LOVING WITH ALL OUR HEART
30 And you shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ This is the first commandment. Mark 12:30
Loving with Everything
As developed previously in this course, Jesus invites into loving with all that we are. We are commanded to throw each and every facet of our existence unreservedly into love.
This consists of expressions which typically we do not associate with love: faithfulness, humility, obedience, generosity, etc. In other words, the substance of much of this command is found in the routine and mundane arenas of life when we do not feel anything.
21 He who has My commandments and keeps them, it is he who loves Me. John 14:21
Loving with All our Heart
Within this context we can address what it means to love with all of our heart. Humanity was created with powerful capacities for emotions, affections, and desires – this is what is in view when speaking of the arena of the heart.
While what we consciously feel hour by hour is very important, our affections go well beyond the surface of our emotional experience. They are the deep currents within us that steer our life, just as the rudder of a boat lies hidden beneath the surface yet directs the course of the vessel.
Thus to determine where one’s affections truly lie, you need only to discern what occupies their time, what motivates their actions, what shapes their aspirations, and what comprises their reward. These are all indicative of what ultimately stirs and moves an individual – the interior passions.
Yet many of our affections remain dangling, waiting in angst to be captured by someone or something worthy of their allegiance. Often the longing that this discontentment breeds is as powerful in directing our lives as those affections we have actually fastened upon something.
We are desperate for our hearts to be utterly apprehended and we wander about, fluttering from one fleeting pleasure to another, waiting to be consumed. All of us naturally loathe boredom and yearn to be fascinated and exhilarated.
The Ordering of Love
Therefore, in seeking to love Him with the fullness of our heart, the question becomes “how are my affections conquered? Or, “how can my heart be enraptured with love?”
To answer these questions we must understand the movements of love and how our hearts are swept along in its currents.
21 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also… Matthew 6:21
These words of Jesus in Matthew 6 reveal an important principle. Our heart will dwell and abide wherever it is that we find our great treasure.
In other words, in our desire for love to fill our hearts, we cannot actually pursue it directly. Instead, we must seek a great treasure and love will happily follow along. The paradox and irony of love is that it can only be obtained when it is not sought.
Therefore, if we are to love him completely we must treasure Him supremely. When we truly encounter the glory and worth of who He is, loving with all of our heart will be the inevitable consequence.
CHRIST OUR TREASURE
Christ Our Great Treasure
The Surpassing Worth of Jesus
18 And the Lord will deliver me from every evil work and preserve me for His heavenly kingdom. To Him be glory forever and ever. Amen! II Timothy 4:18
18 but grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
To Him be the glory both now and forever. Amen. II Peter 3:18
5 of whom are the fathers and from whom, according to the flesh, Christ came, who is over all, the eternally blessed God. Amen. Romans 9:5
Riddled throughout the New Testament there is a melody that plays again and again – the refrain to which the Holy Spirit ever returns in His work of inspiration.
When reading the writings of the apostles, those who had known the sound of Jesus’ voice and seen His form with their eyes, one gets the sense that they are meeting men who had been utterly overwhelmed by something and were still reeling in the wake of its magnitude.
Over and over the testimony emerges that there was a life manifested, an identity made known, so staggering and majestic that He is worthy of all allegiance, affection, and attention forever. All they speak of is Christ, in everything they point to Him, all their strength is spent upon Him, and all their love set upon Him.
A Radiant Witness
8 Yet indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ… Philippians 3:8
Our generation desperately needs to be enlightened by the shining hearts of those who treasure Christ above all else and have found His glory to be supremely conquering.
Therefore, to you who believe, He is precious… I Peter 2:7
For Paul Christ was so precious – He was of such inestimable worth – that the loss of everything else was as nothing compared to gaining Christ. What Paul found is true for us all: the glory of Christ is so marvelous, so enrapturing, so satisfying and so grand that to see Him and savor Him is the greatest of all treasures.
8 To me, who am less than the least of all the saints, this grace was given, that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ… Eph 3:8
It is in the unsearchable riches of Christ that we find the secret of Paul’s selfless love and irrepressible joy in the most atrocious of circumstances. When the streams of gladness within us find their headwaters in the preeminence of Christ they do not fail in the midst of persecution, rejection, suffering, criticism, or pain.
All of the experiences of the earth could not rival the crowing joy of departing to be with Jesus and beholding His glory.
21 For to me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain. 22 But if I live on in the flesh, this will mean fruit from my labor; yet what I shall choose I cannot tell. 23 For I am hard-pressed between the two, having a desire to depart and be with Christ, which is far better. Philippians 1:21-23
8 We are confident, yes, well pleased rather to be absent from the body and to be present with the Lord. II Corinthians 5:8
22 If anyone does not love the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be accursed. O Lord, come! I Corinthians 16:22
Sadly the Church in modernity knows almost nothing of this consuming passion for the glory of Christ that kindles flames of yearning to depart and behold Him with unveiled eyes.
Seeking Christ
12 And because lawlessness will abound, the love of many will grow cold. Matthew 24:12
1 But know this, that in the last days perilous times will come: 2 For men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money… lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, 5 having a form of godliness but denying its power. II Timothy 3:1-5
The Need
In this light we can see that the problem and peril of affection growing cold within the Church is not so much a love-problem as a Christ problem.
2 For I am jealous for you with godly jealousy. For I have betrothed you to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ. 3 But I fear, lest somehow, as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, so your minds may be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ. 4 For if he who comes preaches another Jesus whom we have not preached, or if you receive a different spirit which you have not received, or a different gospel which you have not accepted—you may well put up with it! II Corinthians 11:2-5
In direct contrast to the enemy’s strategy to divert attention from Jesus, we see that the unstoppable culmination of His incarnation, redemption, and return is that all of creation will be devoted fully to the glory and renown of Christ.
17 And He is before all things, and in Him all things consist. 18 And He is the head of the body, the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things He may have the preeminence. Colossians 1:17-18
The extent to which we are abandoned to the preeminence of Christ in all things is the extent to which we are in agreement with the passion and plan of the Godhead. Individually the piercing implication of this truth is that the dream of the Divine heart concerning your life is that your soul will be forever lost in rapt adoration of Christ as you laud and extol His unrivaled worth.
The Response
6 For it is the God who commanded light to shine out of darkness, who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. 7 But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellence of the power may be of God and not of us. II Corinthians 4:6-7
In order for this to move from being an idea to a living reality we must actively and ardently fix our attention upon the face of Christ, asking God to command light to shine upon us.
Only through the persistent gaze upon His glory do the rays of Divine light at last pierce our hard hearts, sweeping us away in the captivating beauty that has held fast the attention of the seraphim for ages and breaking at last the vice-grip of narcissism that enslaves our every moment.
“Our fatal error is believing that wanting to be happy means wanting to be made much of…This path to happiness is an illusion. And there are clues. There are clues in every human heart even before conversion to Christ. One of those clues is that no one goes to the Grand Canyon or to the Alps to increase his self-esteem. That is not what happens in front of massive deeps and majestic heights. But we do go there, and we go for joy. How can that be, if being made much of is the center of our health and happiness?…In wonderful moments of illumination there is a witness in our hearts: soul-health and great happiness come not from beholding a great self but a great splendor.”
When the eyes of our heart are illumined and His glory becomes our greatest treasure we are the happiest of men. In other words our joy derives not from His benefits (though they are many) but from exulting in the majesty of who He is.
“How do we understand the gospel and the love of God? Have we shifted with the world from God’s love as the gift of Himself to God’s love as the gift of a mirror in which we like what we see? Have we presented the gospel in such a way that the gift of the glory of God in the face of Christ is marginal rather than central and ultimate?…Can we really say that our people are being prepared for heaven where Christ Himself, not His gifts, will be the supreme pleasure? And if our people are unfit for that, will they even go there?”
Actuality
Acquiring the riches of the knowledge of Jesus (Eph 3:8) is not a question of purchasing the right teaching series, attending a certain conference, living in particular place, experiencing a vision, or finding a specific book. The one necessary thing we must embrace is to actually open the Bible and, together with prayer and fasting, lovingly search out everything it says about the glory of who Jesus is and what He has done. As the Holy Spirit shines His light upon your heart through the written word, the majesty of the divinity of Christ, the perfection of His humanity, the wisdom of His sovereign leadership, the tenderness of His mercy, the blood of His cross, the hope of His kingdom, the greatness of His strength, and everything else about Him will become your sweetest portion in life. In drinking in the beauty of this Man, your soul will at last find its rest. This is intimacy, and this is what you were created for – to enjoy and adore the splendor of His glory forever.
John Piper, God is the Gospel, (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 2005), p 11-12.
Ibid, p 15
