“O Saviour, I have naught to plead,
In earth below or heaven above,
But just my own exceeding need,
And Thy exceeding love.
The need will soon be past and gone,
Exceeding great, but quickly o’er;
The love untold is all Thine Own,
And lasts for evermore.”
ACCORDING to John 3. the goodness of a most religious man, Nicodemus, the Pharisee, could not (without Christ) take him into the heavenly blessing. But when Christ is found, then neither human badness (as with the woman at Sychar’s well, John 4), nor human weakness (as with the impotent man at the Pool of Bethesda, afflicted for thirty-eight years), can keep any needy one out of the blessing (John 5).
Every true believer will be free to own with the writer― ‘What made me first seek Him as the sense of my badness; yet there could be no greater proof of His goodness than that He should seek a sinner like me. By the Spirit’s work in me I found that I was so bad I could not do without Him; and by the same Spirit I found that He was so good, He would not do without me! He left heaven to secure me, and this at a mighty cost to Himself.’
“Love moved Him to die,
On this I rely.
My Saviour has loved me,
Though I cannot tell why.
But this I can tell,
He loved me so well,
That He laid down His life,
To redeem me from hell.”
But since my first introduction to Him, I have found another reason for not doing without Him―a reason that deepens day by day as I go on. It is found in His Own personal perfections, and unchanging worth. His devoted love has formed a bond that nothing can sever. “Having loved His Own, which were in the world, He loved them to the end” (John 13:11Now before the feast of the passover, when Jesus knew that his hour was come that he should depart out of this world unto the Father, having loved his own which were in the world, he loved them unto the end. (John 13:1)).
“Lord, from such love I could not part,
Nor would’st Thou part with mine.”
GEO. C.