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I. A CHRISTIAN'S LOVE TO CHRIST OUGHT TO BE UNRIVALLED IN CREATION.

1. For closeness, because there is betwixt these twain such an intimacy that the one is everything to the other.

2. For tenderness, because this is not an equal love, but the love of the little for the Great, of the enemy disarmed and won over through the sacrifice of his wronged and offended Lord.

3. For strength. If there is strength in men at all, and love is, as people say, the strongest thing in men's hearts, then surely this must be the strongest of known loves. For it is the deepest. We love others with a part only, but Christ with the whole heart, &c. We are attached to others only surface-wise; but it is the very inner being which is given to Him in love.

II. BEING CHARACTERISTIC OF THE CHRISTIAN, THIS LOVE FORMS THE MOST DELICATE TEST OF EACH PERSON'S RELATION TO JESUS.

1. Born with the birth of the new creature, it is one of the earliest graces to come to strength. Just as in a little child, long before trust becomes intelligent, or will is disciplined into obedience, or experience has taught patience or self-control, there rushes up the first-born virtue, even love for her who bare and nurseth it: so in very young Christians, we see the flush of first love kindle their early experience. Apply any other test. Their knowledge is rudimentary, their faith untried, their works not yet reduced to orderly holiness, their passions far from subdued. By any other test they seem to fail; but try them with our wise Lord's own question, and you will see how the eye kindles and the voice deepens with the answer, "Yea, Lord, Thou knowest that I love Thee!"

2. Throughout a Christian's life this continues to be the most sensitive test. In all, holiness is gradual; in many, slow; in some, fitful, broken by falls and declensions. But this test, if it could be fairly applied, never would fail. No unconverted man can answer that to satisfaction; there is no converted man who cannot. Hence Paul girdles the Church of God with: "Grace be with them all that love our Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity." That shuts none out who should be in. Again, he fences off the Church with: "If any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be anathema." That leaves none in who should be out.

III. A TEST SO PERFECT IS TO BE USED THE MORE DELICATELY IN PROPORTION TO THE DIFFICULTY OF USING IT AT ALL.

1. Outward conduct is tolerably patent to the eye of every outside observer; but this question is to be asked only by the Lord Himself, and only answered before his own truth-compelling presence. We must take care not to judge of ourselves in excited moments, or to depend on the satisfaction with which we turn to religious thoughts when the heart is sad. We must be scrupulously honest, and judge ourselves in solemn hours, when our sins are in our memory, and we feel God's eye to be on us.

2. Even under such cautions one ought not to institute this examination often. Love is a shy thing, which thrives best when no one thinks about it. It grows up of its own sweet will. It never bears rough handling, and sometimes will bear none at all. Besides, the love that must be questioned cannot be very strong. No man could preserve a deep attachment for any friend who should be for ever taking his heart to pieces and curiously asking if he loved him. When Christ's Spouse should have come to her perfect state of assured affection, she will hear no more the searching question.

3. Meanwhile, we are both feeble and faithless lovers. We do many unlovely and unloving things to grieve and wrong Him whom we call our Highest, Dearest, Best. It was after three denials that Jesus asked His first apostle three times over, "Lovest thou Me?" Each denial had cast fresh doubt on his oft-repeated protestation of peculiar and invincible affection. The suspected one had to be probed, and deeply, and often, for assurance sake, after such foul wrong done.

IV. FOR THE ANSWER TO THIS QUESTION, WE ARE SENT, EACH OF US, IN UPON HIMSELF.

1. It is true that, practically, this love works as the motive-power in Christian holiness; that deeds are to be the last test by which our love, like our faith, is to be tested. But our Lord questioned a disciple who had nothing to show but lies, and oaths, and treachery. It is possible, therefore, to know love, not by its doings, but by itself. Put a mother where she shall neither see her infant nor be able to do for it one office of motherly duty, will it be so hard for her to know she loves? Will not the power of her affection betray itself all the more by yearnings to be with her child? Bring her back her babe, and, after the first gush of endearment has spent itself, ask her as she looks down on its sleeping face in the blessed calm of absolute content, ask her if she loves! I know of loved ones who shall never more be seen on earth, whom wide seas have severed; yet love keeps its hold on the long-lost, unforgotten image, and feeds inwardly on itself, and cannot die.

2. Now, why should not a Christian man be as sure that he loves the Lord Jesus? Our feeling towards Him is quite as personal as to any other friend. We never saw Him, and shall not, perhaps, for a few years to come. But what of that? Some of our brothers have seen Him, and their accounts set Him before us in a lively way. We know what He has been and done for us. Besides, no Christian is without experience of Him.

V. OUGHT ONE NOT TO SHRINK FROM SO BOLD A DECLARATION?

1. There are people, and these not the worst, who are too conscious of the weakness of their love and of their falls to allow even within themselves that they love Christ at all. But suppose a man is conscious, to do himself justice, of still really loving Him, whom he grieves to have denied, and to whose blood he looks for pardon; is he not to say so? Must one stifle the heart's cry of affection, and do violence to one's own feelings, and deny with the lips what the soul affirms? Yet before we can get the length of saying that truly, there is one thing to be observed, Repentance must have wrought its perfect work. Peter wept bitterly on the night of the denial. Through penitence is love purged. Spare not the sorrow, therefore.

(J. O. Dykes, D. D.)

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KJV: So when they had dined, Jesus saith to Simon Peter, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me more than these? He saith unto him, Yea, Lord; thou knowest that I love thee. He saith unto him, Feed my lambs.

WEB: So when they had eaten their breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, "Simon, son of Jonah, do you love me more than these?" He said to him, "Yes, Lord; you know that I have affection for you." He said to him, "Feed my lambs."