(The Love of God That Sees Completely, Draws the Heart to the Son, and Acts in Righteousness)

September 28th brings us before a love that is neither distant nor indifferent. Chambers sees it in the look of Jesus—a love so personal that it exposes every competing allegiance of the heart. Spurgeon sees it in God’s visitation before judgment—a love that does not act impersonally or without regard for those upon whom His judgment falls. In both, divine love comes near. It sees. It knows. And its nearness requires a response.

The Look That Reaches the Heart

Chambers writes:

“Then Jesus, looking at him, loved him….” (Mark 10:21). This look of Jesus will require breaking your heart away forever from allegiances to any other person or thing. (My Utmost for His Highest)

The young man who stood before Jesus was not indifferent toward the things of God. He had kept the commandments from his youth. Yet beneath everything he had done remained an allegiance that had not been surrendered.

“And Jesus beholding him loved him…” (Mark 10:21).

The love of Jesus did not overlook what held the man. Because He loved him, He brought that hidden allegiance into the light.

This is the severity of love again, but now it reaches more deeply into the question of what possesses the heart. Jesus was not merely asking the young man to perform another religious act. He was exposing the source from which the man was living. His possessions represented more than wealth; they revealed where his security, identity, and independence remained rooted.

The call of the Son therefore reaches beyond outward obedience. It calls the heart away from every competing source of life.

Sonship cannot be added to a life whose ultimate allegiance remains with itself. The life revealed in the Son proceeds from the Father. Jesus lived without an independent claim upon Himself, receiving His life, His words, and His works from the Father. Those who are brought into sonship are likewise being drawn away from self-possession into a life responsive to God.

The look of Jesus is love because it reveals what prevents that communion.

The God Who Comes Near Before Judgment

Spurgeon writes:

“We love Him, who, when Sodom and Gomorrah were full of iniquity, would not destroy those cities until He had made a personal visitation of them.” (Morning and Evening)

Spurgeon directs attention to another expression of divine love: God does not stand at an indifferent distance from His creation.

Before judgment came upon Sodom, Scripture records:

“I will go down now, and see whether they have done altogether according to the cry of it, which is come unto me…” (Genesis 18:21, KJV)

The language presents God as personally attending to what had arisen before Him. Judgment was not arbitrary. The corruption of Sodom was real, yet so also was God’s deliberate engagement with what He was about to judge.

And within that visitation Abraham stood before the LORD and interceded.

“Wilt thou also destroy the righteous with the wicked?” (Genesis 18:23).

The account therefore reveals both righteousness and concern. God does not treat human beings as abstractions. He knows those who are His, and His judgment does not arise from indifference toward His creation.

The God whose purpose is revealed in the Son is not careless with what He has made.

Where the Two Meet: Love Comes Near

Chambers gives us the searching look of Jesus.

Spurgeon gives us the God who comes down to see.

In both, love refuses distance.

Jesus looks upon the young man and sees the allegiance that keeps him from following. God looks upon Sodom and does not execute judgment as though those within it were unknown to Him.

This is significant for sonship because God’s purpose is relational from beginning to end. He is not merely producing obedient creatures. He is bringing forth sons whose life corresponds to the Son.

That requires truth.

Whatever keeps the heart anchored in another source must eventually be confronted. That which belongs to corruption cannot finally participate in the inheritance God has purposed in Christ.

Yet the confrontation itself comes from the God who draws near.

The look of Jesus was not hatred toward the rich young ruler.

He loved him.

And precisely because He loved him, Jesus would not leave untouched the thing that prevented him from following.

Pastoral Orientation

There are moments when the love of God is experienced less as comfort than as exposure.

Something we have trusted begins to lose its hold. An allegiance we had scarcely recognized becomes visible. Something that once seemed necessary to our identity can no longer remain where Christ is calling us.

The temptation is to interpret that disturbance as loss.

But the look of Jesus teaches us otherwise.

The Son does not expose competing allegiances merely to leave the heart empty. He calls us away from what cannot give life so that our life may increasingly be found in what the Father has given in Him.

The Holy Spirit operates upon the human spirit, directing the heart toward the Son and bringing into the light whatever resists the Father’s purpose. The spirit of sonship responds—not by manufacturing greater devotion, but by yielding what cannot remain where the life of the Son is being formed.

Love comes near.

Love sees what is there.

Love speaks truth about what it sees.

And love calls us from every lesser allegiance into the life God has purposed for His children in the Son.