To love Jesus is to long to be with Him. To love Jesus is to
think about Him. To love Jesus is to obey Him, to obey Him readily and implicitly, not
feebly and reluctantly. The certainty of heaven is assured when we keep Jesus in the
center of our hearts, in the center of our lives. He is to be the author of impulse and
desire, of effort and action. "Whatsoever ye do in word or deed, do all in the name
of the Lord Jesus." Will you get to heaven? What is Jesus to you? Does He charm you?
Does He draw you heavenward? Is it to be with Him that you seek heaven? Is He the fairest
flower in all its garden? Is He the rarest and most precious of all its jewels? Is He
sweeter than all its songs? Does He beget the longings for its blissful abodes? Does the
desire to see and be with Him stir the profoundest ambition of your soul? Jesus and heaven
are bound up together.
To love Him with an untold passionate devotion is heaven begun, heaven continued, and
heaven ended. Paul says: "I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure
is at hand. I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith.
Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous
judge, shall give me that day: and not to me only, but unto all them that love his
appearing."
The crown is not only personal to him, but universal, only limited "unto all them
that love his appearing." Here it is not simply love for Jesus personally, but love
for the great fact which is to culminate in the great glory of Jesus. To "love his
appearing" there is the absolute necessity for loving His Person. The loving His
coming is the test of loving His Person. We love the fact because we love the Person. We
are not charged to love any theory or opinion about the manner of His coming, or the time,
but the fact. Let Him come when He will, how He will, and for what purpose He will. We
love his coming because we love Him. "Even so, come quickly, Lord Jesus," and
bring Thy heaven with Thee.
References Used - "Heaven" by E.M Bounds
From: A Revival Source Center