"Unto Him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in His own blood, and hath made us kings and priests unto God and His Father:to Him be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen" (Rev. 1:5,6). In contemplating the love of Jesus, as set forth in this passage, we can trace the following four characteristics:thinking of its object, visiting its object, suffering for its object, and exalting its object.

1. He thought of us. Deep in His own eternal mind, He pondered His much-loved Church, before the foundation of the world.

"His gracious eye surveyed us, Ere stars were seen above."

2. Did He rest satisfied with merely thinking about us? No, He laid aside all His glory, and came down into this cold, heartless world, as into a vast quarry from whence He would hew out stones for His heavenly temple. He made His way down into this "rough valley" of ours, which had been "neither eared nor sown" (Deut. 21:4). "The dayspring from on high hath visited us" (Luke 1:78).

3. But He did not rest satisfied with coming down to look at us in our guilt and ruin, our misery and degradation. He Offered for us. He hath "washed us in His own blood." He loved us, though we were in our sins; and He has washed us from our sins. He would not leave a single speck upon the objects of His eternal love.

4. What, then, was all this for? Why those unutterable sufferings of Jesus? Why those three hours of profound darkness? Why that bitter cry, "My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?" It was simply that the love of Jesus might exalt its object:"Hath made us kings and priests unto God and His Father." This is for our exceeding comfort and joy.

But we should bear in mind that if we love Jesus, we, too, will often like to think of Him, often delight to contemplate His matchless grace, to ponder His infinite perfections. Moreover, we will visit Him in the secret of His sanctuary, not to gain a name as persons of much prayer, but to gratify the affections of our hearts for Him who is "the chiefest among ten thousand" and "altogether lovely" (Cant. 5:10,16).

Again, we shall be ready to suffer for Him, not in order to show ourselves as persons of great energy, zeal, and personal devotedness, but to express the high estimation in which we hold His divine and adorable Person.

Finally, it will be our constant aim to exalt Him in every place. Our language will be, "O magnify the Lord with me, and let us exalt His name together" (Psa. 34:3).

Let us earnestly pray for such a deep, full tide of divine love in our cold, narrow, selfish hearts as will render true service for Him. We desire not the imperfect zeal kindled by the unhallowed spark of human opinion, but the calm, steady, constant flow of unalterable affection for Jesus_that affection which has its chief joy in meditating upon its object_before we set forth to be a worker or a sufferer in His cause.

(From Things New and Old.)