'Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another' (1

John 4:11).

Returning to Ephesians 5, we see that the apostle Paul not only said

'walk in love', but 'walk in love as Christ also hath loved us', not only 'as

Christ also hath loved us', but loved us to the point of 'giving Himself'.

And not only giving Himself in a general way on our behalf, but in the

glorious yet solemn way of 'an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet

smelling savour' (Eph. 5:2).

Paul does not hesitate to go to the full length of this thought 'an

offering and a sacrifice'.  The words come together in Hebrews 10, where they

refer both to the Old Testament type and the New Testament reality, the one

Offering of Christ (Heb. 10:5,8,10,14,18).

The three exhortations 'walk in love', 'walk as children of light' and

'walk circumspectly', are followed by three very personal applications of

this truth.  Wives and husbands, children and parents, servants and masters

are exhorted to this practical outworking of grace.  In the first of these

three pairs of subjects, the husband is exhorted 'to love his wife' (Eph.

5:25).  In spite of the cases of domestic unhappiness that appear so

frequently in our newspapers, we must remember that where one case of

domestic misery becomes news, a million cases of happy homes call for no

comment.  Even unsaved husbands in the general run, love their wives, and it

seems almost unnecessary for the apostle to write such a thing.  We have not

finished his statement however.  He did not simply say 'Husbands, love your

wives'; he said, 'Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the

Church and gave Himself for it' (Eph. 5:25).  He even pursues the thought to

the sanctifying and presenting of that Church without blemish, resuming his

exhortation with,

'So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies' (Eph. 5:28).

Once again therefore, we find service expressed in the terms of

sacrifice.  It is the reasonable response to the love that has been

manifested toward us, that we should present our bodies as living sacrifices,

offer the sacrifice of praise, the fruit of our lips, have fellowship with

the servants of Christ, and walk in love as Christ loved us.  Our whole

course Godward, manward, ecclesiastical and domestic is redolent of the holy

place.  Those who spent their time in serving in the Tabernacle would take

with them into the camp something of the fragrance of the incense of the holy

place, even though they themselves might be unconscious of it.  Moses could

not help but that his face should shine after he had been in the presence of

God, even though he himself wist it not.  Those who most truly serve in this

highest sense, will often be quite unconscious of any idea of sacrifice at

all.  In fact the best way to rob an act of service of its sacrificial

character would be to begin to advertise the fact.  If our walk is to be 'As

Christ loved and gave', what manner of persons we should be!

We return to the epistle to the Philippians to learn something more of

the character of sacrificial service.  Chapter 4 rightly follows chapter 3,

gifts that were of sacrificial character were offered to Paul, but not before

service of sacrificial character had already been offered by himself on their

account.  There is a good deal of sowing and reaping even in this life.

While the nature of Paul's ministry and message aroused tremendous