A Practical Directory for Young Christian Females eBook

Harvey Newcomb
This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 308 pages of information about A Practical Directory for Young Christian Females.

A Practical Directory for Young Christian Females eBook

Harvey Newcomb
This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 308 pages of information about A Practical Directory for Young Christian Females.
thy might.”  And this was not, with the Psalmist, an occasional lively frame.  This soul-breaking longing was the habitual feeling of his heart; for he exercised it “at all times” And what was it that called forth these ardent longings?  Was it the personal benefits which he had received or expected to receive from God?  By no means.  After expressing an earnest desire to dwell in the house of the Lord, all the days of his life, he tells us why he wished to be there:  “to behold the beauty of the Lord, and to inquire in his temple.”  The object of his love was “the beauty of the Lord;” doubtless meaning his moral perfections.  Intimately connected with this was his desire to know the will of the Lord.  For this he wished to “inquire in his temple.”  And whenever the love of God is genuine, it will call forth the same desire.  The apostle John, whose very breath is love, says, “This is the love of God, that we keep his commandments.”  The child that loves his parents will delight in doing everything he can to please them.  But the child that cares for his parents only as he expects to be benefited by them, will always do as little as possible for them, and that little unwillingly.  So, in our relations with God.  The hypocrite may have a kind of love to him, because he thinks himself a peculiar object of divine favor, and because he still expects greater blessings.  But this does not lead him to delight in the commands of God.  He rather esteems them as a task.  His heart is not in the doing of them; and he is willing to make them as light as possible.  But, the real Christian delights in the law of God; and the chief source of his grief is, that he falls so far short of keeping it.

Again, if we love God, we shall love the image of God, wherever we find it.  “Every one that loveth him that begat, loveth him also that is begotten of him.”  Our love to Christians, if genuine, must arise from the resemblance which they bear to Christ; and not from the comfort which we enjoy in their society, nor because they appear friendly to us.  This hypocrites also feel.  If we really exercise that love, we shall be willing to make personal sacrifices for the benefit of our Christian brethren.  We are directed to love one another as Christ loved us.  And how did Christ love us?  So strong was his love that he laid down his life for us?  And the apostle John says, we ought, in imitation of him, “to lay down our lives for the brethren;” that is, if occasion require it.  Such is the strength of that love which we are required to exercise for our Christian brethren.  But, how can this exist in the heart, when we feel unwilling to make the least sacrifice of our own feelings or interests for their benefit?

Again; there is another kind of love required of us.  This is the love of compassion, which may be exercised even towards wicked men.  And what must be the extent of this love?  There can be but one standard.  We have the example of our Lord before us.  So intense was his love, that it led him to make every personal sacrifice of ease, comfort, and worldly good, for the benefit of the bodies and souls of men; yea, he laid down his life for them.  This is the kind of love which is required of us, and which was exercised by the apostles and early Christians.

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A Practical Directory for Young Christian Females from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.