[Faith-talk] Good Night Message for Wednesday, February 20, 2013

[Paul]

Well folks, here in the Americas Wednesday is slowly winding down, although you on the West Coast have about six hours to go, as this is being written, whereas you in other parts of the world are already in your Thursdays.  I hope and pray that, by God's matchless grace and His providential care, that your day is going well or went well.

Joel H. Darby, writing several years ago for the Gospel Tract Society Inc., wrote an article entitled "Someone Is In Love With You!," rendered as follows:

Christian friend, did you ever really fall in love? If you have ever been in love with someone, you have had an unforgettable experience, even if you "loved and lost."

Remember the joy of anticipation whenever you had the opportunity of looking forward to even a little time with your beloved? Remember the yearning of your heart to be reunited when circumstances kept you apart? How could you forget it if you ever experienced the "real thing!" Well, let me remind you of perhaps the most glorious fact in all the universe:  Someone, yes, the most wonderful Person who ever lived, is feeling that way right now about you!

This is said, assuming that you are most probably in the condition of 99% of the folks who have known what it is to be born into the family of God through the "New Birth" of which Jesus spoke in the third chapter of John and for whom He later said concerning His admonition to "abide in Me as a branch abideth in the vine":  "These things have I spoken unto you that My joy might remain in you and that your joy might be full."

Is your joy continuously FULL these days in Him, Christian friend? Are you growing in your Christian life spiritually till you can honestly sing "Sweeter As the Days Go By?" Not many Christians are, you know, so very many things get in the way of this kind of abiding.  Some of us get so busy serving the God we love, we have no time to love the God we serve! Some of us are so busy, we only dimly realize how far from that first fervent love we have drifted.  But HE does! I believe the most thrilling contemplation I have in my Christian life is to realize that, in spite of all the maze of complications into which I may have allowed myself to become involved, in spite of the trials and difficulties I may be going through, there is my Beloved, waiting, yearning, doing His best to draw me into His comforting arms and forgive me as soon as I ask him to, for my fussing, doubting, complaining, or anything else that has temporarily dimmed with the joy of His presence.  Oh, what a privilege to have a Friend like that! To know that He loves me with an everlasting love that never dims and to realize the fantastic truth that he yearns for me and for my reciprocated love!

Dear Christian friend, never forget for a moment that His love is the most precious asset you will ever have.  The most precious that anybody ever had.  And remember, do remember, that a love like His carries with it (for Him) a great ache of heart when it is even temporarily separated from the object of its affection.  Just think of it.  Every moment that you are not reciprocating His love fervently, joyously, gladly and eagerly is a moment in which you causing His great heart to ache, for He loves you like that.  Yes, always remember that the only thing in all the universe that will satisfy any lover is reciprocated love from the object of His affection, freely returned in like manner and intensity with which it is given.  And nobody ever loved you as He loves you.  Why, He loved you thousands of years before you were born! Yes, we can give you multiple references from His precious Word that He knew way back in the eons of eternity past (before He even made the world to put you in) that you would misuse your freedom of choice and fall into sin, hopelessly lost without a Savior.  And way back there, the plans were made with the Father to come and rescue you out of your misery, to save you from the awful fate sin would have brought to you if He had not come to be your Substitute and died in your place.  Why did the Father, to Whom the Son was so precious that He was "daily His delight," permit Him to suffer like that for you? Just because He did love Him So! Like any good father, He wanted His beloved Son to have a bride that would truly satisfy His heart with real, fervent, reciprocated love! Don't rob Him of that.

And there you have it for today.  I hope that you learned something about that four-letter word called "love" that you didn't realize previously.  I sure did.

And now may the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob just keep us safe, individually and collectively, throughout this night or day and especially in these last days in which we live.  Your Christian friend and brother, Paul