We Should Love God by B. F. Merritt

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Aug 27, 1872

We Should Love God.

By B. F. Merritt

CONTEMPLATE Creation. God formed the earth, and beautifully adorned it. Graceful trees, with waving boughs, laden with flowers and fruit, formed the pleasant groves. Flowers of various hues decked the green carpet of the glade. Beautiful rivers rolled along, where sparkling stones and precious metals could be seen. The noble beasts, all gentle as a lamb, roamed about, while the merry songsters filled the sweet-scented air with music. How beautiful all must have appeared in the bright sunlight. Infinite wisdom had designed it, and omnipotent power had accomplished it. This delightful abode, the Father gave to man, and gave him dominion over all. How good a Father!

Contemplate Redemption. When man had forfeited all right to life and happiness, and justice demanded his everlasting destruction, God pitied him. “God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son,” the most exalted of the heavenly host, the one nearest the Father, “that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” “God commendeth his love toward us in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” Such wondrous love as this we cannot fully comprehend. When guilty man could not be saved and God’s justice maintained, he gives up his well beloved, that he may die for us. Herein is love, boundless love, manifested.

Think of God’s care. “He shall feed his flock like a shepherd, he shall gather the lambs with his arm, and carry them in his bosom.” “Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear him; for he knoweth our frame; he remembereth that we are dust.” The “hairs of your head are all numbered.” “Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? yea, they may forget, yet will I not forget thee.”

“When through the deep waters, I call thee to go, The rivers of sorrow shall not overflow; For I will be with thee, thy troubles to bless, And sanctify to thee thy deepest distress.”

Think that God always has done right. “The Lord is righteous in all his ways, and holy in all his works.” In all his dealings with the children of men, the strictest justice has been done. He never made a mistake. All that he ever did was right.

Men may not understand now why he has done certain things as he has, yet we are taught that the people of God shall participate in the Judgment, when all things will appear in their true light, and then it will be seen that God has been “righteous in all his ways.” When it is realized that infinite wisdom, infinite justice, and infinite love, have been manifested in all God’s ways, men will love him more.

Think how he has dealt with you. O child of God, have you not great reason to love your Father? How often he has quelled your fears; how often he has calmed your troubled breast! In him you have found a place of rest. He has been to you a Friend, a Benefactor, a Father, and at times you have realized that he was specially nigh.

Now if we love God we will love his holy word. I love to read a letter from my dear father, when away from home, so if I love God I will love to read his good book, which tells me of his character, his will, myself, and my Saviour, who died for me.

If I love God, I will love to pray. I love to go to my father’s house and talk to my kind father and mother. I love to be in their presence. So, if I love God, I will love to seek the place where he has said he will meet with me, and I with him can hold sweet communion. B. F. MERRITT.