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“The cross of Jesus inspires our love. It would seem impossible to be brought by the Holy Spirit to the foot of the cross, and not feel the inspiration of love. If love begets love, surely a believing apprehension of the amazing, the unparalleled love of Jesus, bending His look of forgiveness upon us from the cross, will thaw our icy hearts into the warmest glow of affection. Behold the source of your love to God! “We love Him because He first loved us.” No throb of love had dilated our hearts had not God first touched them with His own. Believe in the love of God, believe that Jesus loves you, and you shall be sensible of a new-born affection glowing within your breast. You are not called to believe in your love to God, but in God’s love to you! Do not argue, “I cannot love God! I have striven to my uttermost to do so, but have failed in all my endeavors, until in despair I have abandoned the thought and relinquished the attempt.” Be it so- no effort of your own can strike a spark of love to God from your heart. Nor does God demand the task at your hands. All that He requires of you is faith in His love, as embodied and expressed in Jesus Christ to poor sinners. The new and living way He has opened to His reconciled heart, the ample promise He has made to save you, the willingness He has shown to pardon and accept you, the love, the astonishing, the marvellous love, He has exhibited in giving you His beloved Son to die in your stead, are cords by which He would draw your loving heart to Himself. Oh, will not this suffice? Have faith in God’s love. Believe that Jesus loves you, and your heart shall glow with a love in return which will bear it on in a willing obedience and unreserved surrender, in faithful service and patient suffering, enwrapped, consumed amid the flames of its own heaven-inspired and heaven-ascending affection.” ~Octavius Winslow