“For love loves unto purity”
We sat around four tables put together. About twenty of us in our Wednesday night growth group. This quote from George MacDonald jumps out at me. No, it wasn’t a jumping. More of a gentle sliding into my soul.
I know it’s important. I don’t know why. Not completely.
It speaks to me of the interplay of God’s love and holiness. The space they create together is the space in which I can rest. For it is safe and kind and powerful. It is pure and lovely and noble.
And sometimes it is a hard place to live in. Trials and loss in the purifying. But vision still for what can be. For the full glory of what love can unveil.
When I came home tonight, I had to look up the context of the quote. It is from a sermon from George MacDonald entitled The Consuming Fire. (“For our God is a consuming fire”, Hebrews 12:29). The whole sermon is quite long, but the paragraph in which the quote lies is beautiful:
For love loves unto purity. Love has ever in view the absolute loveliness of that which it beholds. Where loveliness is incomplete, and love cannot love its fill of loving, it spends itself to make more lovely, that it may love more; it strives for perfection, even that itself may be perfected–not in itself, but in the object. As it was love that first created humanity, so even human love, in proportion to its divinity, will go on creating the beautiful for its own outpouring. There is nothing eternal but that which loves and can be loved, and love is ever climbing towards the consummation when such shall be the universe, imperishable, divine.
Therefore all that is not beautiful in the beloved, all that comes between and is not of love’s kind, must be destroyed.
And our God is a consuming fire.
I’ll need to sit with this for a few days, but couldn’t wait to share it. As I do, it brings to mind a couple of questions:
Is it easier for you to identify with God’s attribute as Love? Or as Holy?
How do you see the two characteristics of Him working together?
I’m participating with The Nester in 31 Days of Noticing the Moment. This is Day 26.
You can find all 31 Dayers here. There are so many wonderful topics.
If you miss any days in the series, you can find introductory and each days post here.
Challenging questions, Melanie.
I am all about LOVE!! It saved my life, brought me back from the depths. I know holiness is also paramount in my transformation, but love is more tangible to me.
Thanks for your beautiful thoughts.