Revised by Alistair Begg and slightly adapted by Doug Nichols

Believer, look back through all your experience, and think of the way in which the Lord your God has led you in the wilderness, and how He has fed and clothed you every day—how He has suffered your poor behavior—how He has put up with all your murmurings and all your longings after the world. Think of how His grace has been sufficient for you in all your troubles—how His blood has been a pardon to you in all your sins—how His rod and His staff have comforted you.

When you reflect upon the love of the Lord, remember it is also for the future, for Christ’s covenant and blood have something more in them than the past. He who has loved you and pardoned you will never cease to love and pardon. He is Alpha, and He shall be Omega also: He is first, and He shall be last.

Therefore, remember when you pass through the valley of the shadow of death, you need fear no evil, for He is with you, for death cannot separate you from His love; and when you come into the mysteries of eternity you need not tremble, “For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:38-39).

Does not this make you love Jesus? Does not a survey of the vastness of God’s loving care stir your heart and compel you to delight yourself in the Lord your God? Surely as we meditate on the love of the Lord, our hearts burn within us, and we long to love Him more.

Charles Haddon Spurgeon (1834-92) was England's best-known preacher for most of the second half of the nineteenth century. It is estimated that during his lifetime, he preached to more than 10 million people. His collected sermons fill sixty-three volumes and remain one of the best-selling writing series in history.

This article originally appeared in the Fall/Winter 2014 edition of Eternal Perspectives magazine.