THE WILL TO LOVE - Vital Christianity

99St. Anselm addresses God with these passionate words:“O God, highest and sweetest! Desiring may I find Thee, and finding may I love Thee.”Here is no cold intellectual belief; here is a heart aflame with the love of Christ.One of the greatest poems on love that has ever been written is “Jesus, thy BoundlessLove To Me.” Paul Gerhardt writes:“Jesus, Thy boundless love to meNo thought can reach, no tongue declare;O knit my thankful heart to Thee,And reign without a rival there:Thine wholly, Thine alone I am:Be Thou alone my constant flame.O grant that nothing in my soulMay dwell, but Thy pure love alone;O may Thy love possess me whole,My joy, my treasure, and my crown:Strange fires far from my soul remove;may every act, word, thought, be love.O Love, how cheering is Thy ray;All pain before Thy presence flies;Care, anguish, sorrow, melt away,Where’er Thy healing beams arise;O Jesus, nothing may I see,Nothing desire, or seek, but Thee.In suffering, be Thy love my peace;In weakness, be Thy love my power;And, when the storms of life shall cease,Jesus, in that important hour,In death, as life, be Thou my guide,And save me, who for me hast died.” 11The Church of Jesus Christ needs a fresh revolution of the greatness, the beauty, the loveof Jesus!When we compare our love to these great lovers of the past we realize we hardly knowanything about love. And yet we have the same God and the same Bible. Paul, the apostle,testifies of God’s overpowering love and greatness as he says, “If we are out of our mind, it is for