If you turn to the Revised Version of the First Epistle of John you
will find these words: "We love because he first loved us." "We love,"
not "We love him." That is the way the old version has it, and it is
quite wrong. "We love--because he first loved us." Look at that word
"because." It is the cause of which I have spoken. "Because he first
loved us," the effect follows that we love, we love Him, we love
all men. We can not help it. Because He loved us, we love, we love
everybody. Our heart is slowly changed. Contemplate the love of
Christ, and you will love. Stand before that mirror, reflect Christ's
character, and you will be changed into the same image from tenderness
to tenderness. There is no other way. You can not love to order. You
can only look at the lovely object, and fall in love with it, and
grow into likeness to it. And so look at this perfect character, this
perfect life. Look at the great sacrifice as He laid down Himself, all
through life, and upon the cross of Calvary; and you must love Him.
And loving Him, you must become like Him. Love begets love. It is
a process of induction. Put a piece of iron in the presence of
an electrified body, and that piece of iron for a time becomes
electrified. It is changed into a temporary magnet in the mere
presence of a permanent magnet, and as long as you leave the two side
by side they are both magnets alike. Remain side by side with Him who
loved us, and gave Himself for us, and you too will become a permanent
magnet, a permanently attractive force; and like Him you will draw all
men unto you; like Him you will be drawn unto all men. That is the
inevitable effect of love. Any man who fulfils that cause must have
that effect produced in him. Try to give up the idea that religion
comes to us by chance, or by mystery, or by caprice. It comes to us by
natural law, or by spiritual law, for all law is divine. Edward Irving
went to see a dying boy once, and when he entered the room he just put
his hand on the sufferer's head, and said, "My boy, God loves you,"