July 23

First Tuesday after Trinity

If God so loved us, we ought also to love one another. If we love one another, God dwelleth in us, and His love is perfected in us. Hereby know we that we dwell in Him, and He in us, because He hath given us of His Spirit. 1 S. John 4:11-13.

WE are loved of God; if we have any love for Him in return, we love what He loves; we have no other way of showing our love for Him. We cannot behold God; but what we have beheld is inconceivable. Love, in the countenance, in the words, in the sufferings of the Son of Man; and He by His Spirit dwelleth in us, and perfects His love in us. If we have this fruit of the Spirit, for the Holy Spirit is love, then we have a pledge and assurance of this His indwelling, this our living union with Him; according to the promise which Christ hath made, that He will send the Holy Spirit, that He Himself will abide with us. By love bearing witness on our words and actions, written as on the "fringes" and phylacteries of our garments, we know that He hath given us of His Spirit. All this, the chain of love, the breath of our life, and the light of heaven, depends on our sustaining in our souls by obedience the doctrine of the Three Persons in One God, into which life-giving Name we are baptized. This mystery of Godhead is ever recurring, all things connected with it flowing from it, returning to it, the centre and circumference of all. By brotherly love we know we have the Spirit, by the gift of the Spirit we know that we have the indwelling of God; by acknowledging the Father we confess the Son, by confessing the Son we have God dwelling in us and we in Him.

All the Godhead joins to make us whole, The triple crown of mercy now Is ready for the suppliant's brow, By the Almighty Three for ever planned, And from behind the cloud held out by Jesus' hand.