We Love God!

God: "I looked for someone to take a stand for me, and stand in the gap" (Ezekiel 22:30)

How does the zeal of the flesh reveal itself? Because it’s driven by law, it treats people with law. It does not rejoice over them but finds fault, jumps to conclusions, accuses, is argumentative, doesn’t listen, gloats when a brother is down, and loves to come out on top. This zeal isn’t for God. It’s for Self. And it’s powerful. It diminishes the future of the church by robbing everyone of beautiful things that might have been.
Ray Ortlund

A broken, leaping heart will love like Jesus. And the power of the love will be proportionate to the felt fearfulness of our nearness to destruction. The keener the memory of our awful rescue, the more naturally we pity those in a similar plight. The more deeply we feel how undeserved and free was the grace that plucked us from the flames; the freer will be our benevolence to sinners. We do not love as passionately as we ought because our belief in these things is not real. So our pride is not broken and our demeanor not lowly. And we do not look with aching and longing on the crowds that pass us in the airport or the straying members of our flock.
John Piper