{"id":25243,"date":"2025-06-24T23:45:17","date_gmt":"2025-06-24T23:45:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.baptists.net\/history\/?p=25243"},"modified":"2025-06-24T23:45:17","modified_gmt":"2025-06-24T23:45:17","slug":"the-want-of-greater-love-to-christ","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.baptists.net\/history\/2025\/06\/the-want-of-greater-love-to-christ\/","title":{"rendered":"The Want Of Greater Love To Christ"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cThe Father himself loveth you.\u201d\u2014John 16:27<\/strong><\/p>\n

The history of the life of sorrows, and death of shame, curse and agony, which Jesus sustained for sinners, was it believed perfectly in the heart, would fill the mind with the strongest affection, and inflame the soul with the most fervent love. But alas, all have reason to complain for want of greater love to Christ, and stronger faith in him. Oh unbelief, what an enemy to love! Our love keeps pace with our faith: as the one grows stronger, the other increases. But if faith grows weak, love declines. Yet no one poor sinner that believes the record of Jesus\u2019 love and salvation, as his only hope and confidence, but love, in some degree, is drawn out to Jesus; for \u2018faith worketh by love.\u2019 The soul in its first love, and for a season perhaps, sees and knows only the love of Christ, and thinks little about the love of the Father. It may be he considers, that what the Saviour did and suffered for sinners, was to procure the love of the Father to them, and to appease the fury of his wrath against them. But this is not right: let no disciple think so. For, saith the Saviour, \u2018The Father himself loveth you.\u2019 Yea, he teacheth us the love of the Father, as the only source and spring of his coming in the flesh to save us\u2014for \u2018God so loved the world, that he gave his only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.\u2019 John 3:16.<\/p>\n

Hence it is plain, God the Father loves sinners; loves them inexpressibly, with the greatest affection. For he gave, whom? An angel; an archangel; myriads of the heavenly host? No; but one infinitely more dear to him, his Son, his only begotten, his dearly beloved Son, who lay in his bosom from all eternity, that we might believe on him and live. So the effect proves the cause. It is plain the love of the Father to his people, is prior to the Son\u2019s coming into the world to save them, or to their believing in Jesus. For, says our Lord, \u2018No man can come unto me, except the Father draw him.\u2019 John 6:44. And because the Father hath \u2018loved us with an everlasting love, therefore with lovingkindness he draws to Jesus.\u2019 Behold ye followers of the Lamb, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed on us. 1 John 3:1. Trace his love to the fountain-head. The holy Spirit of truth teacheth, that \u2018God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, and hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in Christ Jesus, and hath predestinated us to the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself.\u2019 To what end is this? Even \u2018to the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved.\u2019<\/p>\n

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The history of the life of sorrows, and death of shame, curse and agony, which Jesus sustained for sinners, was it believed perfectly in the heart, would fill the mind with the strongest affection, and inflame the soul with the most fervent love. But alas, all have reason to complain for want of greater love to Christ, and stronger faith in him. Oh unbelief, what an enemy to love! Our love keeps pace with our faith: as the one grows stronger, the other increases. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":325,"featured_media":20656,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_vp_format_video_url":"","_vp_image_focal_point":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[1571],"tags":[1197],"class_list":["post-25243","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-william-mason","tag-spiritual-growth"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.baptists.net\/history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25243","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.baptists.net\/history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.baptists.net\/history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.baptists.net\/history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/325"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.baptists.net\/history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25243"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.baptists.net\/history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25243\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25244,"href":"https:\/\/www.baptists.net\/history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25243\/revisions\/25244"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.baptists.net\/history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20656"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.baptists.net\/history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25243"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.baptists.net\/history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25243"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.baptists.net\/history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25243"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}