Come, dear friends, let each of us speak for ourselves about the wonderful love—not of Jonathan, but of Jesus. We won't repeat what others have told us. No, we'll speak of what we have tasted and handled ourselves—the love of Christ!

Your love to me, O Jesus, was wonderful when I was a stranger wandering far from you, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind. Your love restrained me from committing the sin which is unto death, and withheld me from self-destruction. Your love held back the axe when Justice cried, "Cut it down! Why does it waste the ground?" Your love drew me into the wilderness, stripped me bare, and made me feel the guilt of my sin and the burden of my iniquity. Your love spoke this comfort to me when I was sore dismayed: "Come to me, and I will give you rest."

Oh, how matchless your love when, in a moment, you washed my sins away! You took my polluted soul—which was crimson with the blood of my nativity and black with the grime of my transgressions—and made it white as driven snow, pure as the finest wool! How you commended your love when you whispered in my ears, "I am yours and you are mine." Kind were those accents when you said, "The Father himself loves you." And sweet the moments—passing sweet!—when you declared to me the love of the Spirit.

Never shall my soul forget those chambers of fellowship where you unveiled yourself to me. Did Moses have his cleft in the rock, where he saw the train, the back parts of his God? We too have had our clefts in the rock, where we have seen the full splendors of the Godhead in the person of Christ! Did David remember the tracks of the wild goat, the land of Jordan and the Hermonites? We too can remember spots to memory dear, equal to these in blessedness.

Precious Lord Jesus, give us a fresh draught of your wondrous love to begin the month with. Amen.