“O Daniel, a man greatly beloved.”–Daniel 10:11.
It did not do Daniel any harm to know that he was greatly beloved of
God; or else he would not have received that information from heaven.
Some people are always afraid that, if Christian people obtain full
assurance, and receive a sweet sense of divine love, they will grow
proud, and be carried away with conceit. Do not you have any such fear
for other people, and especially do not be afraid of it for yourselves. I
know of no greater blessing that can happen to any man and woman
here, than to be assured by the Spirit of God that they are greatly beloved
of the Lord. Such knowledge might do some of us, who are Christians,
the greatest conceivable good. Daniel was not injured by knowing that he
was greatly beloved. It has often been said that Daniel is the John of the
Old Testament, and John is the Daniel of the New Testament. Those two
men, Daniel and John, were choice saints. They rose to the greatest
height of spiritual obedience, and then to the greatest height of spiritual
enjoyment.
The knowledge that they were greatly beloved of God, instead of doing
us harm, will be a means of blessings in many ways. If you know, my
dear brother, of a surety, that you are a man greatly beloved of God, you
will become very humble. You will say, “How could God ever love me?
‘What was there in me to merit esteem,
Or give the Creator delight?’”
I think a sense of God’s love is even more humbling than a sense of our
own sin. When the two are blended, they sink the soul very low, not in
depression of spirit, but in its estimate of itself.
A sense of God’s love will also excite in you great gratitude. “Oh!” you
will say, “how can I repay the Lord for such an amazing favor?” You
will be conscious that you never can repay him; but you will begin
working out all sorts of schemes and plans to try to show how much you
value the love of God. You will bring our your alabaster-box from its
hiding-place; you will willingly enough break it, and pour the precious
ointment upon the dear head of him who has loved you so greatly. I am
sure that a certainty of having the love of God shed abroad in the heart
by the Holy Ghost, is one of the greatest promoters of holy gratitude; and
holy gratitude is the mother of obedience. When we feel how much we
owe, then we seek to know the will of God, and take a delight in doing it.
Whatsoever he saith unto us, we are glad to do, as a proof that we really
are grateful for “love so amazing, so divine.”
This will also consecrate us. I believe that, to know certainly that you are
greatly beloved of God, will make you feel that you cannot live as others
do. You cannot trifle with sin. He who lives in the heart of the king must
be faithful to him. If called to stand in God’s immediate presence as a
courtier and a favorite, you must take care how you behave yourself,
and you will do so. “Ye are not your own; for ye are bought with a price:
therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s”
In proportion as we are sure of his love, our love to him will burn like
coals of juniper, which have a most vehement heat; and everything
contrary to the will of God will be consumed in that blessed flame.
A sense of divine love will also strengthen us. What is there that a man
cannot do when he is in love even with one of his own race; but when he
gets to be in love with God, and knows of a certainty that he is greatly
beloved of God, he would cut his way through a lane of devils, he would
face an army of angels, and defeat them all; for love is a conquering
grace. When faith is side by side with love, it–
“Laughs at impossibilities,
And says, ‘It shall be done;’”
and love goes and does it; for there is nothing which the love of God will
not enable us to do.
“This article originally appeared here at Bible Bulletin Board.”
