To be able to have love is the goal of every Christian. To have love is to have God's life in Jesus Christ, our Savior. 🙏
✦ The Goal — The Life — The Person
Le's testimony is the whole gospel in one sentence: to have love is to have God's life. God is love. To have love is to have God. To have God is to have His life. And His life came in Jesus Christ. The love and the life and the Savior are one.
Taylor yesterday: himself is love. Le today: to have love is to have God's life. The same truth — from the teacher and the student. The goal is not a feeling. The goal is not an achievement. The goal is a Person — alive inside the one who loves. 🙏
"I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me."
"J'ai été crucifié avec Christ; et si je vis, ce n'est plus moi qui vis, c'est Christ qui vit en moi; si je vis maintenant dans la chair, je vis dans la foi au Fils de Dieu, qui m'a aimé et qui s'est livré lui-même pour moi."
Galates 2:20 · Louis SegondThe French says c'est Christ qui vit en moi — it is Christ who lives in me. Le's testimony and Paul's are the same: to have love is to have God's life — and God's life is Christ living in the believer. Not beside the believer. Not near the believer. In. The temple is the heart. The life inside the temple is Christ. And the evidence of that life is love. 🙏
✦ Taylor's Eight Acts of Love
Yesterday Taylor taught the theology of love. Today — the eight acts. What love does. How love moves. The doctrine becomes the daily.
"Love does all things which may please the beloved person; it performs all his commandments: and this is one of the greatest instances and arguments of our love that God requires of us — 'this is love, that we keep his commandments.' Love is obedient."
"For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments. And His commandments are not burdensome."
"Car l'amour de Dieu consiste à garder ses commandements. Et ses commandements ne sont pas pénibles."
1 Jean 5:3 · Louis SegondThe French says ses commandements ne sont pas pénibles — His commandments are not burdensome. The first act of love is obedience — and the obedience is not heavy. When the love is real, the commandments are not chains. They are the language of the relationship. Le's August 7: love is not a feeling — it's a commandment. And John today: the commandment is not a burden — because the commandment is love itself. 🙏
"It does all the intimations and secret significations of his pleasure whom we love... The first instance makes the love accepted: but this gives a greatness and singularity to it. Great love is also pliant and inquisitive in the instances of its expression."
Act one: keep the commandments. Act two: seek what pleases Him beyond the commandments. The intimations. The whispered preferences. This is the difference between the servant who does the minimum and the lover who wants to know every detail of what brings joy. Le's daily readings — the chapter a day, the Taylor, the Guyon — are the seeking of God's secret significations. Not commanded. Chosen. Because great love is inquisitive. 🙏
"Love gives away all things, that so he may advance the interest of the beloved person... He never loved God that will quit any thing of his religion to save his money. Love is always liberal and communicative."
"It suffers all things that are imposed by its beloved, or that can happen for his sake, cheerfully, sweetly, willingly; expecting that God should turn them into good... 'Charity hopes all things, endures all things.' Love is patient and content with any thing, so it be together with its beloved."
✦ Liberal and Communicative — Cheerful and Patient
Acts three and four are the twin heartbeats of the pilgrim's road:
Act three — love gives. Le and Roger gave the apartment, the car, the country. He never loved God that will quit any thing of his religion to save his money. Love is always liberal.
Act four — love suffers cheerfully. Cheerfully, sweetly, willingly — three adverbs that transform endurance into worship. Love is patient and content with anything — so it be together with its beloved. The motorhome, the transition, the unknown — content, because the Beloved is present. 🙏
"Love is not divided between God and God's enemy: we must love God with all our heart; that is, give him a whole and undivided affection, having love for nothing else but such things which he allows."
"Love endeavors for ever to be present, to converse with, to enjoy, to be united with its object; loves to be talking of him, reciting his praises, telling his stories, repeating his words, imitating his gestures, transcribing his copy in every thing...
We are not to use God and religion as men use perfumes, with which they are delighted when they have them, but can very well be without them. True charity is restless till it enjoys God in such instances in which it wants him: it is like hunger and thirst, it must be fed, or it cannot be answered."
✦ God Is Not a Perfume
Taylor's most piercing image: we are not to use God as men use perfumes — delighted when they have them, but very well without them. God is not a fragrance you enjoy when convenient and set aside when busy. True love is restless. True love is hunger and thirst. It must be fed, or it cannot be answered.
And look at Taylor's description of what love does: talking of Him, reciting His praises, telling His stories, repeating His words, transcribing His copy in every thing. Le's Beloved Devotional Journal — described, four centuries early, by Jeremy Taylor. Talking of Him. Reciting His praises. Telling His stories. Repeating His words. Transcribing His copy. The journal is Act Six in real time. 🙏
"I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly."
"Moi, je suis venu afin que les brebis aient la vie, et qu'elles soient dans l'abondance."
Jean 10:10 · Louis SegondThe French says afin que les brebis aient la vie, et qu'elles soient dans l'abondance — that the sheep may have life, and have it in abundance. Le's testimony: to have love is to have God's life in Jesus Christ. And Christ Himself says: I came that you may have life — abundantly. The love is the life. The life is abundant. And the abundance is not things — it is the Presence of the One who came. 🙏
"He that loves God is not displeased at those accidents which God chooses; nor murmurs at those changes which he makes in his family... loving to learn where God is the teacher, and being content to be ignorant or silent where he is not pleased to open himself."
✦ Content to Be Ignorant
Act seven is the act Le has been living all through the transition: content to be ignorant where God has not opened Himself. Not demanding answers. Not murmuring at the changes.
Le from August 30: I know someday I will look back and understand this transition. Le from September 13: we are walking patiently. That is Act Seven — loving to learn where God is the teacher, and being content not to know what God has not yet revealed. The patience is not resignation. The patience is love — love that trusts the Teacher's timing. 🙏
"Love is curious of little things, of circumstances and measures, and little accidents; not allowing to itself any infirmity which it strives not to master... And this is the curiosity and niceness of divine love; this is the fear of God, and is the daughter and production of Love."
Taylor's final act: the fear of God is the daughter of love. Not fear that cowers. Fear that cares — about the small things, the little circumstances, the details. Love notices what indifference ignores. Love attends to the small because the small matters to the Beloved. The dishes. The words. The intentions. Love is curious of little things — because God is present in all of them. 🙏
"No one has seen God at any time. If we love one another, God abides in us, and His love has been perfected in us."
"Personne n'a jamais vu Dieu; si nous nous aimons les uns les autres, Dieu demeure en nous, et son amour est parfait en nous."
1 Jean 4:12 · Louis SegondThe French says son amour est parfait en nous — His love is perfected in us. Not completed by us. Perfected in us. God's love uses our loving as the place where it reaches perfection. When Le loves Roger, when Le serves God, when Le walks patiently — God's love is being perfected inside her. The goal of every Christian — and the goal is being reached. 🙏
"To have love is to have God's life in Jesus Christ, our Savior."
Le · Le Pertre · Taylor's eight acts · The goal of every Christian · Love is the lifeNot a Perfume
God is not enjoyed when convenient and set aside when busy. True love is restless — like hunger and thirst. It must be fed, or it cannot be answered.
The Journal Is Act Six
Talking of Him. Reciting His praises. Telling His stories. Repeating His words. Transcribing His copy. Taylor described the journal four centuries early.
Content to Be Ignorant
Loving to learn where God is the teacher. Content to be silent where He has not opened Himself. The patience is not resignation. The patience is love.
Jeremy Taylor's eight acts of love. And Le's testimony — the goal of every Christian.
Taylor's complete arc — from Le Pertre: The journey through Holy Living has reached its summit. From wholly God's (day one) to the arithmetic of life (day two) to time, idleness, intention, presence, faith, hope, and now love. Faith, hope, love — Paul's triad, Taylor's structure, Le's road. And the greatest arrived last — because the greatest is the destination.
Le's testimony — the gospel in one sentence: To have love is to have God's life in Jesus Christ, our Savior. Not to have love is to have a feeling. Not to have love is to have a doctrine. To have love is to have God's life. The love is not separate from the life. The life is not separate from the Person. The Person is Jesus Christ.
The journal is Act Six: Taylor describes what love does: talking of Him, reciting His praises, telling His stories, repeating His words, transcribing His copy. Le's Beloved Devotional Journal is Act Six lived out. The journal is not a project. The journal is an act of love.
God is not a perfume: The pilgrim who is restless for God's presence — who cannot be well without Him — that pilgrim loves truly. Le's mornings over coffee with Roger and the Word. The hunger and thirst are constant. The presence is not optional. The love is not casual.
Content to be ignorant: Act seven is the act of the transition. Le does not demand to see the map. Content to be ignorant or silent where He is not pleased to open Himself. The patience of the walk is love that trusts the Beloved's timing.
The fear of God — daughter of love: The one who loves God most carefully is the one who fears displeasing Him most deeply. The attention to the small. The care about the details. All born from love. All evidence that the life of God in Christ Jesus is alive and working in the pilgrim from Le Pertre. 🙏