Lesson 14: Purchases Pleasure With Love
“Blessed are those who…seek Him with their whole heart” (Psalm 119:2

II. Love can only make laws for man which will provide him with perfect pleasure. Love’s very nature, as we have already seen, makes this a necessity. Herein lies the proof for our present proposition. The Will of God ensures the pleasure of man, because God is love. This is, perhaps, at once the simplest and most glorious statement that revelation has made concerning the nature of God. Pastors have spoken of love as an attribute of Deity. Should it not rather be spoken of as love being a core attribute of God’s character? As a man's character is the sum and substance of his characteristics, so the essence of God is the sum and substance of His attributes: holiness, justice, grace, mercy — all these and others lie within the compass of love. To deny any is to deny love. To deny love is to contradict all. If, then, God is love, His Will is the Will of love; and the common mistake that law and love are in any sense opposites must be once and forever denied. There is no difference between the two in God.

In the economy of God, love is law, and law is love.

The twofold description of John is not without significance. We speak of him as the Apostle of Love. Jesus called him a Son of Thunder. There is no contradiction in the thoughts. There was never another apostle of love who was not also a son of thunder. In the writings of John, the two words most often occurring are the words "commandment" and "love" and there is no contradiction, but rather unity of thought in the fact.


The law of God being then the expression of His love seeks the perfect happiness of all those who obey it. When Jesus upon the Mount (Matthew 5-7) taught the ethics of His kingdom, the first word that fell from His lips indicated the purpose of His heart. It was the word "Happy." To make man happy is the purpose of God, and for the realization of that purpose Jesus came to live, to teach, to die. The law He taught was the most stringent and exacting that humanity had ever heard, and it was so because love makes no peace with anything that harms, and is the most relentless enemy of every foe of the loved one.

Every prohibition of God, and every command He lays upon men, have their reason in His good-will toward men. Nothing is denied to the subjects of His kingdom without thought, or merely for the satisfaction of some motive outside these subjects. Love prohibits that which, if permitted, would hinder the life and mar the pleasure. It is also true that every commandment calling to paths of duty is the outbreathing of love. There are moments when such pathways are rough and thorny and tortuous; but love never sends men along them except when, in the way, something is to be gained which will more than compensate for the suffering, and which can only be gained through the suffering.
Question: What does the will of God ensure those that are seeking to do His Will?

Let’s pray: Lord, help us to seek You with our whole heart! We need Your blessing. Help us. We need Your direction for us. In Jesus name we pray, Amen.
Let's reflect on, even memorize: “Blessed are those who…seek Him with their whole heart” ‒ Psalm 119:2