We love because he first loved us. (1Jo 4:19 NIV)

We human beings are sinners and as such we need lots of encouragement and motivation to love God. Well, God has done more than his fair share by his good example and the perfect love shown by his son Jesus Christ. That’s his friendly invitation to return his love accordingly. The Almighty has not only given us his permission to follow suit, but rather called us to follow in his footsteps. In his incomprehensible and unfathomable love our love grounds and is rooted. But what is our love compared with his? What is the brook against the stream, the stream compared with the ocean? Even if they are closely related to one another they still are quite different. Both are made up with water, yet the size and quantity we are looking at is just so vastly different. The love is one and yet it too is vastly different depending on the being it lives in. God’s love encompasses all – just as the oceans of this world that contain and receive all waters eventually. God’s love is more blessed and far more beautiful than anything else – and even a burning and devouring fire for those opposed to it. What is human love compared with that – even the love of the most pious and holy amongst us?

How small our love is compared with you, o Lord! Even where we go all out loving from the bottom of our heart, we remain quite insignificant and poor. We realize, we have love and that this love is from you and yet we ask and plead you: Forgive us our loving debt and all that love, that we continue to owe and that we have held back and not shared as we were supposed to. We are yearning to be fully united with you, so that your richness will compensate our poverty and that your love will be all in all. (Wilhelm Löhe)

Love divine, all loves excelling, Joy of heaven to earth come down; Fix in us thy humble dwelling; All thy faithful mercies crown! Jesus, Thou art all compassion, Pure unbounded love Thou art; Visit us with Thy salvation; Enter every trembling heart.

Breathe, O breathe Thy loving Spirit, Into every troubled breast! Let us all in Thee inherit; Let us find that second rest. Take away our bent to sinning; Alpha and Omega be; End of faith, as its Beginning, Set our hearts at liberty.

Come, Almighty to deliver, Let us all Thy life receive; Suddenly return and never, Never more Thy temples leave. Thee we would be always blessing, Serve Thee as Thy hosts above, Pray and praise Thee without ceasing, Glory in Thy perfect love.

Finish, then, Thy new creation; Pure and spotless let us be. Let us see Thy great salvation Perfectly restored in Thee; Changed from glory into glory, Till in heaven we take our place,Till we cast our crowns before Thee, Lost in wonder, love, and praise.  (Charles Wesley 1747 )

This is a rather free translation of Wilhelm Löhe’s devotion for Saturday after the first Sunday after the high holiday and festival of the Holy Trinity. It is found on Pg. 228 in Lob sei Dir ewig, o Jesu!   (Eternal Praise to you o Jesus!) edited by A. Schuster and published in the Freimund Verlag, Neuendettelsau 1949.