God is love, and whoever lives in love lives in union
with God and God lives in union with him.

We are ruled by the love of Christ, now that we recognize
that one man died for everyone, which means that all share in
his death. He died for all, so that those who live should no longer
live for themselves, but only for him…

If you love me, you will obey my commandments.

Love the Lord, all his faithful people. What else
have I in heaven but you? Since I have you, what else could I
want on earth? As a deer longs for a stream of cool water, so
I long for you, O God. I thirst for you, the living God.

You love him, although you have not seen him, and
you believe in him, although you do not now see him. So you rejoice
with a great and glorious joy which words cannot express.

May the Lord lead you into a greater understanding
of God’s love and the endurance that is given by Christ.

1 John 4:16b, 2 Corinthians 5:14,15, John 14:15,
Psalm 31:23, Psalm 73:25, Psalm 42:1-2a, 1 Peter 1:8, 1 Thessalonians
3:5 (all GNB).

…..

Evangelical Christianity invites people to ‘accept
Christ’ (a term, incidentally, not found in the Bible) but needs
more urgently to encourage them to love Christ. We are ushered
onto church committees, given jobs in the church services, and
are rarely asked ‘How are you and God?’ The great commandment
is still to love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind,
soul and strength… Rather than seeking religion – even the Christian
religion – we should be seeking God.

Believing in God is good, but the devils also believe,
and tremble. Being acquainted with God is good, but you can be
acquainted with someone without really loving them. When a little
girl said ‘God’s my best friend!’ she was uttering something that
is at the heart of true spirituality.

Brother Lawrence was a lame, clumsy man who went
to a monastery to atone somehow for his disabilities. He was put
to work washing floors and kitchen pots and pans. In the midst
of all this he ‘practised the presence of God.’ When he was dying
his friends asked what he was thinking about. He replied, ‘I am
doing what I shall do through all eternity – blessing God, praising
God, adoring God, giving him the love of my whole heart.’

The Bible suggests about seven tests to measure our
love for God. First, we love God by loving other persons. As an
old saint put it: you love God just as much, and no more, than
you love the person you love least. Second, Jesus said, you prove
your love for him by obeying him. Third, if you love someone you’ll
want to linger in their company. Sheila Cassidy in her Prayer
for Pilgrims says real prayer is not just spending time with God,
but wasting time with him. And real prayer is listening more than
talking.

Fourth, our words are an index of our loves: out
of the fullness of our hearts we speak. Fifth, to love someone
who’s absent is to keenly anticipate their return. Sixth, there’s
the test of idolatry. An idol is whatever you worship, whatever
you’ve committed your life to achieving, whatever you get excited
about, whatever turns you on.

Finally, there’s the ultimate test – martyrdom. What
are you prepared to die for? Jesus said you can’t have any greater
love than being willing to die for someone. The martyrs in the
Apocalypse did not cherish their own lives even in the face of
death (Revelation 12:11).

Charity, says the anonymous author of The Cloud of
Unknowing, ‘is nought else but love of God for himself above all
creatures.’

I love you, Lord, not doubtingly but with absolute
certainty. Your Word beat upon my heart until I fell in love with
you and now the universe and everything in it tells me to love
you… (Augustine).

…..

A century ago a hymn by John Newton was often sung
in the churches, the first stanza of which ran like this:

‘Tis a point I long to know, Oft it causes anxious
thought: Do I love the Lord, or no? Am I his, or am I not?

The gravest question any of us face is whether we
do or do not love the Lord… Our Lord told his disciples that
love and obedience were organically united, that the keeping of
his sayings would prove that we loved him, and the failure or
refusal to keep them would prove that we did not. This is the
true test of love… Not sweet emotions, not willingness to sacrifice,
not zeal, but obedience to the commandments of Christ. Love for
Christ is a love of willing as well as a love of feeling…

If we would turn from fine-spun theological speculations
about grace and faith, and humbly read the New Testament with
a mind to obey what we see there, we would easily find ourselves,
and know for certain the answer to the question that troubled
our fathers and should trouble us: Do we love the Lord or no?

A.W. Tozer, ‘Love’s Final Test’

Perceiving, as other mortals have not perceived,
the burning love of God, the saint gives God love for love. He
cannot help it. Certainly, it is not the fruit of labour. Having
seen the love of God, his own love leaps in response. His heart
is drawn out of him and lost in God’s immensity.

No mortal can love as God loves, but the saint loves
with all that there is of him… It is by love that the saint
becomes free – free of that awful self-centredness which is the
mark of most mortals… It is by love that we come to freedom,
and there is no other way.

W.E. Sangster, The Pure in Heart

He had always been governed by love, without selfish
views; and having resolved to make the love of God the end of
all his actions, he had found reasons to be well satisfied with
his method. He was pleased when he could take up a straw from
the ground for the love of God, seeking him only, and nothing
else, not even his gifts…

‘I did not engage in a religious life but for the
love of God, and I have endeavoured to act only for him; whatever
becomes of me, whether I be lost or saved, I will always continue
to act purely for the love of God. I shall have this good at least,
that till death I shall have done all that is in me to love him.’

Brother Lawrence, The Practice of the Presence of
God

O God, I love thee, I love thee – Not out of hope
of heaven for me Not fearing not to love and be In the everlasting
burning. Thou, thou, my Jesus, after me Didst reach thine arms
out dying, For my sake sufferedst nails and lance, Mocked and
marred countenance, Sorrows passing number, Sweat and care and
cumber, Yea and death, and this for me,

And thou couldst see me sinning: Then I, why should
not I love thee, Jesus, so much in love with me? Not for heaven’s
sake; not to be Out of hell by loving thee; Not for any gains
I see; But just the way that thou didst me I do love and I will
love thee: What must I love thee, Lord, for then? For being my
king and God. Amen.

Translated from the Latin by Gerard Manley Hopkins

[A fearful person said ‘I fear lest I should be cast
into hell.’ Another anxious person said ‘I dread lest I should
be deprived of the joy of heaven…] A third was very happy and
contented. [He was asked] ‘What is the secret of your joy and
peace?’ He said, ‘My constant prayer to God is that he may grant
me to love him with heart and soul, and may serve and worship
him by love alone. Should I worship him from fear of hell, may
I be cast into it. Should I serve him from desire of gaining heaven,
may he keep me out. But should I worship him from love alone,
may he reveal himself to me, that my whole heart may be filled
with his love and presence.’

Sadhu Sundar Singh, The Spiritual Life

‘…When thoughts come, welcome them, and when they
do not flow freely simply rest back and love, and grant Me the
shared joy of being loved by you. For I, too, by my very nature,
am hungry with an insatiable hunger for the love of all of you,
just as your love reaches out at your highest moments to all the
people about you. So child, I, even I, God, whom people have foolishly
feared and flattered for my gifts, I want love and friendship
more than I want grovelling subjects. So while we love each other,
child, My share is as keen as yours.’

Frank Laubach, Letters by a Modern Mystic

Thou knowest not what, saving that thou feelest in
thy will a naked intent unto God… this darkness and this cloud…
hindereth thee, so that thou mayest neither see him clearly by
light of understanding in thy reason, nor feel him in sweetness
of love in thy affection. And therefore shape thee to bide in
this darkness as long as thou mayest, evermore crying after him
whom thou lovest. For if ever thou shalt see him or feel him as
it may be here, it must always be in this cloud and in this darkness…
Smite upon that thick cloud of unknowing with a sharp dart of
longing love.

The Cloud of Unknowing

When the next step comes, you do not take the step,
you do not know the transition, you do not fall into anything.
You do not go anywhere, and so you do not know the way by which
you got there or the way by which you come back afterward. You
are certainly not lost. You do not fly. There is no space, or
there is all space: it makes no difference.

The next step is not a step… And here all adjectives
fall to pieces. Words become stupid. Everything you say is misleading
– unless you list every possible experience and say: ‘That is
not what it is.’ ‘That is not what I am talking about.’

What it is is freedom. It is perfect love. It is
pure renunciation. It is the fruition of God… It is freedom
living and circulating in God, who is Freedom. It is love loving
in Love. It is the purity of God rejoicing in his own liberty.

Thomas Merton, New Seeds of Contemplation

To the few who are converted, goodness is pleasant,
and needs no sanctions. It needs no authority, for it has been
verified by experience. But when people have to be coerced into
goodness it is plain that they do not care for it.

Walter Lippmann

‘Marvelously close, God, help me to keep thinking
of You all day today, as love crowding gently as the ether, warm
as the sunlight, into every nook and cranny of my thoughts, words,
looks, acts – love pressing in, and oozing out, floating like
perfume out to others.

O Love that wilt not let me go, I rest my weary soul
in Thee; I give thee back the life I owe, That in thine ocean
depths its flow May richer, fuller be.’

‘My child, this makes Me happy. Now let love flow
out to My world of needy people all about you. Despise not one
of the least. Do not see colour or clothes, just souls and My
children. Do not hear titles or languages, just hear Me speak
through them. I call from behind every eye, I float upon every
wave of speech and song and sigh. See Me in people, for I seek
to make them grow in Christlike love.’

Frank Laubach, Learning the Vocabulary of God

In Graham Greene’s novel, The Heart of the Matter,
Scobie is torn between love for his wife and his mistress, and
decides to commit suicide. Sitting in his car he holds a very
moving conversation with God, acknowledging that he is guilty
before God and that he can no longer face the altar. ‘You’ll be
better off when you lose me once and for all. You’ll be at peace
when I’m out of your reach,’ he tells God.

God replies… ‘You say you love me, yet you’ll do
this to Me – rob Me of you for ever. I made you with love. I’ve
wept your tears… and now you push me away, put me out of your
reach. I am as humble as any other beggar. Can’t you trust me
as you’d trust a faithful dog? I’ve been faithful to you for 2000
years… Can’t you trust me to see that the suffering isn’t too
great?’

Ivor Bailey, ‘Live and Let Love’

…..

I no longer want to build empires, to ascend thrones,
or to be number one in my little kingdom. I want to love you,
and to respond to your love for me by communicating such love
to others. This is what I want, O Lord, but you know my soft spots,
my hang-ups. May the victory be yours today, O Lord. In Jesus’
name. Amen

Leslie F. Brandt, A Book of Christian Prayer

I arise today Through God’s strength to pilot me:
God’s might to uphold me, God’s wisdom to guide me, God’s eye
to look before me, God’s ear to hear me, God’s word to speak for
me, God’s hand to guard me…

Christ with me, Christ before me, Christ behind me,
Christ in me, Christ beneath me, Christ above me, Christ on my
right, Christ on my left, Christ when I lie down, Christ when
I sit down, Christ when I arise. Christ in the heart of every
one who thinks of me, Christ in the mouth of every one who speaks
of me, Christ in every eye that sees me, Christ in every ear that
hears me.

I arise today Through a mighty strength, the invocation
of the Trinity.

St. Patrick

…..

Lord, I am your child. In some mysterious sense,
my Father, you are hungry for my love. Your love is mediated through
words and the Word, through sunsets and rain and the whispering
trees, soft shadows on the water. I was created for friendship
with you, my Creator. I was redeemed for friendship with you,
my Saviour. I am cared for, for friendship with you, my ever-present
Friend. Lord it’s not a self-improvement course I want, but you.

We taste thee, O thou living Bread, And long to feast
upon thee still. We drink of thee the fountainhead, And thirst
our souls from thee to fill.

I have tasted a little of your goodness, Lord, and
it has both satisfied me and made me hunger for more. My desire
is to desire you more. Give me a gift of love – for you and for
others. And to journey towards the final self- forgetfulness –
to be absorbed into you forever.

…..

Keep yourselves in the love of God, as you wait for
our Lord Jesus Christ in his mercy to give you eternal life. May
God’s grace be with all those who love our Lord Jesus Christ with
undying love.

…..

Augustine of Hippo, from the Confessions, tr. Sherwood
E. Wirt, Love Song, Harper and Row, in Decision, June 1971, p.8.

Ivor Bailey, ‘Live and Let Love’, a sermon preached
from Maughan Church, Adelaide, July 9, 1972.

Benediction: Jude 21, Ephesians 6:24 (both GNB).

Leslie F. Brandt, A Book of Christian Prayer, Kingsway,
1978 p.10.

The Cloud of Unknowing, quoted in Michael Cox, Handbook
of Christian Spirituality, Harper & Row, 1985, p.139.

Gerard Manley Hopkins,

Frank Laubach, Learning the Vocabulary of God: A
Spiritual Diary, Lutterworth, 1956, pp. 59-60.

Frank Laubach, Letters by a Modern Mystic, Lutterworth,
1957, p.30.

Brother Lawrence, The Practice of the Presence of
God: the best rule of a holy life, being conversations and letters
of Brother Lawrence, Epworth, nd., pp. 6-7.

Walter Lippmann, ‘A Preface to Morals’, Time, 1964,
p.188.

Thomas Merton, New Seeds of Contemplation, New Directions
Books, 1961, pp. 282-284.

St. Patrick’s Lorica, quoted in Frank Laubach, Learning
the Vocabulary of God: A Spiritual Diary, Lutterworth, 1956, p.42.

Sadhu Sundar Singh, The Spiritual Life, Christian
Literature Society, 1926/1986, pp. 13-14.

W.E. Sangster, The Pure in Heart, Epworth, 1954,
pp. 242-243.

A.W. Tozer, ‘Love’s Final Test’, The Life of Faith,
October 20, 1960.

Rowland Croucher