Plumbland Chapel: God is Love

14 or 15 years ago I was invited to speak at Plumbland Evangelical Church near Wigton in Cumberland. They were seeking a pastor and I was considering whether the call of God was then on my life. It is, in many respects, a chapel like our Salem: small and rural but with a godly, faithful core. The building is even plainer than ours but was also originally Congregational. The date of 1847 is inscribed on a stone built into the wall, with the Johannine quotation:

God is Love

Although much of modern Christianity is corrupted by emphasising God’s love while minimising or ignoring His righteousness and holy wrath, we do well to be reminded of His wondrously deep affection, fondness and compassion for the sons and daughters of Adam. The more I get to know myself, the more unlovely I realise I am; the more unlovely I know myself to be, the more amazing is the claim that God loves me still. Based upon my reason and experience, God cannot possibly love us, for we are vile and polluted. But it is His word which gives us that assurance:

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. John 3:16

Jesus loves me, this I know,
for the Bible tells me so.
Little ones to him belong;
they are weak, but he is strong.

Refrain:
Yes, Jesus loves me! Yes, Jesus loves me!
Yes, Jesus loves me! The Bible tells me so.

Jesus loves me he who died
heaven's gate to open wide.
He will wash away my sin,
let his little child come in.

Jesus loves me, this I know,
as he loved so long ago,
taking children on his knee,
saying, "Let them come to me."

-Anna Warner, 1859