"Wherefore I also, after I heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus, and love unto all the
saints, cease not to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers" (Eph.
1:15,16). This is a very important word in judging of our love. We are all apt to form a
circle even among the saints of God_to have those whom we prefer, those who suit us
best, whose thoughts, feelings, habits, are more or less the same as our own, or, at
least, are no great trial to us. But, then, this is not love to the saints. There is more love
to ourselves in it than love to them. The flesh likes what is agreeable to us_what does
not cause us pain, what is, perhaps, a gratification to the amiabilities of nature. All that
may exist where there is really no exercise of the new nature, no mighty power of the
Spirit of God working in our hearts. We have always to test our souls and ask how we
stand in this. Is the prominent motive and object of our hearts the Lord Jesus? Is it with
Him and for Him that we think of and feel toward all the saints?

I fully admit that love toward the saints cannot, and ought not, to take the same shape
toward all. It must be in the energy and intelligence of the Spirit, varied according to
the call upon love. While one ought to love even a person who is under discipline, it
would be a very great mistake to suppose that your love must be shown in the same
way as if he were not. You do not cease to love him; indeed you never are in a position
and spirit to exercise discipline with the Lord where there is not love. There may be
righteous hatred of the sin, but real love to the person. It would be better to wait upon
God if it be not so in our hearts, till we can take it up in the spirit of divine grace.
There must be, of course, a dealing in righteousness; but even in dealing with one’s
child there ought not to be such a thing as chastening it in a passion. Anything that
merely arises out of a sudden impulse is not a feeling that glorifies God about evil.
Therefore, in cases of discipline there ought to be self-judgment, and great patience
too, unless it be something so flagrant that to hesitate about it would be culpable
weakness, or want of decision and jealousy for God; for there are some sins so
offensive to God and to man that they ought, if we are sensitive to His holiness, to be
met with grave energy on the very spot. God would have the arena of the sin to be the
scene of its judgment according to His will.

Suppose something is done in the public assembly, say, flagrantly false doctrine
propounded in the midst of God’s people. If there were the power of God, and a heart
for His rights, it might be due to His majesty to deal with it without delay. This is
sufficiently plain from the Word of God. In Acts 5, where we read of a case of direct
hypocrisy and lying against God, we find the promptness of the Holy Spirit, through
the apostle, in the very presence of the Church, in judging those who attempted to
practice fraud. I deny there was want of love in this; rather it was the necessary
accompaniment of divine love acting through the might of the Holy Spirit in the
assembly, or at least by Peter as the special instrument of His power in the assembly. It
was a stern judgment, doubtless; but it was the fruit of intense desire for the saints of
God, and of horror that such a sin should get a footing and shelter among them, and the
Holy Spirit be thus grossly dishonored and grieved.

But in ordinary cases the same love would wait, and let time be given for the fault to be
owned and repented of. In nine cases out of ten, mistakes arise from precipitancy,
because we are apt to be jealous for our own reputation. O how little have we realized
that we are crucified and dead with Christ! We feel the scandal, or something that
affects the public mind:this is not the power of the Holy Spirit, but the selfish egoism
that is at work in our hearts. We do not like to lose our character, or to share the
sorrow and shame of Christ in those who bear His name. Not, of course, that one
would make light of what is wrong:that never could be right about anything either
great or small. We ought never to justify the least wrong, whether in ourselves or in
others, but accustom our souls to the habitual clearing of the name of the Lord, even if
it be about a hasty word. If we begin to be careless about little offences, there is
nothing to preserve us from great sins but the mere mercy of God. If love unto all the
saints were working in our hearts, there would be less haste.

(From Lectures on Ephesians, by W. Kelly.)