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The Love of God

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Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Apr 6, 1869

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 33, No. 15.

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The Love of God.

By JOS. CLARKE.

Nothing is more desirable in the universe of God, than to gain the affection and love of our Creator.
To a little child, what is there so satisfying and sweet as the love of its parents? and what is so terrible to the little one as the withdrawal of a parent's love and favor? So with the child of God. Without the evidence within of God's love and favor, life becomes a dreary desert.
To live so as to have the continued evidence within of acceptance and favor with our Heavenly Father, is the great object and motive of life, that is, to him who sets a proper value upon the favor and love of God.
How then shall we best exert ourselves, that we may obtain this great, this priceless favor—the love of God?
It has been truly said by a great and good man, that “you might as easily kindle a fire in the midst of the ocean, as to cause the love of God to glow in the heart of the wicked man.”
The Scriptures tell us that the thought of wickedness is sin; and it is clear from Scripture that God will have no fellowship with evil. On this ground it is clear that wickedness is the great cause of the withdrawal of the love of God from the human heart.
To obtain his love we see at once it becomes indispensably necessary to expel evil from the heart; not merely its manifestation, but its very existence in the heart; for as the love of God must exist in the heart previous to any outward manifestation of the same, so the love of sin exists previous to its outward manifestations; and before God's love can be permanently located in the heart, the very love of sin must be uprooted to make room for it. How to uproot this love of sin we refer the reader to a prayerful and candid study of God's word, and hope he will subject his own heart most unsparingly to its tests. JOS. CLARKE.