All the thoughts of God toward His people are thoughts of love. He has not, never had, nor ever will have, a thought toward any of His own than that of love. He may chasten them, scourge them, bring them through deep waters of tribulation and affliction, take them away out of this world by the death of the body, but every one of these ways of His with His own springs from the fountain of love, which, welling out of His own blessed heart, has stopped at no sacrifice for the recovery of its objects from distance, darkness, death, and the power of the devil, and for the establishing of their souls in holy, heavenly, and eternal relationships with Himself, in love's own dwelling-place.
It was love that thought of us before the world was, that planned redemption, that gave us our place in Christ, that determined to have us as sons before His face for ever, and that guards us throughout our whole pilgrim pathway, until we land at home in His glorious rest. It is love, infinite, unspeakable love, that occupies itself about us at this present moment, and that will stand by us, should every friend abandon us and become our enemy.
J. Boyd.