In common with many millions of the saints, we love to sing, "Jesus, lover of my soul." But what is there about my soul that Jesus should love it? If it were pure and spotless like the soul of an angel, we would expect him to love it. I am a very partial judge of my own soul; and yet I never carefully look into it without finding fault with it, and sometimes feeling very deeply mortified at the sight. How, then, is it that he who looks with perfect justice and fairness upon everything and every being can love my soul? That is a very serious question. Did the poet not make a mistake in writing this line? I think we can discover at least two reasons for supposing that he did not.

      In the first place, real, genuine pity for a being in distress or misfortune partakes of the nature of love: and Jesus certainly pities my soul when he sees how much wretchedness it has to endure, when he sees its lost condition, without God and without hope in the world, but for his love. Really the most pitiable object we can think of is the soul of a man in its natural condition, unredeemed by the blood of Christ. He certainly does pity us, and that is next akin to loving us. He loves us because of our pitiable condition.

      Then, I think we can discover another reason. He loves us because of what he hopes and intends to make of us by and by. We are told by the apostle Paul that Jesus "loved the church and gave himself for it", suffered and died for it, is the idea, "that he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, that he might present it to himself a glorious church not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing." That is what he intends to make out of us. We may fall out with the church. Men often become so disgusted with it as to leave it and hurl anathemas upon it. Not so with Jesus. With all its faults and defects he intends to make out of it a glorious church, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing upon the robes which it shall wear. And I am one member of that church. And if he loves the church in anticipation of what it is to be, what he is to make of it, he may love my soul among others for [29] what he is to make of me as well as through pity for what I am now.

      If you go into the workroom of a sculptor you will see him hammering and chiseling on a block of marble which appears to you to be nothing but a block of marble. But take up a hammer and begin to work on it yourself and he will soon push you away. He would almost as soon you would strike him as to strike that block of marble. For he sees in it, instead of that rough block, the form of an angel that he intends to carve out of it. He keeps his mind and his heart on that which is to be developed by his skill and labor and that makes him love that block, and take good care of it. He has had to pay a large sum of money to have it quarried and shipped to where he is working on it. So with our blessed Lord, He sees in your soul and in mine a being yet to be made perfect; and he works on it with his hammer and chisel, cutting away its sins, imperfections and superfluities, that he may show to angels in the coming days the blessed work of his hands. This is the second, I think, and perhaps the chief reason why He loves my soul.

      I think the author's hymn, grand as it is, comes short of the reality in the second line. "Let me to thy bosom fly." Why, if he loves your soul, why ask him to let you fly to his bosom? That is the very thing he desires. It is the very thing he is crying out to get you to do. It is not right to ask him to let you do what he is constantly pleading with you to do. Your soul should say, "I will go to Jesus. All the billows of sin and the tempests of passion shall not keep me away. He loves me. He longs for my embrace. I am going to him. I will fly to his bosom." This is the feeling that has to be aroused in sinners before they can come to Jesus and be saved. In your preaching to dying men, do not inspire in them the idea that they must beg and plead with Jesus to let them come. Tell them that Jesus, because he loves their souls, is begging them and pleading with them to come to him. Make them feel that they must go to Jesus in spite of all that hinders them. When you inspire men with that feeling, no long and passionate pleading on your part will be necessary.

      In all this hymn, which is considered one of the best in [30] all literature, there is much food for the thought of a dying soul. Brethren, study hymns. In doing so you will fill your mind with the choicest thoughts, the loftiest sentiments, the deepest emotions, and the most soul-stirring love of the men of God of all ages. And thus you may realize, that from day to day, and from year to year, you are coming nearer to what Jesus intends to make of you because he loves you. [31]

[CT 29-31]