What is this love for God, and how define it? For myself, I never knew it until I was filled with it upon the hill. Many judge it to be a following of Christ and His wishes, but this is only a part of it and the way we begin it, and often we begin from duty, fear of future punishment, desire for salvation or spiritual pre-eminence, and obedience; and in none of these is there the joy of love.
By such standards I might count myself to have loved Him for twenty years; but know I did not. For ten years past I felt myself to have so great a need of Him, I sought Him so, that for me Heaven contained no re-met former earthly loves, much as I loved them here. I knew that He would be my all. Nevertheless, He was not yet my Love, but my Need.
Love is a fire, for we feel the great heat of it.
Love is a light, for we perceive the white glare of it.
Of things known, to what can we compare it? Most perhaps to electricity, for here we have both light and heat, and the lightning flash strikes that which already contains the most of itself (or electricity). And the lightning of God's love strikes him whose heart contains the most love for Himself. And He strikes when He will, and afterwards visits when He will; and I do not count myself (for all my earthly loves) to have so much as known the outer edge of the meaning of the word love, till He struck me with His own upon that hill.
Truly, fair and holy love is our warranty, our only pass for entering into Heaven.
Brave and wilful, rapturous and insistent, love passes with bold yet humble ecstasy into the very presence of her Lord and God; and alone, out of all creation, is never denied the Right of Way.
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I have seen it quoted, "Turn to the heights, turn to the deeps, turn within, turn without, everywhere thou shalt find the Cross." But I see it so: "Turn to the heights, turn to the deeps, turn within, turn without, everywhere thou shalt find His Love." Love to help on the way. Too much we might suppose, to hear pious people talk, that because of Christ's way we must be miserable and our life an endless Cross! And so life may be a cross, but He carries it for us.
Do sinful men never suffer? Do the sinful escape disease? and live for ever without biting the dust in death or disappointment? Why, disease and suffering are the very twin-children of sin. I am amazed that people can take such a view of the Cross as to think it an unhappy, miserable way. For so marvellous is the beauty of such love that there is no other so desirable a thing upon earth.