Well, another week begins with the woodburner...burning. Back around mid August, I told Jeni, with this not-so-hot weather, I wonder if we're going to have an early and cold fall and winter. Sho-nuff, the cool weather is here. So I got a pretty good stock of wood to start the winter. Heading to Wooster tomorrow to spend the day picking up more wood and hanging out with my folks. Looking forward to that. Yay for mom and dad's house!
So over the weekend I shared with people what God was telling me from John 15 and from St. John of the Cross. This morning, I'm reading a passage from a catholic monk named Bernard of Clairvaux. The passage is called, Four Degrees of Love. He begins the passage with this quote: "True love is precisely this: that it does not seek its own interests." This is exactly the area that God has been working in me. I hate my selfishness. It's so powerful. He says, "Love is a natural human affection...that comes from God...but we are compelled to love and serve ourselves first...we love ourselves for our own benefit...for who truly hates themselves." "People can truly become slaves to our soul's enemy: lust. The love of self is held in check by the command to love our neighbor." That idea that selfishness or even lust is held in check is very essential.
I'm thinking of the clip from XMen 3 where Jean Gray has turned into The Phoenix. She is a raging ball of emotion and passion. Desiring to throw off all control. Professor Xavier tries to help her gain control again and she kills him. I don't think we're a lot different. If left to our own desires, we will purposely act to please ourselves. We don't want people to tell us what to do. We as rebellious humans want to do our own thing. We train our love of others when we choose to cast aside our own selfish desires/lusts and serve them.
But what about me? If I'm always taking care of others, what about my needs? In Matthew 6, Jesus says, "But seek first His Kingdom and His righteousness and all these things will be added to you as well." Our choice is to either say, "To heck with God and His way, I'm going to please myself." Or I say, "I'm going to serve God and do things His way. I will give to meet others' needs and I'll wait for God to supply my needs." That may mean that I don't get everything I WANT. But what happens when I start getting everything I want? I start down the path of self-corruption. I am walking away from God and I head toward pleasing my flesh; or my selfishness. God isn't working fast enough! He's not doing things the way I think they should be done! Well, la-de-frickin'-da. I guess you're not God! And neither am I.
Well, I can love people just fine. I don't need God to love people. Yeah? Take a look at your relationships right now. How many of them are built on what you want out of life vs. what you are wanting to give back to God? Anytime there is an arrogant tone to your attitude, just figure there is the presence of the enemy of your soul. And you are cooperating with him as he plants traps in your soul. And you become the sucker that helps him plant them in there.
A higher degree of love is to love God for what He can do for me. As we are baby Christians, this is a strong desire. I see how good it is to be blessed by God. So I want to remain close to Him because of what He's doing for me. An even higher degree of love is to love God for who He is. He has proven over and over how good He is so we begin loving Him just because He's awesome. He's good. He's beautiful. He's holy. He is amazing! There is a much higher state of love, but I don't know if anyone who may be reading this would be able to contemplate this level of love. So if anyone wants to understand it more, I can share it tomorrow. If not, I'll just move on to the next passage. Deep stuff today. 1 John 4 is the scripture passage that goes along with that work. I'm looking forward to Campus Life tonight. Who will be the next Campus Life Idol?
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