1 John 4:19
We love him, because he first loved us.
Illustration
Have you ever seen a flowering plant unfold itself under the kind rays of the morning sun. It eagerly drinks in the heat and life that came to it in each rill of celestial fire, and opened itself more and more fully as the beams grew in strength, until at length its whole being seemed to go forth in a glad return of fragrance and beauty.
That plant, in its relation to the sun, was a type or symbol, in the material world, of the action and reaction that pass between God and man in the spiritual realm.
Analyse the symbol and you observe:
- That in the nature of the plant there must be a certain affinity with the sun and his rays. But for that the sun might shine for ever, and produce no more vital effect on the plant than he does on a stone.
- That the plant does not find the sun, but the sun the plant. Initial action proceeds from the sun — the plant at first is only passive and receptive.
- That what the sun sends down is energy, not instruction how or where to get it, but energy, life, direct and simple.
- That the life thus radiated evokes responsive action. The plant lifts its head, expands every leaf and petal, follows the sun wherever he goes, and spends itself in works of fragrant beauty in praise of Him who rescued it from darkness and decay.
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