Love Christ with an "overtopping" love!

I recommend that you check out Steve Camp's blog on a regular basis. On "Theology Thursday" this week I offer you some of his meditations on the love of God and then in response our love for God, which one Puritan said should be a "superlative, overtopping love."

All of the law and prophets are contained in the two great commandments: "And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength." And the second is like unto it, "Love your neighbor as yourself" (Mark 12:30-31). To love the Lord with every fiber of our being is the great privilege and joy of every true believer in Christ. It is the primary motivation for our worship, service, obedience, and daily life with each other. As our brother John Piper says, "God is most glorified in us, when we are most satisfied in Him." That is genuine biblical love in action.

Love, though, is such a watered down and misunderstood word today--even in the church. We use the word love in such a casual way, even when referring to inanimate objects, that it seems to lose its very meaning if we fail to understand it biblically. Simply put, biblical love is not an emotion or feeling; it is not conditioned upon anther's response. True love, agape love--the love of God as demonstrated through Christ Jesus our Lord on the cross is four things: it is unmerited, undeserved, unfailing, self-sacrificial, and unreciprocated. In other words, He does not love us because we are lovable, lovely, or doing philanthropic acts of kindness lovingly. He loves us not because He finds good things in us to love, but because it is His divine self-pleasure and elective choice to do so (Ephesians 1:4-14). "God demonstrated His love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us" (Romans 5:8)

• His love is unmerited, because we cannot earn it... it is His grace gift to us in Christ Jesus on the cross.
• His love is undeserving, because in and of ourselves we are worthy only of His justice, enmity and wrath; worthy only to be sentenced to an eternal hell, a perditious suffering that knows no end, because of the sinfulness of our sin that has rendered all mankind by nature as "children of wrath" (Ephesians 2:1-2).
• His love for us is unfailing, "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written, 'For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.' No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord" (Romans 8:35-39).
• His love is self-sacrificial, for Christ gave His life as a ransom for many by paying once for all the ultimate price for our redemption from our sin. Think of it beloved, if Jesus had not fully satisfied God on the cross as a "propitiation for the sins of the people" (Hebrews 2:17) it would be impossible for God to love me or you.
• Lastly, His love is unreciprocated, for even an eternity of praise and worship to Him can never repay Him for His unfailing love.

I so appreciate the Puritans... they are my favorite body of authors for theology and practical Bible study. Even though much of the language they used seems by today's standards to be formal, flowery, and archaic, one thing is certain, the Puritans had a high view of God and His Word and loved Him truthfully, wholly and unashamedly. In reading and listening to their words we also will be brought to that same place of worship, love and awe of our holy God.

Thomas Brooks is one of my favorite Puritan writers and he has blessed us with a powerful remembrance of what it means to "love the Lord Jesus Christ." I have reprinted his words for you below with the hope that it will refresh and renew your hearts today to love the Lord Jesus Christ!

"Look that ye love the Lord Jesus Christ with a superlative love, with an overtopping love. There are none have suffered so much for you as Christ; there are none that can suffer so much for you as Christ. The least measure of that wrath that Christ hath sustained for you, would have broke the hearts, necks, and backs of all created beings.

O my friends! There is no love but a superlative love that is any ways suitable to the transcendent sufferings of dear Jesus. Oh, love him above your lusts, love him above your relations, love him above the world, love him above all your outward contentments and enjoyments, yea, love him above your very lives; for thus the patriarchs, prophets, apostles, saints, primitive Christians, and the martyrs of old, have loved our Lord Jesus Christ with an overtopping love: Rev. xii. 11, 'They loved not their lives unto the death;' that is, they slighted, contemned, yea, despised their lives, exposing them to hazard and loss, out of love to the Lamb, 'who had washed them in his blood.'

If you want to be inspired more here is Steve's post in its entirety.