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"A man greatly beloved."
--Daniel 10:11
Child of God, do you hesitate to appropriate this title? Ah!
has your unbelief made you forget that you are greatly beloved
too? Must you not have been greatly beloved, to have been bought
with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish
and without spot? When God smote His only begotten Son for you,
what was this but being greatly beloved? You lived in sin, and
rioted in it, must you not have been greatly beloved for God to
have borne so patiently with you? You were called by grace and
led to a Saviour, and made a child of God and an heir of heaven.
All this proves, does it not, a very great and superabounding
love? Since that time, whether your path has been rough with
troubles, or smooth with mercies, it has been full of proofs
that you are a man greatly beloved. If the Lord has chastened
you, yet not in anger; if He has made you poor, yet in grace you
have been rich. The more unworthy you feel yourself to be, the
more evidence have you that nothing but unspeakable love could
have led the Lord Jesus to save such a soul as yours. The more
demerit you feel, the clearer is the display of the abounding
love of God in having chosen you, and called you, and made you
an heir of bliss. Now, if there be such love between God and us
let us live in the influence and sweetness of it, and use the
privilege of our position. Do not let us approach our Lord as
though we were strangers, or as though He were unwilling to hear
us--for we are greatly beloved by our loving Father. "He that
spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how
shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?" Come
boldly, O believer, for despite the whisperings of Satan and the
doubtings of thine own heart, thou art greatly beloved. Meditate
on the exceeding greatness and faithfulness of divine love this
evening, and so go to thy bed in peace.
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