O hard heart, O blind eyes, O
poor dull sluggish soul, Susanna Spurgeon, free grace and dying
love, Not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent
His Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. 1 John 4.10. As the precious balm of Gilead,
these blessed words came into my dull and aching heart this
morning. Dear Lord, I thank you for them. You have taken them from your
own book, and spoken them to me with your living, loving voice,
and they have quickened me to love you. With shame and sorrow,
I had brought to you my hard and insensible heart. I could
only groan out my utter lack both of faith and feeling before
you. The very desire to love you seemed
to lie fettered and powerless within me, only an occasional
struggle revealing its bare existence. Then, Lord, while I knelt in
your presence, with bowed head and troubled spirit, tears and
sighs my only prayers, you whispered those sweet words in my ear,
and they brought light and liberty to my captive soul. Blessed be
your dear name for this glorious deliverance. It is not my poor
cold half-hearted love which is to satisfy and comfort me,
but your love, great and full and free, and as eternal as yourself. Surely I had known this before,
Lord, But I had shut myself up in unbelief, until, in your sweet
mercy, you spoke the word which released me from my bonds, opened
my prison doors, and led me out into the sunshine of true peace
in believing. Not that we loved God, Our dearest
Lord, you know how deeply, sadly true this was of me, and how
I mourn over the years spent without love to you, and at a
distance from you. O hard heart, O blind eyes, O
poor dull sluggish soul, which could see no beauty in the One,
who is altogether lovely. but that He loved us. Here is
a blessed contrast, the antidote for sin's sting, light after
darkness, hope after despair, life after death. Lord, my soul
flings itself on this glorious fact, this saving truth, as a
drowning man seizes upon a life-belt thrown to him in the surging
sea. If you do not love me and save
me, I must perish forever. But there is no question of sinking
when Jesus saves, no fear of losing life when He loves. O my Lord, How I thank you for
this precious word, upon which you have caused me to hope. Now,
all the day long, my heart shall sing over the safety and blessedness
of being freely loved, instead of fretting about the sad lack
of my poor love to you. Not that we loved God is darkness
and bitterness and eternal destruction, but that He loved us is light
and pardon, peace and everlasting life.