Lover's heart. John has become simply an echo of Jesus. It is this, that
_you_, whoever you are, wherever, whatever, that you may _believe_. You
look and listen, question, puzzle a bit maybe, but keep on listening and
looking, thinking, weighing, till you are clear these things are just so
as John tells them. Yon accept them as trustworthy. Then you accept
_Him_, Jesus, as He comes to you, your wooing Lover, your Lover-God,
your Saviour and Lord.

You _believe_: that is you _love_. The grammar of the word works itself
out inside you thus,--believe, trust, love. The truth comes in through
eyes and ears and feeling, into brain and will; through emotion clear
down into your heart. You love. You cannot help yourself. You love
_Him_, Jesus, the One so lovable.

John says that you _may_ believe. It is possible. It is the reasonable
intelligent thing to do after such a presentation. John makes it easy
for us to believe. His telling of the story is so strong and convincing,
though so simple and short, that believing is the natural thing. Jesus
Himself, as He conies to us through John's eyes and speech, is so
believable, so trustworthy, so lovable.

Now we _may_ believe. It's the thing to do after a thoughtful kneeful
study of the case as put by John. We _may believe_ clear into and
through intellect and emotions and will, right down into the depths of
heart and love, clear out into every action of the life.

And John sweeps in the whole crowd of the world in the way he puts it
here. Listen: "that you may believe that Jesus is _the Christ_." That
was for the Jew peculiarly in the first instance. The Jew had been
taught through generations that there was One coming who was God's