If love does not carry us beyond ourselves, it is not love. If love is always discreet, always wise, always sensible and calculating, it is not love. It may be affection or warmth of feeling, but it does not have the true nature of love in it.
In Mark 14, Mary of Bethany is so carried away by her love for Jesus that she breaks a bottle of precious perfume and pours the fragrance over his head. Have I ever done something like this for God, not because it is my duty or there is some reward in it for me but just because I love him? If you are spending all your time marveling about the magnificence of the redemption, remember that there are valuable things you could be doing for the Redeemer. Not colossal, divine things: simple, human things that show God you genuinely love him.
There are times when it seems as though God is watching just to see if we will abandon ourselves to him. It’s as though he wants to catch us in a natural, spontaneous, affectionate action. Abandonment is of more value to God than personal holiness. Personal holiness fixes the eye on its own spotlessness. When we fixate on our own holiness, we obsess over how we walk and talk and look. We become fearful of offending God, anxiously wondering if we’re useful. If we come to the conclusion that no, we aren’t, we are near the truth. It is never a question of being useful but of being of value to God himself. When we are abandoned to God, he works through us all the time.
