Scripture expresses this plastically by saying that after God has tried the heart he also trieth the reins (Jer. 11:20) in order to examine us in our inmost parts. In moments of extreme tension it is felt, even among

into

but that we must to the marrow of our inmost self. see it in the case of Jonathan. When David had sworn that he would always be faithful to him and to his house, Jonathan, deeply moved, replied: "Whatsoever thy soul desireth, I will even do it for thee" (I Sam. 20:4). In all seriousness the only element of worth in the heart is that which comes into it from the soul, and passes through it to the soul. What goes on outside of the soul may indeed be very attractive. It is less captivating when only the

us, that the heart is not yet all,

reach

down

We

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