Your Lord is very jealous of your love, believer. Did He choose you? He cannot bear that you should choose another. Did He buy you with His own blood? He cannot endure that you should think that you are your own or that you belong to this world. He loved you with such love that He would sooner die than see you perish. He cannot endure anything standing between your heart's love and Himself. When we lean on Him, He is glad; but when we transfer our dependence to another, He is displeased and will chasten us so that He may bring us to Himself. He is also very jealous of our company. There should be no one with whom we converse so much as with Jesus. To abide in Him only, this is true love; but to commune with the world, to find sufficient solace in our carnal comforts, to prefer even the society of our fellow-Christians to fellowship with Him, this is grievous to our jealous Lord. He is happy when we abide in Him and enjoy constant fellowship with Himself. Many of the trials we experience wean our hearts from the creature and fix them more closely on Himself. Let this jealousy, which should keep us near to Christ, be a comfort to us. If He loves us so much as to care thus about our love, we may be sure that He will not allow anything to harm us and will protect us from all our enemies. Oh, that we may have grace this day to keep our hearts in sacred chastity for our Beloved alone, with sacred jealousy shutting our eyes to all the fascinations of the world!