The Mortal Danger in Social Action

“I now think that making God secondary (which in the end is to make Him nothing) is … the mortal danger in social action, especially in view of the marked intimations of virtue – even arrogant virtue – that often perilously accompany it. Some may avoid this danger, perhaps. But I was not obeying the first and greatest commandment – to love God first – nor is it clear that I was obeying the second – to love my neighbor. Hating the oppressors of my neighbor isn’t perhaps what Christ had in mind.”
Sheldon Vanauken (1914-1996), from the afterword to A Severe Mercy (1977), reflecting on his involvement in the antiwar movement in the 1960s. Emphasis in the original.

Thankful for the Word

In this Thanksgiving season, I am especially thankful for the Word of God.

Consider: Why don’t you love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength?

Here are three barriers that hinder such love:

  • The bad things in this world – including natural disasters, oppression, torture, and slavery. These can lead to doubts about the existence or power or love of God.
  • The good things in this world – God’s good gifts that we love more than the One who gives them. These lead us to take our eyes off of God. Even a wonderful spouse can lead us away from having an all-encompassing love for God, as we love that husband or wife more than we love Him. But temptations fit into this category also. Most temptations are for good things that we want in the wrong context: Sexual expression outside of marriage, more money or possessions than what God has granted us. So, often we respond in two wrong ways to the good things in this world: We either have them, and let our enjoyment and love for them become greater than our love for God; or we don’t have them, and spend our lives coveting them, thus failing to love God above all else.
  • The busy-ness of this world. Third, a lack of love for God may result not from some other desire or from tragedy – but just because we never even think of Him. We are so busy! We get up, get to work, get home, get dinner, watch our regular TV programs, exercise, call our parents, help the kids with the homework, take care of the dog. And, suddenly, it’s bedtime. The day’s over. Oops, no time with God today. So we say, “Well, tomorrow I’ll do that.” But then tomorrow zips by in the same manner.

How can we overcome these barriers and truly love God?

At the heart of all these barriers is ignorance of God – a practical ignorance if not an intellectual ignorance. If we let these barriers interfere with our love for God, then we are ignorant of God’s ways, of God’s delights, of what is most important.

How do we combat this ignorance? How do we tear down these barriers to loving God?

God’s Word is the key. God’s Word is the revelation of Who He is. God’s Word is the revelation of the only way to know Him, the only way to be acceptable to Him – through faith in His Son, Jesus Christ. God’s Word shows us the way to true life, giving us the right perspective on all the rest of life.

So the key way, the only way to deal with those impediments to loving God is knowledge of His Word.

Note this carefully: Knowledge is necessary for love.

This is very different from the way many people think. Even some churches say, “Let’s not emphasize teaching. Let’s not emphasize doctrine. Let’s just give everyone enough teaching so that they are saved, but then forget the rest. Doctrine divides. Let’s just all love God, and love our fellow man.”

But the Bible tells us that we must know His Word if we are to love Him, and through His Word we are enabled to love our fellow man. Correct doctrine, rightly taught and rightly prompting love, is key for the Christian life.

Consider Philippians 1:7-11. Paul says he holds the Philippians in his heart. He yearns for them with the affection of Christ Jesus. So what does he pray for them? He prays that their love may become like His love: that is, coupled with or abounding with knowledge:

[I pray] that your love still more and more might abound in knowledge and all discernment, so that you might test and approve the things that really matter, in order that you might be pure and blameless until the day of Christ, being filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ to the glory and praise of God. (Philippians 1:9-11, own translation)

Do you see what he is saying? He starts by acknowledging their love for God. He then prays that that love might be coupled with more and more knowledge, so that they can know the difference between what is important and what is not. Then they will take on character of Jesus Christ – thus fulfilling their purpose of glorifying Him, and loving Him that much more. So for Paul, love and knowledge are intimately related.

We must think in these categories! Love and knowledge are not antithetical. To say ‘I love God” and

  • not to be in His Word,
  • not to hear Him proclaimed through preaching,
  • not to listen to the public reading of the Scripture,
  • not to read good books about Him –

is to be stating a falsehood. You do not love God if you are not trying to know Him better. Truly to love God is to have the desire to know Him. And we know Him first and foremost through His Word.

Jesus says the greatest commandment is to love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength (Mark 12:28-30). But these are not four independent ways of loving God! We cannot love God with all our heart unless we are also loving God with our mind. And vice versa.

Rather, loving God with all our mind is the way to love God with all our heart. So as we love God, we desire to know Him better. We thus will prayerfully fill our mind with His Word, and ask that God would open up His Word to us all the more. We therefore will know Him better, and love Him more – prompting us to seek Him through His Word all the more.

This is a type of virtuous circle, or positive feedback loop. Consider John 15:7:

If you abide in me and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish and it will be done for you.

Loving God prompts us to pray, and prayer leads us to love God more. So our primary request is that the first part of the verse be true for us: We pray that we might abide in Him, and that His Words might abide in us. Note that Jesus chooses to say, “If My words abide in you” and not simply “If I abide in you.” He is thereby making the point that abiding in Jesus is not a state of higher consciousness that we somehow attain. Knowledge of Jesus does not come in some mystical way, but from His revelation of Himself. Jesus became incarnate, and those who saw Him, wrote of Him, and the prophets who lived prior to Him were carried along by the Holy Spirit to write of Him. God superintended all that, so that we might come to know Him through the way He ordained.

So our love for God – as well as our love for each other – must be based on the truths presented in God’s Word. Our love for each other is not based on some general idea of human worth. Nor is it based on feelings of human oneness. Our love for God is not based on whatever conception of God and Jesus I come up with in my head. Our love for God – if it is a love that fulfills the Great Commandment – must be a love that is based on the revelation of God in His Word.

Therefore, a genuine love for God must prompt us to know more of His Word. If it does not, it is not a true love for God.

So be thankful for God’s Word! And may we be devoted to that Word in our churches, in our homes, and in our private lives. May we know His revelation better and better – and so love Him and love our neighbor more and more.

[This devotion is an edited version of the introduction to a sermon on Psalm 119 from 2005.]