When it comes to February, we reflect on Valentine’s Day and receiving gifts of love from our friends or family. The gift that the Holy Spirit gives us of His love enables us to serve others and to reflect the beauty of Jesus to those around us.

As we think of those heroes of Holiness from the past, I tend to think of an epigraph from that evangelist, Albert William Thomas Orsborn, who was elected as the sixth General of The Salvation Army. An epigraph is considered to be a short verse that appears at the beginning of a poem or section; it usually presents an idea or theme on which the poem elaborates.

The epigraph penned by General Orsborn states, “Let the beauty of Jesus be seen in me.” Everything we need to know and that we can know is found in that first phrase. The rest of the chorus General Orsborn pens states this: 

All his wonderful passion and purity.

O Thou Spirit Divine, all my nature refine,

Till the beauty of Jesus be seen in me.

When General Orsborn penned these words, he said, “In my own case, my own spiritual condition, my inner harmony, my contact with God, was the first source and fount of anything I could write. I must be at peace with myself, no inner contradictions. I must be in touch with God, not with just facts about Him.” Do you know the facts or do you have the fire? 

Can you not feel Orsborn’s burden, to be filled with the love of Christ? Are you filled with the gift of His love today?  

Captain Charles Smith is the Corps Officer for the Army in Jonesboro, AR. Photos by The Salvation Army National Archives