"Ye have purified your souls in your obedience to the truth unto unfeigned love."
The rarest issue of the rose-tree is the perfume of the rose. From root to perfume you ascend a gradation of increasing refinements.
Love will emerge as naturally and spontaneously as perfume distils from a rose.
"He that hath my commandments and keepeth them, he it is that loveth!"
He can no more restrain it than the rose can imprison her fragrance when tossed by the playful breeze.
All her ministries will be attended by a gracious affection, diffusing itself as fragrance about the common ways of men.
The root is obedience. The stem is purification. The blossom is unfeigned love. The perfume is fervent love that cannot be restrained. Like the rose tossed by the breeze — the fragrance simply flows.
Sixty-six mornings of obedience. The fabric bleached by exposure to the light. And now the fragrance: love diffusing itself about the common ways. Not performed. Not commanded. Distilled.
Even love may be refined into more exquisite quality. "Love one another fervently" — increased tension, as when the string of a violin has been stretched to a tighter pitch that it might yield a higher note.
Tighten the strings of your devotion, that your soul may yield the entrancing strains.
I must tighten my holiness if I would enrich my music.
The violin string stretched not to break but to sing. The holiness tightened not to burden but to enrich. Every morning is a tuning. Every reading adjusts the pitch. And the music — the love — rises.
The higher note requires the tighter string. There is no shortcut from root to perfume. Not because the pilgrim is more talented — but because the holiness has been tightened by the daily tuning.
"He that hath my commandments and keepeth them, he it is that loveth!"
In Him we live and move and have our being. Make a joyful noise unto the Lord!
He that keepeth, loveth. John 14:21. The keeping IS the loving. Sixty-six mornings of keeping is sixty-six mornings of loving.
In Him we live and move and have our being. Acts 17:28. The devotional is not a visit — it is the breathing of the soul inside the God who contains her.
Make a joyful noise! Psalm 100. After obedience, purification, unfeigned love — the joyful noise. Spontaneous, irrepressible. The fragrance flows because the rose has been dwelling in the light.
"He that hath my commandments and keepeth them, he it is that loveth! In Him we live and move and have our being. Make a joyful noise unto the Lord!"
Le's Heart · Caldas da Rainha · Day sixty-six · Jowett · 1 Peter 1:22From Root to Perfume
Obedience is the root. Purification the stem. Love the blossom. Fervent love the perfume. The fragrance cannot be restrained.
The Higher Note
Tighten the holiness, enrich the music. Every morning a tuning. Every reading adjusts the pitch. The love rises.
The Keeping Is the Loving
He that keepeth, loveth. Sixty-six mornings of keeping is sixty-six mornings of loving.
The Joyful Noise
In Him we live and move. Make a joyful noise! The perfume released by the breeze. Spontaneous and irrepressible.