Oh, how He longs to Gather

It is pathetic the number of people who are piously trying to make their poor human hearts love God! The Holy Spirit sheds abroad in my heart, not the power to love God, but the very nature of God; A saint is not a human being who is trying to be good, trying by effort and prayer and longing and obedience to attain as many saintly characteristics as possible; a saint  is a being who has been re-created. “If any man is in Christ, he is a new creation.” -Oswald Chambers, Biblical Psychology

After much deliberation, I think I have maybe understood a fraction of what Mr. Chambers is here saying. We do not love God by trying; it is through our knowledge of who He is and the understanding of what He has done for us that makes us love Him. Isn’t it 1 John 4:19- “We love [Him] because He first loved us,” and so it is our realization, and our dependence upon the fact, that grows in us a love for the Savior. If we just sit and twiddle our thumbs and pray that the love for God would move mightily in us I have a suspicion that God laughs. We have to seek His face. And if we seek His face with all our heart, He will come to us – He will rejoice and gather us like a hen gathers her chicks under her wings.

O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not! -Matthew 23:37