Church of England -- Sermons; Sermons, English -- 19th century
and I can trust him to do it. I can have faith in him, that he will make
me like himself, full of the Spirit of love, without which I shall be
only useless and miserable. And I trust him enough to be sure that, good
as he is, he cannot mean to leave me useless or miserable. So, by true
faith in Christ, the man comes to have Christ’s righteousness—that is, to
be loving as Christ was. He believes that Christ’s loving character is
perfect beauty; that he must be the Son of God, if his character be like
that. He believes that Christ can and will fill him with the same spirit
of love; and as he believes, so is it with him, and in him those words
are fulfilled, ‘Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God
dwelleth in him, and he in God;’ and that ‘If a man love me,’ says the
Lord, ‘I and my Father will come to him, and take up our abode with him.’
Those are wonderful words: but if you will recollect what I have just
said, you may understand a little of them. St. John puts the same thing
very simply, but very boldly. ‘God is Love,’ he says, ‘and he that
dwelleth in love, dwelleth in God, and God in him.’ Strange as it may
seem, it must be so if God be love. Let us thank God that it is true,
and keep in mind what awful and wonderful creatures we are, that God
should dwell in us; what blessed and glorious creatures we may become in
time, if we will only listen to the voice of God who speaks within our
hearts.
And what does that voice say? The old commandment, my friends, which was
from the beginning, ‘Love one another.’ Whatever thoughts or feeling in
your hearts contradict that; whatever tempts you to despise your
neighbour, to be angry with him, to suspect him, to fancy him shut out
from God’s love, that is not of God. No voice in our hearts is God’s
voice, but what says in some shape or other, ‘Love thy neighbour as
thyself. Care for him, bear with him long, and try to do him good.’
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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