Posted on 02/14/2015 6:03:29 AM PST by metmom
ONE OF THE PUZZLING QUESTIONS likely to turn up sooner or later to vex the seeking Christian is how he can fulfill the scriptural command to love God with all his heart and his neighbor as himself.
The earnest Christian, as he meditates on his sacred obligation to love God and mankind, may experience a sense of frustration gendered by the knowledge that he just cannot seem to work up any emotional thrill over his Lord or his brothers. He wants to, but he cannot. The delightful wells of feeling simply will not flow.
Many honest persons have become discouraged by the absence of religious emotion and concluded that they are not really Christian after all. They conclude that they must have missed the way somewhere back there and their religion is little more than an empty profession. So for a while they belabor themselves for their coldness and finally settle into a state of dull discouragement, hardly knowing what to think. They do believe in God; they do indeed trust Christ as their Saviour, but the love they hoped to feel consistently eludes them. What is the trouble?
The problem is not a light one. A real difficulty is involved, one which may be stated in the form of a question: How can I love by commandment? Of all the emotions of which the soul is capable, love is by far the freest, the most unreasoning, the one least likely to spring up at the call of duty or obligation, and surely the one that will not come at the command of another. No law has ever been passed that can compel one moral being to love another, for by the very nature of it love must be voluntary. No one can be coerced or frightened into loving anyone. Love just does not come that way. So what are we to do with our Lord's command to love God and our neighbor?
To find our way out of the shadows and into the cheerful sunlight we need only to know that there are two kinds of love: the love of feeling and the love of willing. The one lies in the emotions, the other in the will. Over the one we may have little control. It comes and goes, rises and falls, flares up and disappears as it chooses, and changes from hot to warm to cool and back to warm again very much as does the weather. Such love was not in the mind of Christ when He told His people to love God and each other. As well command a butterfly to light on our shoulder as to attempt to command this whimsical kind of affection to visit our hearts.
The love the Bible enjoins is not the love of feeling; it is the love of willing, the willed tendency of the heart. (For these two happy phrases I am indebted to another, a master of the inner life whose pen was only a short time ago stilled by death.)
God never intended that such a being as man should be the plaything of his feelings. The emotional life is a proper and noble part of the total personality, but it is, by its very nature, of secondary importance. Religion lies in the will, and so does righteousness. The only good that God recognizes is a willed good; the only valid holiness is a willed holiness.
It should be a cheering thought that before God every man is what he wills to be. The first requirement in conversion is a rectified will. "If any man will," says our Lord, and leaves it there. To meet the requirements of love toward God the soul need but will to love and the miracle begins to blossom like the budding of Aaron's rod.
The will is the automatic pilot that keeps the soul on course. "Flying is easy," said a friend who flies his own plane. "Just take her up, point her in the direction you want her to go and set the pilot. After that she'll fly herself." While we must not press the figure too far, it is yet blessedly true that the will, not the feelings, determines moral direction.
The root of all evil in human nature is the corruption of the will. The thoughts and intents of the heart are wrong and as a consequence the whole life is wrong. Repentance is primarily a change of moral purpose, a sudden and often violent reversal of the soul's direction. The prodigal son took his first step upward from the pigsty when he said, "I will arise and go to my father." As he had once willed to leave his father's house, now he willed to return. His subsequent action proved his expressed purpose to be sincere. He did return.
Someone may infer from the above that we are ruling out the joy of the Lord as a valid part of the Christian life. While no one who reads these columns regularly would be likely to draw such an erroneous conclusion, a chance reader might be led astray; a further word of explanation is therefore indicated:
To love God with all our heart we must first of all will to do so. We should repent our lack of love and determine from this moment on to make God the object of our devotion. We should set our affections on things above and aim our hearts toward Christ and heavenly things. We should read the Scriptures devotionally every day and prayerfully obey them, always firmly willing to love God with all our heart and our neighbor as ourself.
If we do these things we may be sure that we shall experience a wonderful change in our whole inward life. We shall soon find to our great delight that our feelings are becoming less erratic and are beginning to move in the direction of the "willed tendency of the heart." Our emotions will become disciplined and directed. We shall begin to taste the "piercing sweetness" of the love of Christ. Our religious affection will begin to mount evenly on steady wings instead of flitting about idly without purpose or intelligent direction. The whole life, like a delicate instrument, will be tuned to sing the praises of Him who loved us and washed us from our sins in His own blood.
But first of all we must will, for the will is master of the heart.
Man: The Dwelling Place of God – Chapter 1
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/3242797/posts
The Call of Christ – Chapter 2
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/3244492/posts
What We Think of Ourselves is Important – Chapter 3
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/3246397/posts
The Once-born and the Twice-born - Chapter 4
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/religion/3247452/posts
On the Origin and Nature of Things-Chapter 5
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/religion/3250352/posts
Why People Find the Bible Difficult - Chapter 6
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/religion/3253131/posts
Faith: The Misunderstood Doctrine - Chapter 7
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/religion/3255583/posts
This is especially true for Libtards who it seems hate themselves as well as others.
Problem is we can’t do it on our own.
It’s that revelation of our inadequacy that, hopefully, pushes us into God’s arms.
Love can never be demanded or commanded, or else it’s not true love.
Jesus was setting the law, the bar so high just as he said “ For I tell you, except your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and pharasies, in no case shall ye enter into the kingdom of heaven “ Matthew 5:20
Was it not one of the disiples who said that who can be saved then ?
Jesus Christ was setting the law, or standard so high that it IS impossible for mere mortal man to abtain by his own efforts.
A man must be born again not of flesh and blood, but by the holy spirit.
Let the bible explain, or interpret the bible.
I John 4: 9, 10
By this the Love OF God was manifested in us, that God sent his only begotten son into the world so that we might live through him.
In this is Love, Not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his son to be the propitiation for our sins.
Let us focus on the love OF God towards us, and our love for him and others will happen naturally.
Man can not, man can not in his own abilities or strength.
The old saying a man is as good as his word is true but only in the most stable of men and women.
For instance a person will even surprise them selves the things they may say when needled by a liberal socialist.
Mathew 21
28 But what think you? A certain man had two sons; and coming to the first, he said: Son, go work to day in my vineyard.
29 And he answering, said: I will not. But afterwards, being moved with repentance, he went.
30 And coming to the other, he said in like manner. And he answering, said: I go, Sir; and he went not.
31 Which of the two did the father’s will? They say to him: The first. Jesus saith to them: Amen I say to you, that the publicans and the harlots shall go into the kingdom of God before you.
The liberal socialists will whine trying to force some one else to feed the children but they would not give any one the sweat from their brow to keep them from dying of thirst.
1John 3
18 My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue; but in deed and in truth.
Mathew 22
6 Master, which is the great commandment in the law?
37 Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.
38 This is the first and great commandment.
39 And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.
40 On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.
The things Jesus spoke of concerning love is in doing.
as in do unto others as you would have them do unto you.
Luke 6
31 And as you would that men should do to you, do you also to them in like manner.
1John 3
17 But whoso hath this world’s good, and seeth his brother have need, and shutteth up his bowels of compassion from him, how dwelleth the love of God in him?
James 2
15 If a brother or sister be naked, and destitute of daily food,
16 And one of you say unto them, Depart in peace, be ye warmed and filled; notwithstanding ye give them not those things which are needful to the body; what doth it profit?
17 Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone.
The love of God is not in saying but in doing, the things Jesus said is the will of God.
By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and keep His commandments. For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments. And His commandments are not burdensome. 1 John 5:2,3
For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments. And His commandments are not burdensome. 1 John 5:2,3
“The problem is not a light one.”
Truth, An old British preacher said, “We don’t just sit there like a blob, waiting for God to HAPPEN on us!” But something in us longs for inspiration. I don’t want to feel like I’m driving my own ship. Don’t many unbelievers WILL themselves into lives of great success, morally and financially? Many atheists are nicer than Christians!
Well amen, and so what! God knows those who are His, and He is doing things in us that are invisible to the carnal eye. We want to walk worthy, yet come up short on this end. Jesus intercedes for us in a FOREVER capacity, our very own “priest forever, after the order of Melchizedek”. Scripture is filled with these mind-boggling truths about the superiority of Christ and what that means for us as we battle against the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places: we have an ADVOCATE WITH THE FATHER!
We MUST know and believe that Jesus Christ has satisfied our sin debt once for all! Why? Because it is the Truth. It is this essential truth that Satan and his children attack at every turn. If the evil one cannot touch our salvation—and he cannot; those saying otherwise are calling God a liar!—he most certainly will try to turn us in on ourselves when we sin and drive us away from the STEADFAST LOVE OF THE LORD. Simple, basic, devastating.
Dead religion is on standby, ready to tell you what you must now DO to get back in God’s favor. Sorry, it’s been DONE by ANOTHER. Our work is to “believe in the one He has sent”. Think it’s work to operate in unbelief towards God and put confidence in the flesh? No no no, that’s going with the flow of all mankind. Scripture shows us clearly how awesome is Jesus! Our faith/belief finds rest in glorying in Him, knowing rest in HIS righteousness that is given to us as a free gift.
With this firm foundation we can, with Paul, “struggle with all His energy that he powerfully works within (us)”!
AMEN!!!!
This is an impossibility in our human condition..
This is an Old Testament command to Israel ( remember the gospels are actually old Testament in that they speak of the time before the death, resurrection and ascension) The new Testament starts in Pentecost ..This prayer is the Jewish Shema.
Keep in mind that NO ONE can keep the commandments of God.. That is why Jesus kept them perfectly for us.. and He loves the Father with his whole heart mind and heart and His neighbor as Himself
From *The Pursuit of God*.
“The man of God set his heart to exalt God above all; God accepted his intention as fact and acted accordingly. Not perfection, but holy intention made the difference.”
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