Loving God Whom You Don't See

"There is nothing finer, nothing sweeter, than God. Now you are going to tell me: I do not see Him; how am I to love one whom I do not see? Behold how you may learn to love one whom you do not see. I will show you how you may try to see what you cannot behold with these eyes. See, now, you love a friend; what do you love in him? You love him without any return. Perhaps that friend of yours, to omit other facts, is an old man; for you can have an old man as a friend. What do you love in the old man? A crooked body, a white head, the wrinkles on his forehead, his drawn jaw? If it is the body which you see, compared with old age nothing is so ugly; yet you love something, even if you do not love the body which you see because it is ugly. How do you see what you love? For if I were to ask you: Why do you love? you would answer me: The man is faithful. Therefore, you love fidelity. If you love fidelity, God is seen with the same eyes with which fidelity is perceived." (unknown source, in Mary Magdeleine Mueller, trans., St. Caesarius: Sermons, Volume I [1-80] [Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2004], Sermon 21:4, p. 109)

The First Commandment, The Beginning Of Wisdom

Above all other relationships and priorities:

"So take diligent heed to yourselves to love the Lord your God." (Joshua 23:11)

"What do people value in life?...From analyzing people’s answers, it is clear that one source of meaning is predominant: family. In 14 of the 17 advanced economies surveyed, more mention their family as a source of meaning in their lives than any other factor….Outside of the U.S., religion is never one of the top 10 sources of meaning cited – and no more than 5% of any non-American public mention it. In the U.S., however, 15% mention religion or God as a source of meaning, making it the fifth most mentioned topic….Evangelical Protestants in the U.S. are much more likely than mainline Protestants to mention faith as a source of meaning – 34% vs. 13%, respectively." (Pew Research Center)

"He who loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and he who loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me." (Matthew 10:37)

"We love, because he first loved us." (1 John 4:19)

Following The Chain Of Joy

"Now, if you love what He made, what must He be who made it? If the world is beautiful, what must be the Author of the world?" (unknown source, in Mary Magdeleine Mueller, trans., St. Caesarius: Sermons, Volume I [1-80] [Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2004], Sermon 21:5, p. 110)

How Lovable God Is

"For anyone who does not love [God] shows clearly that he does not know how lovable he is, that he has not learned to taste and see how gentle and sweet the Lord is, when he does not strive to be pleasing in his sight by continual exertion." (Bede, David Hurst, trans., Bede The Venerable: Commentary On The Seven Catholic Epistles [Kalamazoo, Michigan: Cistercian Publications, 1985], 168-69; comments on 1 John 2:5-6)

Little Things Filling Up Little Souls

"The reason that is so is because the human soul was made to see Christ, to know Christ, to love Christ, to enjoy Christ, and to be enlarged by the greatness of the glory of Christ. Without this, our souls shrink. And little souls make little lusts have great power. The soul, as it were, contracts or expands to encompass the magnitude or minuteness of its treasure. The human soul was made to see and savor the glory of Christ. Nothing else is big enough to enlarge the soul as God intended and make little lusts lose their power....Inside and outside the church, modern culture is drowning in a sea of triviality, pettiness, banality, and silliness....Therefore, the deepest cure to our pitiful addictions is to be staggered by the infinite, everlasting, unchanging, all-satisfying glory of Christ." (John Piper)

That God Is So Belittled

"Why is it that people can become emotionally and morally indignant over poverty and exploitation and prejudice and the injustice of man against man and yet feel little or no remorse or indignation that God is so belittled? It's because of sin. That is what sin is. Sin is esteeming and valuing and honoring and enjoying man and his creations above God. So even our man-centered anger at the hurt of sin is part of sin. God is marginal in human life." (John Piper)

Hallowed Be Your Name

"Only the first petition of the Lord's Prayer is a prayer for an explicit act of the human heart in response to the infinite Treasure of God's holiness: Hallow it. Hallow the holiness of this name. Revere the holiness of this name. Honor, esteem, admire, value, treasure supremely the infinite worth of this name….May the grand, overarching, all-embracing, all-pervasive theme of your life be the magnificence of God — his holiness, his beauty, his worth, his greatness. Pray that God would do this. That's what Jesus is telling us to do. Pray that he would do it. First in you, and then through you, in the lives of others, and among the nations — that his name be hallowed….In eternity, we will hallow the name of God not as a means to anything. Hallowing the name of God is not a means to any greater end. The hallowing of God's name is the end, the final goal, of all things." (John Piper)

Instead Of Dreaming For The Glory Of Christ

"More and more and more, America is a nation given over to play. The industries of play are huge! Houses are built today with entertainment centers. Computers and videos and television and stereo all coordinate to give us ever more stimulating and captivating distractions from the realities of the world. When we need to be dreaming for the glory of Christ about how to spend our lives alleviating ignorance and sickness and misery and lostness, we are becoming more and more addicted to amusement." (John Piper)

To what end is all this?

"The love of God and the love of the world are like the scales of a balance: as one falls the other rises. When our natural inclinations prosper, religion is faint and languishes. But when earthly objects wither away and lose their beauty, then the soul begins to cool and flag in its pursuit of them, the seeds of grace take root, and the divine life begins to flourish and prevail. It is therefore of great importance that we should convince ourselves of the emptiness and vanity of creature enjoyments, and persuade our hearts to relinquish our love for them. Let us seriously consider all that our reason, faith, experience, and observation of others can suggest to this end. Let us ponder these matters over and over and fix our thoughts on this truth till we become really persuaded of it. Amidst all our pursuits and designs, let us stop and ask ourselves: To what end is all this? What am I aiming for? Can the flagrant and garish pleasures of sense, or the esteem and affection of silly creatures like myself, satisfy an immortal soul? Have I not tried these things already? Will they taste better and yield me more contentment tomorrow than they did yesterday?" (Henry Scougal, in Robin Taylor, ed., The Life Of God In The Soul Of Man [Wheaton, Illinois: Crossway, 2022], approximate Kindle location 815)

Look Beyond Your Contemporaries

A common mistake in the Christian life is to get overly focused on our contemporaries. Neglect of God is the most significant form that takes, but it's also relevant in other contexts. How we live affects past generations (e.g., preserving and advancing their work). It also impacts future generations. The psalmist referred to how he was writing "that a people yet to be created may praise the Lord" (102:18). Neither the people yet to be created nor the Lord are the contemporaries we're so often too focused upon. We're even told to be concerned about angels (Hebrews 13:2). And I see no reason to think that the only rational beings other than God are angels and humans. When you think of life more expansively like this, it heightens your view of life in general and provides more motivation to persevere in the face of opposition from your contemporaries.

Even as far as your contemporaries are concerned, you frequently don't know much about how you're influencing them. If you benefit, say, a hundred people in a certain context, you could easily only notice the benefit in a few of their lives or only be thanked by a couple of them, if any. That's the nature of this life, because of sin and other factors. But my main point here is that before we even get to these factors regarding how to evaluate our influence on our contemporaries, there are many other people and issues to take into account. In fact, our contemporaries are outnumbered by the others involved.

A Telescope Of The Glory Of God

"We are not called to be microscopes, but telescopes. Christians are not called to be con-men who magnify their product out of all proportion to reality, when they know the competitor's product is far superior. There is nothing and nobody superior to God. And so the calling of those who love God is to make his greatness begin to look as great as it really is. The whole duty of the Christian can be summed up in this: feel, think, and act in a way that will make God look as great as he really is. Be a telescope for the world of the infinite starry wealth of the glory of God." (John Piper)

I Cannot Go Broke

"Give me ten million dollars, and one reversal of fortune may scatter it. Give me a spiritual hold on the divine assurance that 'the Lord is my Shepherd; I shall not want' (Ps. 23:1), and I am set for life. I cannot go broke with this stock in my hand. I can never be bankrupt with this security." (Charles Spurgeon, in Roy Clarke, ed., Beside Still Waters [Nashville, Tennessee: Thomas Nelson, 1999], 60)

His Enemies Cannot Shake Or Unsettle Him From His Throne

"But if God is the object of our love, we should share in his infinite happiness without contamination or the possibility of it being diminished. We should constantly rejoice in beholding the glory of God and receive comfort and pleasure from all the praises with which men and angels extol him. It should delight us beyond all expression to consider that the one who is beloved in our own souls is infinitely happy in himself and that all his enemies cannot shake or unsettle him from his throne. What a sure foundation does the soul have whose happiness is built on divine love, whose will is transformed into the will of God, and whose greatest desire is that his Maker should be pleased. Oh, the peace, the rest, the satisfaction that comes from such an attitude of mind!" (Henry Scougal, in Robin Taylor, ed., The Life Of God In The Soul Of Man [Wheaton, Illinois: Crossway, 2022], approximate Kindle location 466)

The Gravest Question Before The Church

"A.W. Tozer wisely wrote, 'What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us….For this reason, the gravest question before the Church is always God Himself, and the most portentous fact about any man is not what he at any given time may say or do, but what he in his deep heart conceives God to be like. We tend by a secret law of the soul to move toward our mental image of God.' And that's why the most important thing about us is not our self-image, but our God-image. The gospel transforms us by transforming our vision of God….A Christian should never feel threatened by the world. Circling the wagons is not what people do when they have a great vision of God, an Isaianic vision of God, alive in their hearts….Father, we do ask that you would so release us from our emotional attachment to the things of this world, and you would so grip us and compel us with the triumph of Christ, that we no longer look like typical Americans." (Ray Ortlund, 6:03, 14:14, 38:36 in the audio of his October 27, 2002 sermon here)

Who Martin Luther Was Above All Else

"The first endeavor must be to understand the man. One will not move far in this direction unless one recognizes at the outset that Luther was above all else a man of religion. The great outward crises of his life which bedazzle the eyes of dramatic biographers were to Luther himself trivial in comparison with the inner upheavals of his questing after God." (Roland Bainton, Here I Stand [Nashville, Tennessee: Abingdon Press, 1978], 6)

That's something to keep in mind as so many Christians in our day keep going after the false lead of the media, whatever is prominent in the news at the moment, and giving so much attention to gender issues, the family, politics, and such while doing so little in religious contexts.

Silently Allowing The Master To Be So Insulted

"It is no common zeal for the house of God which ought to penetrate and engross the hearts of believers. When, therefore, the Divine glory was polluted, or rather lacerated, in so many ways, would it not have been perfidy if we had winked or been silent? A dog, seeing any violence offered to his master, will instantly bark; could we, in silence, see the sacred name of God dishonored so blasphemously?...Were a dog to see an injury offered to his master, equal to the insult which is offered to God in the sacraments, he would instantly bark, and expose his own life to danger, sooner than silently allow his master to be so insulted. Ought we to show less devotedness to God than a brute is wont to show to man?" (John Calvin)

Love Starts With God

"So that when He biddeth thee love Him, He then most of all showeth that He loves thee. For nothing doth so secure our salvation as to love Him." (John Chrysostom, Homilies On Second Corinthians, 30:4)

What You Really Get Excited About

"I know that some of you are not the least interested in these [religious] things. You have no emotional resonance with what I am saying at all. What you really get excited about is a new CD. Or a new outfit. Or losing five pounds. Or watching a ballgame. Or adding a room to your house. Or getting a new car or computer. To you – children, teenagers, adults – I plead, along with the apostle Paul, 'Wake up, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give you light' (Ephesians 5:14). Don't be like the person who goes to the Grand Canyon with a little garden shovel in his hand, and on the precipice of that majesty turns his back to the Canyon, kneels down, and digs a little trough with his shovel and shouts, 'Hey, look at this! Look at my trough!'" (John Piper)

A King Who Beholds Us

"Even in the very palaces among us, should one introduce a harlot and enjoy her, or be oppressed by excess of wine, or commit any other like indecency, he would suffer extreme punishment. But if it be intolerable that men should dare such things in palaces, much more when the King is everywhere present, and observes what is done, shall we if we dare them undergo severest chastisement. Wherefore let us, I exhort you, show forth in our life much gentleness, much purity, for we have a King who beholds all our actions continually." (John Chrysostom, Homilies On John, 5:5)

Talk About Weird

Since there's been a lot of talk about alleged weirdness in politics lately:

"And we have to fight our way every day through this God-trivializing fog that we live in. We can hardly mention God in polite society. You don't need any reason to talk to a friend about the Atlanta Braves, but you actually have to have a reason to talk about God in a conversation. Think about how wrong that is. Almighty God, who sustains everything every moment of every day, is not front-page news. That's weird. Why? An idol has taken over." (Ray Ortlund, 4:12 in the audio of his April 20, 2003 sermon here)