Yes, he is altogether lovely.
By Octavius Winslow. Song of Songs Chapter 5 Verse
16 Yes, he is altogether lovely, this is my beloved, and this
is my friend. You will never see the pure loveliness
of Jesus until you see your own sinful deformity. Never will
you be enamoured with his love, until you cease to admire and
love yourself. And with Job are brought to exclaim,
I have heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees
you. Therefore I abhor myself, and
repent in dust and ashes. Then, and not until then, will
the King unveil his peerless beauty to your eye. In the person
of his incarnate Son, God presents to your gaze the divinest, the
greatest, the loveliest being in the universe. There is a loveliness
in the love of Jesus which no author can describe, nor artist
portray. A mother's love, how self-sacrificing! A father's love, how fond! A
sister's love, how pure! Marital love, how deep! But all
human love pales and chills before the beauty of Christ's matchless
love. Romans 5.8 God demonstrates His
own love for us in this. While we were still sinners,
Christ died for us. For the great love with which
He loved us, He relinquished heaven for earth, he exchanged
a crown for a cross, and the adoration and anthems of angels
for the wrath and execrations of men. O King of Righteousness,
was ever love so lovely, ever love so intense, ever love so
self-sacrificing as yours? Let the beauty and attraction
of your incomparable love win and bind my heart yet closer
to you forever. In proportion to our clearness
of sight of the beauty of Christ, the closer will be our assimilation
to Him. The more we see Him, the more
we shall admire Him. The more we admire Him, the more
we shall love Him. The more we love Him, the more
we shall seek to imitate and serve Him. The outline may be
imperfect, the reflection faint, the frame which holds the picture
crude and fragile. Nevertheless, it is a resemblance
to Jesus. God recognizes and acknowledges
it, and the Spirit, the divine artist, shall receive endless
glory and praise. 1 John 3 1-3 How great is the
love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called
children of God, and that is what we are. Dear friends, now
we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made
known. But we know that when He appears,
we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is. Everyone
who has this hope in Him purifies himself, just as He is pure. Ephesians 3.18-19 May you have
the power to understand, as all God's people should, how wide,
how long, how high, and how deep His love is. May you experience
the love of Christ, though it is too great to understand fully,