Day 80.

All the doctrines of scripture and the teachings of Jesus can be related to love. As I one day listened to a sermon of the Second Coming, I thought about the anticipation of seeing Deisy and how the wait now was becoming excruciating. The joy of being in her presence was a mirror of the excitement of being in His presence on that day when the world’s curtain shall fall. What’s more her anticipation was equal to mine. The Sabbath rest of the fourth Commandment, reminded me of what it was to rest in His unconditional love and how we do not have to labor for His salvation but how it is a free gift. We rest in a finished work of salvation. This love is freely given & placed within our hearts by a power beyond our understanding. The gospel of God’s love shines from the Sabbath. I wanted her to rest in my love as much as I wanted to rest in hers. True love is like a peaceful Sabbath and becomes an echo of His love for us.

Even the judgment has its counterpart in love. In God’s judgment we stand without guilt before His throne covered and then judged by the perfection of Christ, and so we stand without fault when our case is in is hands and he becomes our representative. When you love another their faults are covered in the myriad hews of affection that counts not faults against us but rather operates in the realm of grace. Couples who forget grace forget love and judgment with condemnation becomes a part of a decaying relationship.

In this world of sin and suffering true love is a foretaste of the heaven God has waiting for us. Indeed, true love does not just consist of gazing at each other but in looking together in the same direction. The more I thought on these things the more my life became like an apple tree bent with fruit, or like the rainbow paddling the sea.

There was something else that tormented me. It was this unhappy thought. Dare we dream of love in a world of sin? Do dreams ever come true in this world? I don’t understand many of the injustices of this world, I don’t understand how I can dream of love while another man dreams of his next meal or of a bed to sleep in.