11/22

As I am reading through this next section (Edwards is writing about the holy affection of love), it occurs to me that in our culture we have diluted the word. We use it so often that it loses some of its power and meaning. You can flip on the TV and hear the Beatles' All You Need is Love being used to sell Blackberry Phones. The water has become diluted and muddy for us. Or you can watch the political minefields and see one group on one side yelling that they are truly compassion and loving, while the other side is yelling the same thing. So love is a loaded term for us. But that does not mean we abandon the thought altogether. No we must learn more about it, so we can act genuinely loving in our life and see the pretenders as pretenders.

Let's look at one love myth that is prominent in our culture, then what Jesus and Paul say about love, and finally how love relates to all the previous emotions we looked at.

First, the lie of our culture is All you need is love.
It is popular out there to take love and try and divorce it from any belief system. The idea is that if you are kind and good and nice towards everyone then you are good before God. Any belief system about Jesus or Allah or anyone that opposes the good feelings is unloving and destructive. This is a basic flower child belief. It is a can't we all just get along kind of feeling. The problem with this is love works within belief systems, not apart from them. Love never exists outside belief systems, because humans do not exist outside belief systems.

The best example I have is in how to raise a child. If you believe that love is being nice to everyone and never being mean, then when you raise you child, you will not discipline them. Discipline is considered mean in your belief system. Therefore, the way you love your child is to let them do whatever they want and never correct or discipline them.

Or if you believe that love can consist of disciplining and correcting your child, then when you are "mean" to them in discipline, you are actually loving them. We love our child and therefore hate when he acts wrong. Love comes in the form of many different actions.

It seems like everyone is sellin' love these days. You have to ask, "what kind of love are they sellin'?"

Again the main point is love always, always exists in belief systems, not apart from them.


Now let's see what Paul and Jesus have to say about Love.

Matthew 22:34-40. Jesus here quotes from Deuteronomy 6:4-5 and Leviticus 19:18.
Romans 13:8-10. Paul again points back to the Law of Moses to understand love.

So what do we know now. Paul and Jesus agree, love is the chief heartbeat for what proper actions are. God directs us to the heart feeling of love to be the first of all our actions. And these actions fall into a belief system. And remember love and these other affections are outgrowths from our faith in what Jesus has done on the cross to allow us to be forgiven and live.

I want to conclude with a quote from Edwards because I think he concludes his section very well. He shows us how love can and should relate to all our other emotions and affections.

"From hence it clearly and certainly appears, that great part of true religion consists in the affections. For love is not only one of the affections, but it is the first and chief of the affections, and the fountain of all the affections. From love arises hatred of those things which are contrary to what we love, or which oppose and thwart us in those things that we delight in: and from the various exercises of love and hatred, according to the circumstances of the objects of these affections, as present or absent, certain or uncertain, probable or improbable, arise all those other affections of desire, hope, fear, joy, grief, gratitude, anger, &c. From a vigorous, affectionate, and fervent love to God, will necessarily arise other religious affections; hence will arise an intense hatred and abhorrence of sin, fear of sin, and a dread of God's displeasure, gratitude to God for his goodness, complacence and joy in God, when God is graciously and sensibly present, and grief when he is absent, and a joyful hope when a future enjoyment of God is expected, and fervent zeal for the glory of God. And in like manner, from a fervent love to men, will arise all other virtuous affections towards men." (Edwards Religious Affections Part 1).