Yesterday I offered Dr. Chris Bounds’ definition of\u00a0love as “the\u00a0alignment of the will<\/b>\u00a0with the\u00a0desire for union, oneness, or fellowship<\/b>\u00a0with someone or something”.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n
His point being that genuine love requires both will <\/i><\/b>and desire<\/i><\/b>.<\/p>\n\n\n
When it comes to loving God, there are two pitfalls we must avoid:<\/p>\n\n\n
1) A “love” that is all desire<\/i> and no will.\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n\n\n
\u00a0 \u00a0 We love the idea of God<\/i>, but really have no intention of following His ways. We find it much too difficult to obey in our day to day lives.<\/p>\n\n\n
\u00a0 \u00a0 We love Jesus, but …\u00a0Don’t gossip? Don’t complain? Forgive others? Remember the poor?<\/p>\n\n\n
\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0Exhausting! I just don’t have it in me.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n
2) Or a “love” that is all will<\/i> and no desire.\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n\n\n
\u00a0 \u00a0 We end up like the Pharisees who were all about following the rules to the letter, but without any real heart for God.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n
\u00a0 \u00a0 Go to church. Tithe our income. Don’t cuss or drink too much.\u00a0As long as we try our best to obey God, that will earn His approval and get us what we really want: eternity in heaven.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n
The two pitfalls are equally dangerous.<\/b><\/p>\n\n\n
Because they both miss the true beauty of the love relationship that God intends for us. They leave us outside of God’s best.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n
In ourselves it is impossible to combine our will and our desire in perfect love for God: heart, soul, strength, and mind.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n
But we don’t have to rely upon ourselves. It is the Holy Spirit who enables us both to will and to desire.<\/p>\n\n\n
Phil 2:13 – “For it is God who is producing in you both the desire and the ability to do what pleases him.” (ISV)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Yesterday I offered Dr. Chris Bounds’ definition of\u00a0love as “the\u00a0alignment of the will\u00a0with the\u00a0desire for union, oneness, or fellowship\u00a0with someone or something”.\u00a0 His point being that genuine love requires both will and desire. When it comes to loving God, there are two pitfalls we must avoid: 1) A “love” that is all desire and no […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8106","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8106","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8106"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8106\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8107,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8106\/revisions\/8107"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8106"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8106"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8106"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}