Our Daily Homily, 2nd John
This is love, that we should walk after his commandments - 2 John 1:6
Here is a solution to many difficulties, and given so easily and naturally by this beloved elder to the elect lady and her children. He had been laying much emphasis on truth, and combining truth and love in an exquisite unity. Probably we can never love perfectly, till we are perfectly true. If you examine yourself in the feelings of distance and dislike, which you have toward some individual, it is almost certain that you will come on some want of transparency and sincerity in your dealings with them. It is also the case that if we put away all insincerity, and want of consecration, as between us and God, we shall come to love God more perfectly.
What deep, sweet rhythm of meaning there is in the first three verses of this letter! One reads them over and over again. Oh that that grace, mercy, and peace, may be with us, from God the Father, and from Jesus Christ, the Son of the Father, in truth and love.
The difficulty that you feel is that you do not love enough. You would like to love with a strong, undying flame, burning steadily toward Jesus Christ, cleansing you with its heat, constraining you with its love. But perhaps you fail to distinguish between love and the emotion of love. They are not the same. We may love without being directly conscious of love, or being able to estimate its strength and passion. Here is the solution to many of our questionings: They love who obey.
It is recorded of Dr. Chalmers that when a Scotch girl applied to be admitted to the sacrament, her testimony was so halting that it seemed as though she must stand back; but as she was leaving his room she turned back and said, "I canna speak for the Lord Jesus, but I could die for Him."