Sadhu Sundar Singh passed a crowd of people putting out a jungle fire at the foot of the Himalayas. Several men, however, were standing gazing at a tree, the branches of which were already alight.

“What are you looking at?” he asked. They pointed to a nest of young birds in the tree. Above it a bird was flying wildly to and fro in great distress. The men said, “We wish we could save that tree, but the fire prevents us from getting near to it.”

A few minutes later the nest caught fire. The Sadhu thought the mother bird would fly away. But no! she flew down, spread her wings over the young ones, and in a few minutes was burned to ashes with them.

Such love, such wondrous love, Such love, such wondrous love, That God should love a sinner such as I, How wonderful is love like this!

Let us have love heated to the point of sacrifice.

This fact is essentially a promise; for what our Lord was He is, and what He was to those with whom He lived on earth, He will be to all His beloved so long as the moon endureth.

"Having loved": here was the wonder! That He should ever have loved men at all is the marvel. What was there in His poor disciples that He should love them? What is there in me?

But when He has once begun to love, it is His nature to continue to do so. Love made the saints "his own"—what a choice title! He purchased them with blood, and they became His treasure. Being His own, He will not lose them. Being His beloved, He will not cease to love them. My soul, He will not cease to love thee!

The text is well as it stands: "to the end." Even till His death the ruling passion of love to His own reigned in His sacred bosom. It means also to the uttermost. He could not love them more: He gave Himself for them. Some read it, to perfection. Truly He lavished upon them a perfect love, in which there was no flaw nor failure, no unwisdom, no unfaithfulness.

Such is the love of Jesus to each one of His people. Let us sing to our Well-beloved a song.

He died for all.—Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.

He . . . liveth to make intercession for them.—I go to prepare a place for you.

I will come again, and receive you unto myself that where I am, there ye may be also.—Father, I will that they whom thou hast given me, be with me where I am.—Having loved his own which were in the world, he loved them unto the end.

We love him, because he first loved loved us.—The love of Christ constraineth us; because we thus judge, that if one died for all, then were all dead: and that he died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but to him which died for them, and rose again.

If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love; even as I have kept my Father's commandments, and abide in his love.

I pray for them: I pray not for the world, but for them which thou hast given me; for they are thine. And all mine are thine, and thine are mine; and I am glorified in them. I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil. They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.

As the Father hath loved me, so have I loved you: continue ye in my love.—Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you.—A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another.

He which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ.—Christ . . . loved the church, and gave himself for it; that he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word.