'Let us understand
that the lordship of God over our affection is an indispensable requirement to
spiritual growth. How undisciplined and wild is our affection! If it is not
subject to God’s will it shall endanger our spiritual walk at all times. A
mistaken thought may be corrected easily, but an errant affection is nearly
unmanageable. We should love the Lord with all our heart, permitting Him to
direct our love.
Loving the Lord
Soulishly
Right here we should
sound a note of warning. Never think we ourselves can love the Lord. Whatever
comes from us is rejected by Him; even loving Him is unacceptable. On the one
hand, the believer’s lack of deep affection towards the Lord grieves Him greatly;
on the other hand, one’s loving Him with soul power is not welcomed by God
either. Our affection, even when used to love the Lord, must be entirely under
the spirit’s management. Too many love the Lord with a worldly love and too
few, with God’s pure love.
Nowadays the Lord’s
people primarily employ their soulical power to absorb the things of God. They
speak about their Father God, call the Lord their most beloved Lord, and
contemplate His suffering. By so doing their hearts are filled with joy and
they feel they are now loving the Lord. They conclude this feeling is from God.
Sometimes while meditating on the Lord’s cross they cannot withhold their tears
because they seem to experience such an unspeakable burning affection for the
Lord Jesus. These things nonetheless pass through their lives like ships
sailing through the sea: no lasting trace is left behind. Such is the love of
countless Christians. But what is this kind of love after all? Such love as
this is the sort which only serves to make one’s self happy. This is not loving
God, it is loving pleasure.
The visualization of
the Lord’s suffering seems to have touched his heart, but its inner truth has
not affected his life. How powerless is the suffering of the Lord in a
believer’s heart when merely mentally or emotionally conceived!
In contemplating His
suffering one becomes inflated and proud, viewing himself as loving the Lord
far more than do others. He talks as though he is a heavenly man; actually, he
has not moved one breath away from his pitiful self. He gives the impression of
loving the Lord so much, and for this reason others admire him. Even so, his
love is nothing but self-love. He thinks and talks and desires after the Lord
only because in so doing he can feel happy. His motive is for deriving pleasure
and not for the sake of the Lord. Such meditation secures to himself a
comfortable and pleasant stirring, and so he continues to meditate.
All is soulish and
earthly, neither of God nor of the spirit. What, therefore, is the distinction
between spiritual love and soulish love towards God? These two are not readily
distinguishable outwardly, but inwardly every Christian can detect the true source
of his love. As the soul is our very self so all which belongs to it cannot
draw away from self.
A soulish affection is one in which self is
working. To love God for the sake of personal pleasure is carnal love. If a
love is spiritual it has no self mixed in with loving God. It means to love God
for His Own sake.
Any affection which is totally or partially
for one’s own pleasure or for reasons other than for God Himself emanates from
the soul.
Another way we can
distinguish the source of love is through its results. If one’s love is
soulical it does not empower him to be delivered permanently from the world.
The believer must continue to worry and struggle to break away from the world’s
attraction. Not so with spiritual love. Here the things of the world just
naturally fade away before it. The one who participates in that kind of love
despises the world, considering its things abhorrent and abominable. Henceforth
he appears to be unable to see the world because the glory of God has blinded
his physical eyes.' Excerpt 'The
Spiritual Man' By Watchman Nee
Joh_15:19 If
ye were of the world, the world would love his own: but because ye are not of
the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth
you.
Joh_17:14 I
have given them thy word; and the world hath hated them, because they are not
of the world, even as I am not of the world.
Col_2:8 Beware
lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition
of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ.
Col 2:20
Wherefore if ye be dead with Christ from the rudiments of the world, why, as
though living in the world, are ye subject to ordinances
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