Wednesday, March 11, 2009

Christ is our great love



Every one of us needs an object to love. I suppose there can hardly live on earth a man so monstrously selfish, that he can be perfectly wrapped up in himself, and care for no one. Some of the grossest villains who have ever defiled the name of manhood, have had one point in which they could he touched; their hearts have gone out after one dear object, it may be a little child, long dead, and yet the recollection of that little one sleeping beneath the turf has been a link to goodness. Many a hardened man has recollected his mother, and her name has touched his heart. We must love something, or some one. Man was not made to live alone, and therefore no man liveth unto himself. Our heart must flow like a river, or it corrupts like a stagnant pool. Some have great hearts, and they require a great object on which to spend their love. They love fondly and firmly, too fondly and too firmly for earthly love. These are they who suffer from broken hearts. They have so much love that when they set it upon an unworthy object they reap a proportionate degree of misery and disappointment.

Now let me say solemnly that no heart of a child of God will ever be satisfied with any object or person short of the Lord Jesus Christ. There is room for wife and children, there is room for friend and acquaintance, and all the more room in one’s heart because Christ is there, but neither wife, nor children nor friends, nor kinsfolk can ever fill the believer’s heart. He must have Christ Jesus, there is no rest for him elsewhere.

From a sermon entitled "The Dove's Return To The Ark," delivered July 2, 1865. Image by Mark Robinson under Creative Commons License.

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