Today, a war of love will be fought on the turf of your heart. Will you be ruled by love for God or for some other lover?
It’s easy to give the right spiritual answer to the question above: “No doubt about it, my heart will be controlled by love for God above all else.” The problem is that at street level, there is still a war of love in our hearts. We do lose our way. Love of the world and the things that are in the world still kidnaps our hearts. We forget God and tell ourselves that we must have _____. Love for God competes in our hearts with love of self. Love for God battles with our craving for the love of others. Material things and physical experiences command our affections and our motivations. Yes, the battle still rages.
We wish it is not true, but the fact is, the struggle is real. Sometimes we want our comfort too much, and we become an irritable and grumbling man because we’re not getting what we think we deserve. Sometimes we want to be right too much, and we become aggressive and argumentative. Sometimes we want the respect and affection of others too much, and because we do, we are all too controlled by their opinions. Sometimes we set our heart on a particular thing too much, and we feel grief until we are able to cobble together a way to get it. Sometimes we want control too much, and we become more demanding than serving. Sometimes we esteem personal pleasure too much, and we invest far too much time in pursuit of it. Sometimes we crave the edible glories of creation too much, and we ingest more than we should.
What is your biggest battle? What gets in your way and distracts you from your true love?
We find that most of the things that lay claim to our heart and battle for the position that only love for God should have are not evil in and of themselves. The desire to be right, to be respected, to own possessions, to have some control, to experience pleasure, or to eat delicious things is not inherently evil. But here’s the thing that we need to remember, what the battle for the love of our hearts is all about:
a desire for a good thing becomes a bad thing when that desire becomes a ruling thing.
When good things become controlling, they command the affection of our hearts and then shape our words and behavior. When this happens, they take the place in our hearts that only God should have. You see, we are always placing the love of our hearts on something, and it is important to remember that there are only two places where we can invest that life-shaping love—on the Creator or on the creation. It’s not wrong to love God’s glorious creation, but it’s a spiritual disaster to be ruled by that love. So here is yet another argument for our need for the grace we have been given. We are all in possession of fickle hearts. We all still need protecting and rescuing grace. Thank God that grace has been given!
So flee youthful passions and pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace, along with those who call on the Lord from a pure heart. Have nothing to do with foolish, ignorant controversies; you know that they breed quarrels. And the Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome but kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring evil, correcting his opponents with gentleness. God may perhaps grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth, and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, after being captured by him to do his will. – 2 Timothy 2:22-26 ESV
Tripp, Paul David. New Morning Mercies (p. 584). Crossway. Kindle Edition.