Thursday, December 11

I love Him, I love Him not...

"If you love Me, show it by doing what I've told you" (John 14:15, The Message)

Spiritual schizophrenia.

Ever heard of it? No? Well, you probably have it... I do. It's when you say you love God one minute, and the next minute your actions betray whether you really do. Like, have you ever been on a serious spiritual high... maybe you just shared the gospel with a friend or you just served the homeless or came from a good service at church... just to find yourself giving in to anger or temptation or jealousy or whatever, only a short while later? Sure you have... we all have... but, if we're honest, it happens because we're not really convinced that God's worth loving with all our heart.

See, if we were convinced... really convinced that following God wholeheartedly is the best way to live (and the only way to truly enjoy life), we would "turn [our] eyes away from worthless things (Ps. 199:37); we would not allow our "hearts to plot evil, and [our] feet [to] race to do wrong" (Prov. 16:18); we would set a guard over [our] mouth... and keep a "watch over the door of [our] lips" (Ps. 141:3).

But what's so tricky about some of this is that these things often come sandwiched in-between times of intense spiritual passion! And, usually, it's because we've been caught off guard... and we're caught off guard because we simply haven't made up in our minds that we're going to obey God... no matter what.

Sometimes I wish I was more like Daniel, who "was determined not to defile himself," by going against the commandment of God? God loves it when our hearts are fully His (see this passage)! How much better off do you think we'd be if our hearts fully belonged to God? If we were fully engaged in pursuing a life of obedience to Him?

Wouldn't it be awesome if the flower of our life that we present to God never lost any of its pedals?

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Pastor Darren, this is some excellent spiritual diagnosis when you write; "it happens because we're not really convinced that God's worth loving with all our heart."

We pursue what we perceive to be most pleasing. That's a classic biblical and historical assessment, running through the Prophets, Jesus, the Church Fathers, the Reformers, and the Puritans. It relates to what Jonathan Edwards called our "religious affections." Our affections (longings, desires) are an often missed element in current dialogue about the spiritual life.

But you hit a home run in your dialogue today.

Cristian Pablo said...

I need to get me some of those English Bibles... they come with "extra" psalms!!!

Great post. my friend

DARREN PLUMMER: said...

Haha... so, Chris - you mean to tell me that LATINO BIBLES don't have 200 Psalms?!?! LOL!

I think that was supposed to be Psalm "119". ;-)