God to us, for this is the true goal and home of the soul.
Home is at once a protection, a fellowship, and a joy. "There's no place
like home;" and there is no place like the love of God as a home for the
soul. In that love we find constant protection, for all the refuge and
safety of a true home are experienced there. In that love we find the
fullest, truest fellowship, for "truly our fellowship is with the Father,
and with His Son Jesus Christ"; and we know also "the fellowship of the
Holy Ghost." Not least of all, in this home of the soul, is perfect and
permanent satisfaction. Just as when the door closes upon us and we know
that we are within the privacy, comfort, cheer, and fellowship of home, we
find blessed restfulness and satisfaction, so when the soul enters the
home of God's love it soon realises the fulness of satisfaction, for it is
"satisfied with favour, full with the blessing of the Lord." Love that is
deep, unfathomable, constant, pure, unchanging, Divine, is our everlasting
home. It is recorded that Spurgeon once saw a weathercock with the words
on it, "God is love." On remarking to the owner that it was very
inappropriate, since God's love did not change like a weathercock, he
received the reply that the real meaning was, "God is love whichever way
the wind blows." This is the experience of the believer. Whatever comes,
wherever he is, he knows that "God is love."

It is possible, perhaps probable, that this phrase, "the love of God," may
also include our love to God. At any rate, in several passages it is
almost impossible to make a rigid distinction between the two ideas (cf.
Rom. v. 5). The one is the source of the other, and "we love Him because
He first loved us." Love from God begets love to God, and when once the
soul has entered into God's love as its goal and home, love at once begins
to be the spring, the strength, the sustenance, and the satisfaction of
its life.

"_Into the patience of Christ._" The Authorised Version has somewhat
misread this verse by translating it "into the patient waiting for
Christ," which would need another expression in the Greek. It really
refers to active, persistent, steady endurance rather than to patient
waiting. It refers to present patience, not to a future prospect. The
patience of Christ must mean the active endurance which is like His, the
endurance of which He is the pattern. How marvellously He "endured the
contradiction of sinners against Himself"! How