God Is Love; His Mercy Brightens
God Is Love; His Mercy Brightens
God is love; His mercy brightens
All the path in which we rove;
Bliss He wakes and woe He lightens:
God is wisdom, God is love.
Chance and change are busy ever;
Man decays and ages move;
But His mercy waneth never:
God is wisdom, God is love.
E’en the hour that darkest seemeth
Will His changeless goodness prove;
Through the gloom His brightness streameth:
God is wisdom, God is love.
He with earthly cares entwineth
Hope and comfort from above;
Everywhere His glory shineth:
God is wisdom, God is love.
SIR JOHN BOWRING was truly a genius. He was said to be able to speak one hundred languages and to read two hundred. Twice he was elected to Parliament, and in 1854 he was appointed governor of Hong Kong. Despite his many successes, he was to become one of the most unpopular governors Hong Kong ever had. He was described as being “full of conceit and without any very clear idea of political principles on a grand scale.”
Bowring wrote this hymn when he was thirty years old, nearly twenty-five years before he became the hated, ruthless governor. He ended each stanza with this timeless reminder: “God is wisdom, God is love.” Perhaps Bowring would have been a better governor had he reminded himself that, as the apostle John says, “since God loved us that much, we surely ought to love each other” (1 John 4:11).
All who confess that Jesus is the Son of God have God living in them, and they live in God. We know how much God loves us, and we have put our trust in his love. God is love, and all who live in love live in God, and God lives in them.
1 John 4:15-16
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