Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love: therefore with lovingkindness have I drawn thee.
JEREMIAH 31:3
MY song is love unknown; My Saviour's love to me; Love to the loveless shown, That they might lovely be.
SAMUEL CROSSMAN
HE so governs and shapes all the circumstances of life, that if we use them aright we may draw near to Him here, and prepare to be near Him in the Forever after. He longs for our love,--our love, which is so feeble and faint, and yet so precious in His sight when we give it to Him freely. And why does He so desire it? Ah! I have told you many times before, and yet we cannot too often remember it, that it is because, if we love Him, He can make us supremely happy. All that belongs to us, or occurs to us, in this life, is so ordered that we may find in it the means of putting far from us those obstructions of evil which prevent us from seeing Him as He is, and as He has revealed Himself to us; for if we did but so see Him, how could we fail to love Him with the whole heart and soul? THEOPHILUS PARSONS
How shall we become lovely? By loving Him who is ever lovely. ST. AUGUSTINE