Many children have quite wrong thoughts of God; then they look at Him through these wrong thoughts, like the little boy in the following true story:—
“God loves us because we love Him!” wrote Bertie slowly and thoughtfully one day, and handed it to his teacher for his Sunday school text.
Dear little boy! what a wrong idea he had of God. He made his love to God the reason of God’s love to him. But where, you will say, did Bertie find such a text? Not in the Bible, I am glad to say; but, dear children, would you like to see for yourselves? Then get your Bibles, turn to the first Epistle of John, ch. 4, vs. 8, and read what is there—“God is love!” O! wonderful words spoken by, John, the disciple whom Jesus loved, and its true today as when they were written.
Children, it is well to know that this was always true; but it was not always made known.
“No man hath seen God at any time the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared Him:” that is, made Him known.
Now you can see the wrong of Bertie’s thought; for God loves little children, and Christ took them in His arms and blessed them (Mark 10:1616And he took them up in his arms, put his hands upon them, and blessed them. (Mark 10:16)).
“God so loved the world, that I He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, hut have everlasting life.”
There, we have true thoughts of God. It is in no way a question of our love to Him, but His love to us.
Listen, children, for it is God who is speaking to us again in His Word—
Now in this text the death in His Son is the proof of the love of God, and we know that God is fully satisfied with the work of His beloved Son on the Cross, because He raised Him from among the dead, and set Him at His own right hand in glory. Today Jesus is, as it were, the Door of entrance there, as we read in the gospel of John, ch. 10, vs. 9—
“I am ‘the Door: by Me if any man enter in, he shall be saved.”
Once again, dear children, we learn that God is love in these words,
O! how much God must love us to send its such a Saviour!
I am quite sure that Bertie, and every other little boy, and girl too, who comes to God the Father through this loving Saviour will no longer fear Him; but rather with joy they will say from their hearts, the words which a little girl wrote down and gave to me, “I love Him because He first loved me.” 1 John 4:1919We love him, because he first loved us. (1 John 4:19). Not as dear Bertie said— “God loves us because we love God.” Little reader, what do you say?
“How sweet is the story of God’s boundless love,
That brought His blest Son from the Glory above,
Who died in our stead upon Calvary’s tree,
Obtaining redemption that we might be free.”
ML 09/24/1939