Love for God and Spouse

The instruction to love God more than your spouse isn't as helpful as people think it is. Love is not easily measured and is in some sense a gift. We love God because he first loved us. We don't know why, since we know we are sinful creatures, that we recognize such beauty in God and are drawn to know him more.

It's more helpful to say "Love God with all your heart, mind, and soul, and love your spouse with all your heart, mind, and soul." Why do these have to be mutually exclusive? When you love your spouse as much as you can, you are also loving God—God wants us to love our spouse, and love sometimes shows itself when we are doing what the object of our love wants (and in this case it is God).

When I hear people say something like "to have a good marriage, love God," it makes me a little sad. It's missing the other person in the equation—the spouse. It'd be better to say, "to have a good marriage, love God and love your spouse." Sometimes in spiritual matters people forget to include people (but spiritual matters always involve people—it's most often about God and people interacting). Maybe they're afraid we will love people so much that we forget God. But fear often causes trouble and unbiblical rules. We can't forget God if he's truly given us faith.

God cares about people and our relationships. He's not worried about comparing how much we love this or that. He cares that we do love, that we practice and grow in the fruits of the Spirit.

So love God and love your spouse. Don't waste time on trying to measure something that's hard to measure.

Let's be more positive than negative in our statements about marriage. To start, let's say that marriage is something that, when we love our spouses well, can help us understand more our relationship with Christ. The Bible relates our relationship to Christ like a marriage.

Listening as Love

One way to show love to others is to truly listen. Hearing is different than listening. To hear means you only hear the sound of words, but it doesn't mean any thought has been taken to truly understand and process what has been said.

People can tell if you've been listening to them and feel loved or respected if they know you're listening. They can tell by your questions and responses and if you remember what was said later.

It's not always easy to listen. Our brains are powerful and have the ability to process thoughts faster than words are spoken, so we have to purposely try to not have our thoughts go to the next thing or how to respond before the person is stating their complete thought when we should focus on what the person is saying.

And this principle also applies to listening to God's word. Listening to God's Word is one way to show love to God. We should think about his Words enough to truly understand. The same principles apply.

Law following verse law fulfilling

A lot of scholars are hard on Jesus' criticism of the Pharisees. He is too hard on them they say. They cannot be that bad.

You see the biggest issue is that the law is spiritual and can only be fulfilled by the heart. The law is summed in:

"Love the Lord your God with all you heart mind soul and strength and love your neighbor as yourself."

You see the many apparently external requirements of the law are in reality internal.

We find it often in questions of if we are are required to do this or that by God. Often we find ethical discussions have reluctance built into the discussion. Can we not act and be law following?

The whole issue is that we often ask the wrong question. We ask "what is permissible" and not "what is the will of God." We ask "is this forbidden" and not "is God glorified."

Jesus tries to make this explicit when he says the inside of the bowl needs to be cleaned not simply the outside.

You see a commandments of God always have an internal aspect in nature. There is often an external or action aspect but they law always goes to a heart issue.

You see this is why there are is so much dead faith in the world which Jesus warns of. We can do all the right things and say all the right things but true faith comes down to an internal heart state of where our love for God begins to overflow into the rest of live.

What Is Christian Faith?

What is Christian faith?

It is a loving of God primarily.  There is no saving faith in God apart from a love for God.

Romans 8:28: "And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose."

Notice the connection those who love God are the ones who are called according to his purpose.  Those aren’t two distinct categories.  If you are called by God (thus saved) you love God.

I would just like to urge everyone to ponder their faith.  We all need to test ourselves to see that our are love for God is true, not like the sad story in Matthew 7:20-23:

So then, you will know them by their fruits. "Not everyone who says to Me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven will enter. Many will say to Me on that day, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?' And then I will declare to them, 'I never knew you; DEPART FROM ME, YOU WHO PRACTICE LAWLESSNESS.'

How do we know this is not about us?  It is by our fruits, by our love for God that we can see our election.  If our fruit is scarce test it to see that it does not taste of self love for personal gratification in heaven, but that it longs for deeper satisfying union with the creator.  If we believe we all need to repent.  Even the best Christian’s do not savor God’s precious goodness enough.

As Psalm 63:3 puts it: "Because your love is better than life, my lips will glorify you."

Ponder that God's love is better than life.  Search deeply and diligently to see its truth.

What Is Heaven?

I would like to suggest heaven is not so much of a place as it is a relationship.  When you are in love your heart urns to understand the beautiful complexities of you love.  The great thing about heaven is that God is infinitely more beautiful in all of his excellencies than any person is.  Relationships grow deeper over time, especially ones aided by God dwelling in you and working on your heart.  So relationships should always get better and better in an idea world.  On earth they don’t necessarily, but there is nothing to stop it in heaven.  In heaven we will understand what true intimacy is as we feast our eyes on God’s glory.  God is beautiful and infinite.  So all of eternity will only get better and better as we are able to see more clearly what God looks like.  Creation will only become more and more interesting as we know more about God because we will see his glories displayed more clearly in it.  As we study creation in more and more depth we will only be able to marvel more and more at God’s infinite wisdom.  Heaven is about the intimacy of the one relationship that we were meant for. Human intimacy (as found in marriage) is only a foretaste of what our relationship with God will be like in heaven. Human marriage is a finite and sin corrupted image of a relationship that infinite and perfect relationship in heaven.

How We'd Live Differently If We Really Understood that "All Things Work Together for the Good of ..."

Some pondering on how we would live differently if we really understood that, "All things work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose."

1) This should be a source of major comfort to us in times of trials.  If it isn't it is a sign that we need our relationship with God and the way we think about him mended.

2) We would have a way to really comfort our fellow brothers and sisters in Christ who are suffering.  Something that goes past, "Oh I'm sorry... or That Sucks..."  It adds something deep and bring the focus back to God where it should be in the first place.  It gives real comfort if taken to heart by one who loves God loves and is loved by God.

3) It should be a source for great risk taking.  If all things work together for my God why shouldn't I say a loving, but very hard thing for a person to hear, it indeed it is something that should be said.  If relationships are shatter or friendships weakened, or money given away it is for our good.  You could argue that if relationships are made firm or kept safe, and if we hoard money or just guard the little we have then it also works for our good.  I think its safe to answer like Paul here.  Shall we not take risks for the kingdom of heaven so that God will work them for our good. May it never be.

4) We should wish for others to see the brilliance of this truth and tell others not to just settle with this one promise but to search high and low and far and wide to learn and savor the many additional promises that flow from the beauty of God.

5) We should remember this promise and turn our hearts to thank God at all times and in all situations for his goodness to us.

6) Our love for God would be greatly increased.  If we really took it to heart that everything worked together for our good we would be filled with awe at the awesome wisdom and power of God.  Today I was filled with that wonder as I accidently dropped a peanut butter filled cracker and spent a while mashing it around on the floor (without realizing it only to have to clean up the mess) Yes mashed peanut butter and cracker bits all over the bottom of my shoe and all over the floor is working for my good and I remember it!

7) We would be more conscious in our effort to try to make everything work for the maximum good possible.  If we focus on that everything works for our good and focus on God we will want to work everything for as much good as possible.

A lot more but lunch time is over...

We Will Be Most Satisfied When We See, Savor, and Make Much of God

A bit from Piper:

“If the purpose of God – flowing from the very essence of what it means to be God – is that he be known and enjoyed and praised as infinitely glorious in his free and sovereign grace, then the meaning of our existence is clear. We exist to know and enjoy and praise and display the glory of God’s free and sovereign grace. We exist to see and savor and sing – and spread a passion for – the glory of God’s grace.”

A bit from me:

And I would like to add if we exist for the purpose of seeing and savoring and making much of God then it should well be easily be inferred that we will be most satisfied when we see, savor, and make much of God.  For, God as an infinitely wise creator did not create us in a way so that we would find anything other than our most ultimate joy in him.  In fact it is hard to imagine us finding anything other than our ultimate joy in the infinite beauty and brilliance of God.

Two Commands and Their Implications

Two commands and their implications:

Love the lord your God with all your heart, mind, and soul and love your neighbor as yourself are two central commands in the bible.  Jesus as the one who must fulfill the law perfectly on our behalf fulfilled both of these.  The interesting thing about the first command is that ALL our love is commanded from God and yet more is still required.  This must mean in fact that loving God with all our heart mind and soul is not in contradiction with loving ourselves and our neighbor.  There must be a type of love that not only places love in our neighbor but also is in fullness a love of God.  If this is true one may well expect the enjoyment of a good game of hockey in heaven.  We may take delight in it while at the same time placing our full love on God.  It would seem unreasonable to assume that if we can have compatible love with humans that we cannot have it with other things.  In fact we would be forced to say that Jesus had no love for anything but God and man if we said that.  But clearly God delighted in his creation before man came so clearly we may love anything in creation and still fully love God.  (I am not saying that we can fulfill this now but it would be possible were it not for sin)  The implications of this would be that loving the Lord with all our heart in heaven need not mean that we may love nothing else in heaven.  Heaven, contrary to some views would not be a place of constant worship of God.  It would be in a sense in that all activities would become worship but it implies that there will be worship and climbing mountains and enjoying sunsets that all place our full enjoyment on God.  If this doesn’t sound possible to you, you should consider if our Lord and savior Jesus Christ has not already fulfilled it.  It would seem he must have.  He had a love that was for man and yet gave all his love to God thus fulfilling the whole of the law.  Jesus is one in will with the father so when the father declared his delight over his creation it is Jesus as well who delighted in it. (And God doesn’t change (And unlike the philosophical giants would like us to think that is a VERY good thing))  So Jesus on earth delighted in his fellow humans (he is fully human and fully God) and in creation all the while giving all his love to God.  If these presuppositions and logic have truth to them there will be great Hockey games, epic D&D adventures (well I'm not positive about that one as I don't know how much fun fighting evil in a world where there is no evil is (but at least in that there will be great stories and thus roleplaying systems)), and stunningly deep Go games in heaven all of which are enjoyed while God is given all the love.

Bearing Good Fruit

A brief piece of writing I composed on a fundamentally important question.

John the Baptist spoke in Luke 3:9, "The axe is already at the root of the trees, and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire." Lack of good fruit is proof of a fatal condition in a man's heart. We all tend to brush over such verses carelessly. The reason for this is that God causes fruit to spring forth in the lives of all Christians. We know this because all Christians have the Holy Spirit helping them daily become sweeter and sweeter. And since we are Christians we must have this fruit. We as Christians, however, should check to see that we truly are bearing good fruit. For we may be being deceived by the devil.

Jesus speaks of this deception in Matthew 7:21-23: "Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and preform many miracles?' Then I will tell them plainly, I never knew you, away from me you evildoers." This passage should be of great concern for us for Jesus speaks of this group as consisting of many.' These people surely displayed what looked like good fruit and yet they were thrown into the fire for lack of it. For this reason we need to contemplate deeply what truly constitutes good fruit, so that none of us will be thrown into the fire of hell because we were deceived by the devil and our wicked hearts into believing we were saved.

How does a person know if they have good fruits? John the Baptist spoke that the fruits must be good, not any old fruits will do. How can we be sure that the fruits we see showing up in our lives are not the fruits similar to a kind and generous atheist. For our fruits may well look good by human standards, but how can we know that they are the kind that flow from the Holy Spirits infusion of Christs righteousness into our lives. I believe that the answer can be found in our attitude toward God. God demands from us all to love him with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength. We on earth will surely never be able to give him this, but if Christ's righteousness is being given to us in increasing measures we will surely see strides as our love grows for God.

If we see our love for Christ growing daily this will be a sure sign that we are saved. But, if our love to Christ is very similar to what it was five or ten years ago we should begin to wonder what is going on in our lives. In Jesus's parable of the sower the good see that produced fruit multiplied thirty or sixty or even a hundred times. Since the Christian life is meant to multiply in such terms faith that multiplied but a very small crop must be examined carefully. Those who the spirit is creating fruit in will naturally have a greater desire and love for God.

Our Hearts Turned to God

I think most people will read this passage differently than I do. But, now days as I look around I see so many people who claim to be Christians (and they may well be) whose care about God is so superficial. If our hearts are not turned toward God on a regular basis I think we should ponder what we are doing. If there is an eternally important gift and we care for it not and instead we do what follows, "Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for (a shadow) of an image made to look like mortal man..." (Romans 1:22-23), we should wonder if we really have faith. Faith without love is dead. It seems foolish to claim you love someone you only drag yourself to hear about once a week. So if we are not energized daily by Christ we need to look deep into our hearts for as it is written in Luke:

22 Then Jesus went through the towns and villages, teaching as he made his way to Jerusalem. 23 Someone asked him, "Lord, are only a few people going to be saved?"
He said to them, 24 "Make every effort to enter through the narrow door, because many, I tell you, will try to enter and will not be able to. 25Once the owner of the house gets up and closes the door, you will stand outside knocking and pleading, ‘Sir, open the door for us.’

"But he will answer, ‘I don't know you or where you come from.’

26 "Then you will say, ‘We ate and drank with you, and you taught in our streets.’

27 "But he will reply, ‘I don't know you or where you come from. Away from me, all you evildoers!’

28 "There will be weeping there, and gnashing of teeth, when you see Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God, but you yourselves thrown out. 29People will come from east and west and north and south, and will take their places at the feast in the kingdom of God. 30Indeed there are those who are last who will be first, and first who will be last."