The word love is a confusing word. Confusing because it is used so often to describe a myriad of different situations. I use the same word to describe my affection for my favorite taco as I do for my wife. We say we love our iPod then turn to say we love our mothers and fathers. We love whole lot of stuff. Of course, when we say we love tacos or iPods we're not intending it to mean the same kind of love that we show for our loved ones. So why do we use the same word? Because it's emotive and works to describe the various affections of our hearts. To some level, I really do love a good taco, but on another level I truly do love my wife. Our affections are supposed to be ordered in a certain way where one love is properly placed in the chain of a hundred different kinds of love. We love things appropriately according to their value and worth. My wife is worth way more than a taco, but I can still say I love them both.
So what's the problem with all this? Doesn't this make sense to us? The problem is we often have our loves and affections disordered and out of place. It is possible for someone's love of food to overshadow their love for a person. It's also possible that the love of material goods can outweigh the love for one's spouse. The point is that even though we know somewhere in our hearts that our loves are to be ordered a certain way, in reality our loves are disordered and our passions are often out of place. This is the human condition, struggling to place our affections in the right order yet constantly failing to do so. So how do we explain this?
Disobedient Hearts
We can see that our loves are disoriented and our passions are disordered. We often place the love of other things in front of more important things. This is especially true with our relationship to God. Like in a puzzle, you may have many of the pieces in place but if there is a piece missing, it is inevitably incomplete. Though this analogy may be imperfect, it helps to show that without God the picture is partial at best. Not only is it incomplete, but it can't stay together. Scripture testifies that apart from a love of God, our hearts wander and move from love to love never finding it's true place. The prophet Jeremiah says “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?” (Jeremiah 17:9 ESV). The heart apart from God is easily drawn away from love to love, so deceitful that in fact we can't even discern it apart from God's Holy Spirit. In similar fashion, David says “They have all turned aside; together they have become corrupt; there is none who does good, not even one.” (Psalm 14:3 ESV). So what's the solution?
Understanding the problem is the first step to finding the answer. We understand that our hearts drift from affection to affection, seeking to fill a void which can not be filled. We have also seen that we have turned from God and cannot turn back on our own strength. We also understand that though there are many good things worth loving in this world, they are but a shadow which is cast from God's illuminating light of love. So the solution is to return to the source, God himself. We are called to love God first before all other things. When we love the light, we are able to love the things which the light shines upon. The Source must come before the subjects. Until we trust and obey God through the Holy Spirit and turn our love and affection to him, then all things we attempt to love will leaving us wanting and ultimately broken.
Disencumbered Souls
Apart from loving God, our love will go towards things which are temporary and that will ultimately fail us. The best the world can do is offer us dark shadows of the light of love which God offers. Those who have been changed by God’s Holy Spirit through faith in Jesus Christ have the power to love God rightly and can now see how the world only offers a shadow of the love found in God. True happiness and joy can only come from loving God. This is true because only in God will our hearts be made whole and only then can we begin to love other things appropriately. Apart from this reconstructed love, our souls continue to be weighed down by the burden of searching for that which cannot be found apart from God.
Having our passions reordered by God is like a heavy burden being lifted from our souls and having a peace which can only come from God as he fills our hearts with his Holy Spirit. The old self is one who's passions are disordered, the new self in Christ is one who's soul is disencumbered. Paul speaks of this when he says to “put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.” (Ephesians 4:22-24 ESV). Love for God is the primary exercise for the Christian. We have now been freed to do so by faith in Christ and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit!
So What?
We must realize that without God our love is broken and apart from him we will seek to love things which will continue to break us unless we turn our devotion to him first. We can’t possibly love God correctly without first trusting in Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of sin and receive the Holy Spirit in our hearts. Christ is the ultimate model of love. Trusting in Christ as the propitiation, the payment, for your sins is the only way your heart will be ignited to love God the way you are called to. The Apostle John knew that apart from a love of God, the rest of our loves would be incomplete. We can not properly love the world nor each other without loving God first. Look into your life this week to see if in fact other loves are in front of what our true love should be, God himself.
