Loving God
By Darrell Ferguson

Contents

CHAPTER ONE:  The Need for Precise Definition
The Greatest Commandment
All Over the Map
CHAPTER TWO: Emotions and the Mind
The Nature of Emotions
Biblical Argument for the Cognitive View
1) Emotions are portrayed as resulting from evaluations of circumstances.
2) Emotions are portrayed as appropriate or inappropriate, true or false, right or wrong.
3) Emotions are portrayed as accurate indicators of righteousness.
4) Emotions are commanded.
5) Emotions are prime.
Conclusion: The Bible supports a cognitive view of emotions
CHAPTER THREE:  The Shema
Heart and Soul
Strength
CHAPTER FOUR:  The Meaning of Love for God in the Psalms, and Wisdom Literature
Psalm 119
Esteem
Desire
Delight
Obedience
The Psalmists’ Relationship to God
Esteem
Two Banquets
Life
God’s Love
Better
Desire
Hunger and thirst imply anticipated satisfaction
Delight
CHAPTER FIVE:  The Meaning of Love for God in the Prophets
CHAPTER SIX: The Meaning of Love for God in the synoptic Gospels
Heart
Soul
Mind
Strength
The Importance of Comprehensiveness in Love
Mary & Martha
Self-Denial and Joy
Obedience
CHAPTER SEVEN: The Meaning of Love for God in the Johannine literature
CHAPTER EIGHT:  The Meaning of Love for God in the Pauline Literature
CHAPTER NINE:  The Meaning of Love for God in Hebrews
CHAPTER TEN:  The Meaning of Love for God in James and Peter
CHAPTER ELEVEN:  Love and Self-Interest
CHAPTER TWELVE: Expressions of Love for God
Experiencing God
Talking to God (Prayer)
Fellowship with God
Fellowship with the Holy Spirit
Eating and Drinking God
Nearness to God
Seeking God
Attending To God
Avoiding common errors
Illumination
Wisdom
Interpretation of Scripture
Seeing God
Walking With God
Remaining in God
Knowing God
Obeying God
Loving People
Enemy Love
The errors of experientialism, emotionalism, and superstitious mysticism
Experientialism
Superstition
Mysticism
CHAPTER THIRTEEN: Conclusion
Bibliography

CHAPTER ONE:  The Need for Precise Definition
The Greatest Commandment 

It was the greatest question ever asked. Never has there been a question more broad and high and deep than this one. The combined intelligence of all the most brilliant men who have ever lived could never discover the answer to this question through research. The endless books of the countless philosophers throughout the ages all put together fall infinitely short of being able to address such a sweeping inquiry. 

One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question: ‘Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?’ (Mt.22:35-36)

The Law of God is the Bible – God’s Word. This man was referring specifically to the Old Testament. God said a lot of things in the Old Testament – over 31,000 verses. And every last one of them is God’s Word. Every one came from the perfect, infinite, omniscient mind of God and will remain forever. Some speak of the creation, some of God’s perfect plan, some of His nature, some of His will. Some are examples of praise, some teach us to pray, some exult in God’s glorious works. And there are thousands of imperatives. Which one is the greatest?What a question! Of all the good activities people have done or could do, this man wanted Jesus to pinpoint one that rises in importance above all others in every context. If we had the answer to this man’s question we would know what the best possible activity that could ever take place is. Imagine carrying out the action that is greater, more important, more profitable, more beneficial, more rewarding than any other action that could be conceived. 
Jesus had no trouble at all answering the question. 

 Jesus replied: 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.'  This is the first and greatest commandment.  And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'  All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments." (Mt.22:37-40)

Jesus had no difficulty producing an answer.  The greatest command and, therefore, the most important activity that one could ever carry out is to love God with all your being.
So if love is that important, how important is it that we understand what love is? Imagine if you had a misunderstanding of the meaning of love – you would miss out on the most important thing there is!
And the various ideas about what it means to love God are so diverse that somebody is wrong about what it means. Many say that love is commitment and resolve, and emotion is unimportant. Others say emotion is at the very core of love, and without it there is no love. Someone has to be wrong – wrong about the most important thing in the world.
Is love primarily action, emotion, volition, resolve, desire, or delight?  What roles do each play, and in what way are each related to the others?  Do feelings rise inexorably from commitment and actions, or is emotion the root and action the fruit?  Is an emotional component part of what is commanded, and, if so, how does one go about obeying a command to feel a certain way?
All Over the Map
The idea that emotion plays little or no role in love for God, is a widespread view in both scholarly and popular circles. The de-emphasis on the emotional aspect of love can be traced in some measure to Plato, who made a sharp distinction between the nature of divine love and the nature of human love.  In his Symposium Plato argued that ouranios eros (heavenly love) is driven by noble goals rather than the desire and passion associated with earthly love.

I must try to distinguish the characters of the two Loves.  …. The Love who is the offspring of the common Aphrodite is essentially common, and has no discrimination, being such as the meaner sort of men feel, and is apt to be of women as well as of youths, and is of the body rather than of the soul-the most foolish beings are the objects of this love which desires only to gain an end, but never thinks of accomplishing the end nobly, and therefore does good and evil quite indiscriminately. …. But the offspring of the heavenly Aphrodite is derived from a mother in whose birth the female has no part-she is from the male only; …. there is nothing of wantonness in her. 

Plato’s influence can be seen in Kierkegaard, who divorced divine love from human love utterly, stating that “not one single word” in the New Testament commends the sort of love that is “based on drives and inclination, preferential love.” 
The philosophers’ conception of divine love as being completely different in kind from human love is reflected in the very common tendency to define agape as special variety of love that is divine, non-emotional, unconditional, and independent of the value of its object.  In Love in the Western World Denis de Rougemont separates agape from passion altogether, as does Joseph Fletcher, who states plainly that Christian love is not a matter of feeling at all.  To G. Johnston agape is “passionless.”  
Usually the reasoning is something like this: We don’t have direct control over our emotions, therefore God would not command his people with regard to emotion.  Such was the reasoning of Kant.  “In this context, however, love is not to be taken as a feeling … it does not mean emotional love (for others cannot oblige us to have feelings).”  
Most who write on the meaning of agape demonstrate significant dependence on the enormously influential work of Anders Nygren, Agape and Eros.  Nygren states flatly that Christian love “has nothing to do with desire and longing” and “does not ascend … to secure advantages for itself.”  Nygren’s conclusions have enjoyed widespread acceptance.  William Hendriksen: “I can be ordered to seek (what I consider) someone’s good. … I cannot be ordered to have affection for a person. …  Emotions do not permit themselves to be ‘ordered around’.”  C.H. Dodd: “[Love] is not primarily an emotion or an affection; it is primarily an active determination of the will.  That is why it can be commanded as feelings cannot.”  Davies and Allison: “Love…is not firstly an attitude or affection….This is why, unlike an emotion, it can be commanded.”  Wolfgang Schrage: “Human love, like God’s love is not an attitude or an emotion but an act.”  Gordon Fee goes so far as to suggest that love is not even properly called a “motivating factor” for behavior; rather, “it is behavior.”  Kathrene Sankfeld  states that “the love that God commands from Israel is not primarily a matter of intimate affection.”  According to Matthew Elliott, the samples above represent the majority view among scholars.
This trend in the scholarly world has had a pronounced effect on popular preachers and teachers.  Erwin Lutzer, for example, writes, “Clearly, if [divine] love were a feeling, God would be putting a burden on us that we could not bear.”  According to John MacArthur agape “is not a feeling but a determined act of will, which always results in determined acts of self-giving.”  Beth Moore agrees: “In contrast to philos, agape is not a feeling …We will discover that God commands us to agape.  He is not commanding us toward a feeling.  He is commanding us to surrender to an act of His Spirit which results in obedience.”  
On the other side of the debate about the role of emotion are scholars like Ceslaus Spicq, Gotfried Quell, Ethelbert Stauffer, Petrus Els, David Baer, William Phipps, Willem A Gordon, D.A. Carson, Gene Outka, and Matthew Elliott; who argue that the term agape in Scripture does indeed describe a feeling.  In the words of William Klassen, “In the last four decades Nygren’s thesis has been all but discredited.” 
This is affirmed by Greek and Hebrew words study authorities.  In Kittle’s ten-volume Greek word study Stauffer writes, “Love in the OT is basically a spontaneous feeling which impels to self-giving or, in relation to things, to the seizure of the object which awakens the feeling, or to the performance of the action in which pleasure is taken.”  Rather than defining love in non-emotional terms, Quell resolves the difficulty of commanded emotion by suggesting that the command to love one’s neighbor must not really be a command, since it involves a feeling.  “Hence a statement like Lv.19:18 [“love your neighbor as yourself], although couched in the legal term [‘;rE, is not really a legal statement, because the attitude denoted by the word bha ((love) is one of natural feeling which cannot be legally directed.”  The two most common Old Testament Hebrew terms translated by agape are hesed and ahav, and the NIDOTT article on hesed highlights the “relational core at the center” of the meaning of hesed.  
D.A. Carson suspects the reason so many people assume divine love must not involve emotion is because of the influence of  “the schoolmen and other philosophical theologians of a bygone era” who believed that God is not capable of feeling.  To the theologians of that “bygone era” Charles Hodge responded: “Here again we have to choose between a mere philosophical speculation and the clear testimony of the Bible, and of our own moral and religious nature.  Love of necessity involves feeling, and if there be no feeling in God, there can be no love.”  Spicq writes, “In the Christian, agape is primarily an adoration of God that is marked by … lively emotion.”  Petrus Els, in the New International Dictionary of Old Testament Theology article on ahav states that most uses of the term, when describing love for God, speak of an “emotive event, expressing a personal feeling of love of the Israelite for Yahweh.”  Els does consider this emotive aspect to be “secondary” to the idea of faithfulness to God, but he has been criticized by Matthew Elliott, who regards the distinction as artificial. 
Another point of dispute regarding love has to do with the role of the object of love.  Is love completely unconditional, so that there is nothing in the object that serves as the reason or impetus for the love?  
According to David Renwick, “fundamentally, agape is … a choice … that is quite independent of the one whom we love.”  Once again, Nygren’s influence is seen here.  For Nygren, agape is “indifferent to value…unmotivated and spontaneous. … It is only when all thought of the worthiness of the object is abandoned that we can understand what agape is.”  Quell sees passages such as Jer.31:33 and Ez.11:19 as illustrative of the “irrational origin” of God’s love for man.
Nygren has been criticized on this point on the ground that if love is unmotivated man cannot properly have love for God.  

Nygren’s explanation [of why Paul speaks so little of love for God] is that “love,” agape, is not proper to man’s response to God, because agape is unmotivated.  Man’s devotion must therefore be called “faith.”  If we ask why Paul can use agape for brotherly or neighborly affection, the reply is that through the invasion of the Holy Spirit, God’s free dynamic love flows from the believer toward the neighbor.  It is not really the believer’s at all!  This is to evacuate Christian love of any value, and it is to be rejected for the same reasons that one must reject the notion that faith is a moment of passivity.

Similarly, Luther rejected the prevailing view of love in his day that the highest love is a disinterested love.  If love were disinterested, argued Luther, it could not be evoked by the worth of its object.
Finally, among those who accept emotion as a legitimate component of love, there is disagreement on the primacy of the emotions.  Some regard emotion as a secondary effect that comes automatically as a result of choosing to carry out the actions of love.  This idea is extremely common at the popular level.  It has been widely circulated through Campus Crusade for Christ literature. 

This train diagram illustrates the relationship among fact (God and His Word), faith (our trust in God and His Word), and feeling (the result of our faith and obedience) (John 14:21). 

The train will run with or without a caboose. However, it would be useless to attempt to pull the train by the caboose. In the same way, as Christians, we do not depend on feelings or emotions, but we place our faith (trust) in the trustworthiness of God and the promises of His Word. 

Author and conference speaker Kathy Miller states, “I'm convinced that even if we fall out of love, God can strengthen us to make a decision to love. Then the feelings of love will follow.”  Blogger Rachael France agrees: “You must simply love in deed first, and the feelings of love will follow.  …  We think the basis of love is our feelings, but it's not. The New Testament teaches that love is a decision to act. Love is always about what YOU do for others, not what you FEEL."  Pastor Geoff Thomas, in a sermon titled “The Most Important Commandments” states that when it comes to love, [what one feels is] irrelevant; God says that you must love one another.  When you learn to do so, the feelings of love will follow.  Love is not feeling first of all; it begins with obedient living."  Counselors Richard and Sally Worthing-Davis write, “There is an old 70's song that goes: ‘Love is not a Feeling, It's an Act of the Will.’ That song sums up what we believe: we have a choice in loving or not, and that love is about action as much as it is about feelings. If we act in a loving way then the feelings of love will follow.  Ted Pearson echoes the proposition: “You don’t love someone because you have feelings for them, though perhaps feelings may help start something. You love them for who they are, and because you make a decision that you will love them.  And if you purposefully show love through action, the feelings of love will follow.
Of the many authors this writer found who postulated this idea, none offered any biblical support.  Tremper Longman, however, offers a biblical counterpoint, pointing out that indifference to emotion is in opposition to the example of the psalmists. 

The voices are legion that counsel, “Ignore what you feel … Just get control, repent of negative feelings, believe by faith, choose the right course of action, and trust that emotions will follow like an obedient caboose.”  … The Psalmist calls us to ponder our inner world, not neglect it: “Why, O my soul, are you in despair?” he repeatedly asks (See Ps.42:11).

John Owen also regarded the emotions as playing a foundational and central role in the Christian life.

Affections are in the soul as the helm in the ship; if it be laid hold on by a skilful hand, he turneth the whole vessel which way he pleaseth.  If God hath the powerful hand of his grace upon our affections, he turns our souls unto a compliance with his institutions, instructions, in mercy, afflictions, trials, all sorts of providences, and holds them firm against all winds and storms of temptation, that they shall not hurry them on pernicious dangers.  Such a soul alone is tractable and pliable unto all intimations of God’s will. 

Given the wide disparity of conceptions of the definition and nature of love there is a great need for a careful analysis of what Scripture teaches regarding love for God – particularly in light of the fact that love is the greatest command.

CHAPTER TWO: Emotions and the Mind

The Nature of Emotions

Modern psychologists have mostly embraced a non-cognitive view of emotion. Emotion, it is argued, is not a function of the mind and is therefore outside of one’s control. This non-cognitive view holds that emotion is nothing more than the physiological response to stimuli, and that it occurs apart from cognition.  A person feels sadness because he cries, or fear because he trembles.  In the non-cognitive view emotions can never be appropriate or inappropriate, right or wrong, moral or immoral.  They are simply names of various physiological sensations. How one feels, then, is outside his control and therefore it would be unreasonable for God to command feelings? 
The most thorough study on emotions in the New Testament is currently Matthew Elliott’s Faithful Feelings: Emotions in the New Testament.  Elliott suggests that the foundation upon which modern non-cognitive theory has been built was laid by Darwin and Descartes.  The philosophical framework proposed by Descartes then gave birth to modern psychological theories about emotion, which, in turn, have heavily influenced Bible commentators.  
The cognitive view holds that “emotions are not names of feelings, but rather the results of the interpretations of objects and situations.”  Objects and situations are evaluated by the mind, weighed against the norms in one’s belief system, found to be desirable or undesirable, and the response to that assessment is emotion.  According to cognitive theory, then, there are indeed both incorrect and inappropriate emotions because there can be correct or incorrect assessments of objects and situations (assessments that do or do not correspond with reality), and there can be responses that are inappropriate for the circumstances at hand.  Feeling delight in response to an unjust attack on a helpless person, for example, would be an inappropriate emotion that one ought not feel.  
The fact that emotion is a response to a cognitive assessment is demonstrated by the fact that cognitive assessment of circumstances is the only meaningful way to differentiate various emotions.  Elliott illustrates: 

Suppose I am engaged in conversation with a man and he is very congenial and talkative.  A woman walks up to us and enters the conversation and the man becomes quiet and begins to fidget.  If I know that this was the man’s school girlfriend I may judge that he feels awkward and embarrassed.  If I know that the woman is the man’s boss who has just committed to cutting her department’s number of employees I may judge that the man is fearful.  If I know that the woman has recently persuaded the man’s wife to divorce him I may judge that the man is angry.  

Each emotion is different, and the differences are a function of nothing other than the man’s rational assessment of the situation.  
Jonathan Edwards argued that emotions (“affections”) must be cognitive: “…But yet it is not the body, but the mind only, that is the proper seat of the affections. … As it is the soul only that has ideas, so it is the soul only that is pleased or displeased with its ideas.  As it is the soul only that thinks, so it is the soul only that loves or hates, rejoices or is grieved at what it thinks of.”
This is not to imply that all emotional responses are the result of detailed, conscious reasoning.  Some emotional responses are seemingly instantaneous.  Even those responses, however, are based on some kind of cognitive evaluation.  Discerning that a nearby lion is a threat, or that a plate of one’s favorite food is delightful are determinations that take place almost instantly, yet they are cognitive evaluations nonetheless.  It is the intellect that is able to discern that the lion is not a rock and that the food is not garbage.  
Because of belief systems and thought patterns, an observed object or situation is regarded as good or bad, threatening or safe, beautiful or ugly, desirable or repulsive.  A person who has developed a belief system in which personal comfort is highly valued may have a seemingly instantaneous response of anger when a person or circumstance interferes with his comfort.  While seemingly instantaneous, however, the angry response does not occur until after he has assessed the situation as a threat to his comfort at some level.  
As Elliott has correctly observed, much confusion in Biblical interpretation has arisen from the fact that the writers of Scripture wrote from the perspective of a cognitive view of emotions while many modern readers are attempting to interpret from the perspective of a non-cognitive view.  

Biblical Argument for the Cognitive View

While the Bible writers were not concerned to address the modern debate over the nature of emotions, the manner in which writers in both Testaments speak of emotional realities is consistent with a cognitive view of emotion, as demonstrated by the following five observations:
1) Emotions are portrayed as resulting from evaluations of circumstances.
2) Emotions are portrayed as appropriate or inappropriate, true or false, right or wrong.
3) Emotions are portrayed as accurate indicators of righteousness.
4) Emotions are commanded.
5) Emotions are prime.

1) Emotions are portrayed as resulting from evaluations of circumstances.

"Now have come the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God … Therefore rejoice…” (Rev.12:10-13)

“Abner was very angry because of what Ish-Bosheth said” (2 Sam.3:8)

“I remember my affliction … and my soul is downcast within me.  This I call to mind and therefore I have hope” (Lam.3:19-21)
This is the word that was preached to you. Therefore, rid yourselves of all … envy.” (1 Pe.1:25-2:1)

“My bones are in agony.  My soul is in anguish. … I am worn out from groaning; all night long I flood my bed with weeping and drench my couch with tears.  My eyes grow weak with sorrow; they fail because of all my foes.” (Ps.6:2-7)

 “Let us … be glad … for the wedding of the Lamb has come.” (Rev.19:7)

The fact that Scripture gives cognitive rational for the various emotions demonstrates a cognitive understanding of emotion.  Reasons are given for emotions.  Furthermore, the reasons that are given are offered not only as rational but also as means of bringing about the needed changes in emotions.  When an emotion is commanded or forbidden, and a reason is supplied, often that reason is also the instrument by which one can succeed in obeying the command.
For example, the problem of sinful fear or fretting can be overcome by focusing upon the promises of God’s help or the transience of the wicked.  “Do not be afraid, for I am with you.” (Gn.26:24)  “Do not fret because of evil men … for like the grass they will soon wither…” (Ps.37:1-2). 
Emotions of turmoil and anxiety can give way to emotions of peacefulness of soul by means of realizing and believing that hope comes from God.  “Rest in God alone, my soul, for my hope comes from Him.” (Ps.62:5)  
Knowing that pure spiritual milk can cause one to grow up in salvation can generate craving in the heart.  “Crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation.” (1 Pe.2:2)

Is it true that when we are obedient in our actions, proper emotions will automatically follow like a caboose on a train? Scripture does not support such an idea. In fact, just the opposite is true.  Scripture warns against the hypocrisy of doing right actions that are devoid of proper affections.  The biblical approach to changing emotions is not performance of actions, but rather changing beliefs.  The fact that reasons are given for emotions demonstrates that the truths that are genuinely believed in the heart are the determiners of what one desires and how one feels. Richard Baxter’s articulation of this principle is worth quoting at length: 

Consideration, as it were, opens the door between the head and the heart.  The understanding having received truths, lays them up in the memory, and consideration conveys them from thence to the affections. … Consideration presents to the affections those things which are most important.  The most delightful object does not entertain where it is not seen, nor the most joyful news affect him who does not hear it … Are not Christ and glory affecting objects?  Would they not work wonders upon the soul, if they were but clearly discovered, and our apprehensions of them in some measure corresponded to their worth? … Consideration, also, presents the most important things in the most affecting way. … [and] helps to deliver [the intellect] from its captivity to the senses, and sets it again on the throne of the soul.  When reason is silent, it is usually subject; for when it is asleep, the senses domineer.  But consideration awakens our reason, till, like Samson, it rouses up itself, and breaks the bonds of sensuality, and bears down the delusions of the flesh. … Meditation holds reason and faith to their work, and blows the fire till it thoroughly burns.  To run a few steps will not get a man heat, but walking an hour may; and though a sudden occasional thought of heaven will not raise our affections to any spiritual heat, yet meditation can continue our thoughts till our hearts grow warm. … It is by consideration that we … take those heavenly doctrines which we intend to make the subject of our meditation; such as promises of eternal life, descriptions of the saints’ glory, the resurrection, &c. We then present them to our judgment, that it may deliberately view them and take an exact survey, and determine uprightly concerning the perfection of our celestial happiness, against all the dictates of flesh and sense, and so as to magnify the Lord in our hearts, till we are filled with a holy admiration. But the principal thing is to exercise, not merely our judgment, but our faith in the truth of the promises, and of our own personal interest in them, and title to them.  If we did really and firmly believe that there is such a glory, and that within a few days our eyes shall behold it, O what passion would it raise within us!  What astonishing apprehensions of that life would it produce!  What love, what longing would it excite within us!  O how it would actuate every affection!  How it would transport us with joy, upon the least assurance of our title!  Never expect to have love and joy move, when faith stands still, which must lead the way. … Love is the first affection to be excited in heavenly contemplation; the object of it is goodness.

This is not to say that behavior has no impact at all on the affections.  Emotions can be affected in strong ways by experiences, depending upon attitudes and knowledge.  God calls his people to “taste and see that the Lord is good,” (Ps.34:8) and Peter links that tasting with resultant craving (desire).  “Crave pure spiritual milk … now that you have tasted that the Lord is good.” (1 Pe.2:2-3)  If a person dislikes hiking it is not guaranteed that he will automatically learn to enjoy hiking simply by engaging in the activity.  If he does so with an attitude that says, “This is miserable and I can’t wait for it to be over,” and has no knowledge or understanding about what is wonderful about hiking, the more he does the action the more his dislike of hiking will grow.  However if his attitude is one of wanting to learn to enjoy hiking, and he learns what aspects of hiking are delightful, the action can indeed assist the change in affections.
2) Emotions are portrayed as appropriate or inappropriate, true or false, right or wrong.
The fact that Scripture points to both incorrect and inappropriate emotions demonstrates a cognitive view.  When Mary was weeping at Jesus’ empty tomb the angels asked her for an explanation for her inappropriate emotions (Jn.20:13).  Sadness was the wrong response to the tomb being empty on the third day because the emptiness of the tomb was the fulfillment of Jesus’ prophesied resurrection.  Mary wept because of an incorrect assessment of the circumstances (she interpreted the empty tomb to mean someone had taken the body of Jesus).  
Scripture speaks not only of emotions stemming from incorrect assessment of circumstances, but also of emotions that are inappropriate responses to correct assessments of circumstances due to wrong beliefs.  Emotions result not merely from the assessment of circumstances, but from judging that assessment against the norms of one’s belief system.  This is why as beliefs change emotions will also change even when circumstances remain the same.  If a gift is believed to be of great worth it will bring joy, whereas exactly the same gift, if it is believed to be given with ill-motives may bring sadness or anger. Beliefs control emotions.
Jesus rebuked the disciples for having fear in the midst of the storm (Mt.8:26), as that emotion was not fitting given the fact that Jesus was with them.  Their assessment of the circumstances was correct (there was indeed a furious storm), but their beliefs about Jesus (that he did not care about their wellbeing or was not able to protect them) were incorrect resulting in an inappropriate emotion.
3) Emotions are portrayed as accurate indicators of righteousness.
Emotions are accurate indicators of what is in the heart.  A good person is good because of what delights or dismays him.  The righteous are those who delight in God’s law (Ps.1:2, 112:1, 119:16,24,47,70,77,92,143,174, Jer.15:16, Ro.7:22), God’s path (Ps.119:35), God’s people (Ps.16:3), God’s works Ps.111:2), God’s Sabbath (Isa.58:13), truth (1 Cor.13:6), the fear of the Lord (Isa.11:3), and the Lord himself (Ps.37:4, 43:4, Isa.61:10).  The wicked are the ones who delight in lies (Ps.62:4), war (Ps.68:30), mockery (Pr.1:22), wrongdoing (Pr.2:14), abominations (Isa.66:3), and wickedness (Hos.7:3).  
While Scripture warns against carrying out seemingly righteous actions with sinful motives (Mt.6:1-28), there are not such warnings against having righteous affections with sinful motives.  It is possible to pray, give, or fast in a sinful manner, but it is not possible to delight in God in a sinful manner. 
4) Emotions are commanded.
Those who seek to solve the (supposed) problem of God commanding emotion by defining love in non-emotive terms are still left with the fact that many other emotions are also commanded.  God directly commands delight (Ps.37:4), peace (Jn.14:1), joy (Php.4:4), rest (Php.4:6, Heb.4:11), compassion and patience (Col.3:12), awe (Heb.12:28), fear (Ecc.12:13), tender-heartedness (Eph.4:32), brotherly affection and sympathy (1 Pe.3:8), heart-felt love (1 Pe.1:22), hope (Ps.131:3), desire (1 Cor.12:31), contentment (Heb.13:5), confidence (2 Tim.1:8), and zeal (Ro.12:1).  Furthermore, God promised harsh punishment upon those who failed to obey with the emotions of joy and gladness, and upon priests who said “what a burden” while serving the Lord.
Once it is assumed that emotion cannot be legitimately commanded the interpreter of Scripture is left with no option but to redefine all the emotional terms in Scripture.  Some have even attempted to define phenomena such as joy and peace in non-emotional terms.  F.B. Meyer, for example, conceives of a kind of joy and peace that is not felt at all.

The lack of feeling does not always indicate we are wrong. … It may be that Christ would teach us to distinguish between love and the emotion of love, between joy and the rapture of joy, between peace and the sense of peace. … Seek feeling, and you will miss it; be content to live without it, and you will have all you require. ... Be indifferent to emotion.  If it is there, be thankful; if it is absent, go on doing the will of God.”

One wonders what unfelt peace or joy could possibly be.  If it is true that the joy and peace that are commanded in Scripture can be experienced without actually feeling joyful or peaceful there are disturbing implications regarding the promises of eternal blessing for believers.  If the commands to experience joy do not necessitate joy that can be felt, there is no guarantee that the promises of future rejoicing after the Second Coming will be felt either, as both are described by the same terms.  Psalm 33:3 commands joy and Jeremiah 31:12 promises future joy, and the same terms are used.
Sing to him a new song; play skillfully, and shout for joy.

They will come and shout for joy on the heights of Zion; they will rejoice in the bounty of the LORD.

Meyer has unwittingly postulated a species of joy that, if accurate, could mean that believers look forward to a heaven in which they will spend eternity shouting for a joy they do not feel out of sheer self-discipline.  If the commands to rejoice do not involve emotion, the same may be said of the promises of rejoicing.  
The impetus that drives the effort to re-define realities such as love, joy, and peace in non-emotive terms is the influence of the non-cognitive view of emotion.  If emotion is simply something that happens to a person independently of that person’s assessments or beliefs it would seem unreasonable for God to require people to feel a certain way.  Since, however, emotions are the product of assessments of circumstances interpreted by the norms of one’s belief system there is no difficulty at all with God holding people responsible for their emotions (since all agree that God commands people to have correct beliefs and to make correct assessments). 
Given this understanding of the nature of emotion, not only can emotions be legitimately commanded but in some respects it may even be more important to command emotions than actions.  Emotions tell the truth about what is in the heart, whereas actions may not.  Scripture does speak of actions as fruit of what is in the heart, however it also speaks of actions that do not match what is in the heart (hypocrisy).  While actions can by hypocritical, affections cannot.  No one can obey the commands to be joyful in the midst of trials or to love one’s enemy without genuinely embracing and believing the truths that enable the soul to have such emotional responses.  When the command shifts from action to emotion there is much less room for self-deception regarding whether the virtue is present in the heart.  
5) Emotions are prime.

Emotions are not only important, but in many ways they are of chief importance.  Indicative of the primacy of the affections are the several statements in Scripture pointing to the experience of enjoyment of God not only as a goal, but as the only goal of the believer. 
“One thing I ask of the LORD, this is what I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the LORD and to seek him in his temple.” 
“Whom have I in heaven but you? And earth has nothing I desire besides you.  My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.” 
“My soul finds rest in God alone … Find rest, O my soul, in God alone.”
“I said to the LORD, "You are my Lord; I have no good besides You."
These verses may appear difficult at first glance.  Was it really true that Asaph did not have one single desire on earth other than God?  Surely he must have desired a meal when he was hungry or a good night’s sleep when he was exhausted or enjoyment of family and friends and material things.  Evidently the normal, healthy desires of life were, for Asaph, desires for God.
Desire for earthly thing, such as food, drink, shelter, relief from struggle, health, strength, or wealth; can be evil or good.  Such desire is evil if one’s desire terminates on those objects, but is legitimate if they are desired only as expressions of God’s presence.  This is why it is not a contradiction for the psalmist to say in “You are my Lord; apart from you I have no good thing," and in the very next line state that, “As for the saints who are in the land, they are the glorious ones in whom is all my delight.”  If he delighted in the saints instead of God, or without reference to God, it would be idolatry.  But since his delight in the saints was an expression of his delight in God, the two were not in competition at all and he could truthfully claim that he had no other desire besides his desire for God. 
Fourteenth Century mystic Richard Rolle articulated this principle: “All love which is not God-directed is in fact wickedness.”  Thomas à Kempis commented similarly, “How dry and hard you are without Jesus!  How foolish and vain if you desire anything but Him!  Is it not a greater loss than losing the whole world?  For what, without Jesus, can the world give you?  Life without Him is a relentless hell, but living with Him is a sweet paradise.”  John Wesley agrees:
One design you are to pursue to the end of time, -- the enjoyment of God in time and in eternity.  Desire other things, so far as they tend to this.  Love the creature as it leads to the Creator.  But in every step you take, be this the glorious point that terminates your view.  Let every affection, and thought, and word, and work, be subordinate to this.  Whatever ye desire or fear, whatever ye seek or shun, whatever ye think, speak, or do, be it in order to your happiness in God, the sole End, as well as Source, of your being.

If one’s delight in created things arises from the intended meaning behind those created things then such delight is pleasing to God, who created all things for the enjoyment of his people.  If a man gives an engagement ring to the woman he loves and she delights in the ring because of what it means then the more she delights in the ring the more she honors the man.  However, if she delights in the ring only because she loves diamonds and has no thought at all about the meaning of the ring, the man will surely be grieved.  In the same way God is honored when his creation is enjoyed because of what it points to, but God is jealous when his creation is enjoyed without reference to him. 
In exploring the question of how the single desire allowed by the psalmists can be harmonized with the obvious possibility of the legitimacy of other desires, John Piper has made a helpful observation from Psalm 43:4.  
“Then I will go to the altar of God, to God my exceeding joy.” … Or very literally from the Hebrew, “God, the gladness of my rejoicing.” That is, God, who in all my rejoicing over all the good things that he had made, is himself, in all my rejoicing, the heart of my joy, the gladness of my joy.  Every joy that does not have God as the central gladness of the joy is a hollow joy and in the end will burse like a bubble. 

The desirability of all good things comes from the goodness of God.  Paul expressed the same principle in similar words.  The Lord is called “him who fills everything in every way.”  That which has any fullness of any kind receives that fullness from the Lord.  In order for enjoyment to exist there must be a spring of joy supplying that enjoyment.  The natural assumption would be that the spring is the earthly things that one enjoys.  The Psalmist, however, points out that the spring of all his enjoyment was actually God.  
This would explain why earthly pleasures do not always provide enjoyment.  A person who loves skiing might ski one day and be full of joy as a result, but another day ski and experience nothing but depression.  The joy does not come unless it is granted by God.  It is not a function of the skiing, but of the “fullness” of God.  And God can grant that fullness with or without the activity of skiing.
There is a strong connection in Scripture between love for the world, idolatry, and spiritual adultery.  Those who love the world are called adulteresses, and those who are greedy are called idolaters.  The pleasures of the world are pictured both as rival gods and as rival husbands.  This explains why adultery and idolatry are often used interchangeably in the prophets.  Desire is the foundation of all true worship.  By desiring God the believer shows him to be desirable, which glorifies him.  By desiring the world more than God a person tacitly declares the world to be more desirable than God.  Looking to created things rather than God to satisfy desires, then, is idolatry.  It lifts created things, rather than God, to the status of “most desirable.”
Similarly, Israel’s preference of their own “cisterns” (sources of satisfaction) over God’s “spring of living water” constituted idolatry.  
‘Has a nation ever changed its gods? (Yet they are not gods at all.)  But my people have exchanged their Glory for worthless idols.  Be appalled at this, O heavens, and shudder with great horror,’ declares the LORD. ‘My people have committed two sins: They have forsaken me, the spring of living water, and have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water.’
  
If a person’s desire ever terminates upon a created thing rather than upon God that person has fallen into idolatry.  Lewis correctly notes that “In every wife, mother, child and friend [Jesus] saw a possible rival to God.”
Conclusion: The Bible supports a cognitive view of emotions  

The biblical view of emotions, then, is that they are responses to assessments of circumstances measured against one’s beliefs and are therefore accurate indicators of what the heart truly believes.   For this reason emotions are of prime importance and one is ultimately responsible for his emotional responses.  While he does not have immediate control over his emotions he does have indirect influence.  When an emotion is sinful he can discern which beliefs are wrong, which things are valued too highly or not highly enough, and which thought patterns are errant; and he can endeavor to make the needed corrections.  As beliefs conform more closely to Scripture, the emotions will become more aligned with God’s emotions.
The non-cognitive view of emotions is not only incorrect; it is also damaging.  The effect on society has been decidedly negative.  Having been taught that they are not responsible for their emotions, people not only fail to pursue proper affections (believing that such a pursuit is outside of human control), but also use emotions as an excuse to absolve themselves of culpability for both wrong affections as well as wrong actions in connection with their affections.  One study, for example, showed that when subjects were given a placebo and told it would make them more emotional they were more likely to cheat on a test.  A return to the biblical view of emotions would serve to restore a sense of responsibility regarding affections.

CHAPTER THREE:  The Shema

The commandment Jesus deemed greatest appears first in Scripture in Deuteronomy 6:5.  “Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.”  Referred to by the Jews simply as “the shema,” this passage is the centerpiece of the book of Deuteronomy.  Peter Craigie states that “it is in a very real sense true to say that the entire book is a commentary on the command which stands at its beginning: ‘You shall love the Lord your God…’.”  
Love (ahav) in this text is a function of the heart (lavav), soul (nephesh), and strength (maod).  
Heart and Soul

In Deuteronomy lavav is used as a general term for the realm of thought, memory, conscious attention, and understanding.  Other times the heart is the seat of emotions (including courage, anger, and joy), or the seat of righteousness or unrighteousness.  Most frequently the term refers to attitude, inclination, or will.  The heart is the part of one’s being that is stubborn, grudging, or willing.  The heart can be hardened with pride, or inclined either toward or away from false gods.  Keil and Delitzsch comment: "The demand ‘with all the heart’ excludes all half-heartedness, all division of the heart in its love.  The heart is mentioned first, as the seat of the emotions generally and of love in particular.
The semantic range of nephesh in Deuteronomy is broader than that of lavav.  It can simply mean life, or person, or self; and quite often nephesh is the seat of appetite or desire.  Having mentioned the heart as the seat of the emotions in particular, Moses broadens the idea using nephesh to “depict the love as pervading the entire self-consciousness.”
The formulaic phrase “with all your heart and all your soul” appears nine times in Deuteronomy.
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The phrase refers to complete devotion, and it is with such completeness of devotion that God requires people to seek him (4:29), serve him (10:12, 11:13), observe his laws (26:16), obey him (30:2), turn to him (30:10), and love him (6:5, 13:4, 30:6).  The terms lavav and nephesh also appear together in 11:18, where the reference is to complete saturation of one’s being with the Word of God, and in 28:65 where the reference is to all of one’s inner strength. 
The fact that the heart, soul, and strength are the means by which one loves God in Deuteronomy 6:5 points to the aspects of the semantic ranges that have to do with that which could be used to love.  With that in mind, and given the analyses above, the meaning of “with all your lavav and with all your nephesh” is most likely that God is to be loved with all of one’s intellect, will, and affections (lavav), and with all one’s desire (nephesh).  In the words of Quell it is a love that is “deeply inward.”  Since lavav and nephesh are both frequently used to describe the inner man in general, the use of both terms together underscores completeness and fullness of the devotion being required.  
Strength

Of the eleven passages in which lavav and nephesh appear together, only in 6:5 is the third term maod added.  To mind/will/affections and desire is added ability.  Furthermore, the word all is used three times, moving the command from the emphatic to the superlative.  Eugene Merrill sees the idea of “muchness” in this term.  “The strength (mĕ’ōd) is, of course, the physical side with all its functions and capacities. The word occurs only here and in 2 Kgs 23:25 as a noun with nonadverbial nuance, and even here the notion is basically that of ‘muchness.’  That is, Israel must love God with all its essence and expression.
The emphasis placed on the totality and wholeness of being with which one must love God should serve as a caution against any conception of love that would exclude the emotions or any other aspect of one’s person.  Craigie summarizes: “The all-encompassing love for God was to find its expression in a willing and joyful obedience of the commandments of God.

CHAPTER FOUR:  The Meaning of Love for God in the Psalms, and Wisdom Literature

Psalm 119

The most comprehensive picture of the meaning of love in Psalms comes from the psalmist’s description of his love for the Scriptures in Psalm 119.  The entire psalm is an expression of his love for the Word, and the term ahav is used eleven times in explicit statements about loving the Scriptures.  This term for love very definitely contains “emotional content.”
The expressions of love for the Word of God should be understood as expressions of love for God himself.  The Word of God is good only because it is the perfect expression of the nature and will of God.  Indeed, the psalmist made no great distinction between God and his Word.  In verse 119, for example, the psalmist observes the actions of God himself and then says, “therefore I love your statutes.”  Love for God and love for his Word are interchangeable.  
The three major components of love that emerge from the explicit statements and that reverberate throughout the psalm are esteem, desire, and delight; all expressed through obedience.
Esteem

Loving the Precepts of God begins with holding them in high esteem, which is the opposite of distain.  “I hate and abhor falsehood, but I love your law.”  Because of how the promises of God have been proven the psalmist has the highest regard for them.  “Your promises have been thoroughly tested, and your servant loves them.”  Love begins with esteem.
Desire

The esteem the psalmist has for the Law is not merely theoretical, but intensely motivational.  It generates a desire to experience the Precepts of God as thoroughly as possible.  The psalmist expresses his love for God’s Word in terms of his desire to receive and experience its benefits.  That desire is described as an intense thirst.  “I open my mouth and pant, longing for your commands.  Turn to me … as you always do to those who love your name.”  Desire as a part of love is seen again in v.48 where his posture is one of reaching.  “I lift up my hands to your commands, which I love, and I meditate on your decrees.”  The “reaching” takes place by means of meditation.  His love drives him to meditate.  “Oh, how I love your law!  I meditate on it all day long.”  This desire and longing is expressed through preference.  The psalmist prefers the Word of God over any evil thing or any earthly treasure.  “Because I love your commands more than gold, more than pure gold, and because I consider all your precepts right, I hate every wrong path.”
Delight

When a desire is genuine the fulfillment of that desire results in delight (feelings of enjoyment).  The psalmist connects love for God’s commands with delight in them.  “I delight in your commands because I love them.”  And this delight is utterly satisfying, creating “great peace” (shalom rav).  
Obedience

The expression of the psalmist’s deep love for the law was obedience.  “I obey your statutes, for I love them greatly.”
The Psalmists’ Relationship to God

The psalms stand as an example for the saints of all ages of how a child of God is to feel, speak, and act in relationship to God.  The same three components of love that emerged in Psalm 119 also dominate the landscape of the entire book.  
Esteem

High regard for God and high estimation of his worth can be found on every page of the book of Psalms.  Recognition and appreciation of the various attributes of God are the central theme of most every psalm.  The high regard for God is both recognition and appreciation in that the praise of God’s excellencies does not stop at mere acknowledgment.  There is a difference between the one who says, “I am aware of the high value of that person” and the one who says, “That person is precious to me.”  Information and knowledge are essential, but they are not love per se.  The attributes of God are held in high regard because of the personal experiences the psalmists have had with them.  “I will be glad and rejoice in you; I will sing praise to your name, O Most High.   My enemies turn back; they stumble and perish before you.  For you have upheld my right and my cause; you have sat on your throne, judging righteously.”  Scholars are not in agreement on whether the deliverance referred to here is past or future.  The important point, however, is not the timing of the deliverance but the fact of the psalmist’s experience of God as a deliverer.  Whether that experience took place by faith in what was coming or remembrance of the past, it was that experience that generated the joyful praise.
The most accurate gauge of esteem is one’s preferences.  When the time comes to make decisions the heart chooses that which it most treasures.  Preferring, then, is a key indicator of love.  A wife is generally not threatened or worried about her husband’s level of regard for other women if it is clear that he greatly prefers his her to any other woman – prefers being with her, talking with her, looking at her, and everything else about her.  If he prefers those other women, however, his wife will be alarmed even if his desire for the other women is very low.  Esteem is measured in relative degrees, and so the measure of how highly the object of one’s love is valued is seen in his preferences.  
Two Banquets

Proverbs 9 describes two banquets.  God’s banquet is announced and promoted by Lady Wisdom and the world’s banquet is announced and promoted by Lady Folly.  Both have set a table, prepared meat, mixed drinks, and call from the highest point in the city summoning the simple to their feast.  
Lady Wisdom

Wisdom has built her house; she has hewn out its seven pillars.  She has prepared her meat and mixed her wine; she has also set her table.  She has sent out her maids, and she calls from the highest point of the city.  

“Let all who are simple come in here!” she says to those who lack judgment.  

“Come, eat my food and drink the wine I have mixed.”  

Lady Folly

The woman Folly is loud …. She sits at the door of her house, 

on a seat at the highest point of the city, calling out to those who pass by, who go straight on their way.  ‘Let all who are simple come in here!’ she says to those who lack judgment.  

‘Stolen water is sweet; food eaten in secret is delicious!’  But little do they know that the dead are there, that her guests are in the depths of the grave.

The exhortation of the chapter is not simply that folly’s feast be avoided, but that wisdom’s feast be preferred.  God is not honored by his people merely saying “no” to the world’s pleasures.  Mere resistance glorifies no one but the person with the strength to resist.  If the people of God stand at folly’s feast, long for it, but deny themselves, their longing is a testimony to the goodness of folly’s feast, not God’s.  God is shown to be glorious and satisfying when his “river of delights” is preferred to the world’s “delicacies.”   
Just as the appropriate response to physical appetites for food and water is eating and drinking, so it is with the appetites of the soul.  God designed the soul to have appetites, longings, and needs, and it is appropriate to take steps to satisfy those desires.  God created people with appetites precisely because he wants them to seek to fulfill them.  The question is not whether people should seek to feast, but rather at which table will they sit.
It should also be noted that preference is not merely a matter of commitment and resolve.  The emphasis from the shema of Deuteronomy 6 (that love for God is to rise from every part of one’s being, including the affections), is not overturned in the Psalms, Prophets, or Wisdom literature.  Preference must arise from the affections.  The imagery of a banquet points not to denial and self-discipline, but to desire and indulgence for the purpose of delight and satisfaction.  
David preferred the experience of God’s love to life itself: “Your love is better than life.”  His preference of God’s love over life is the reason for the earnestness with which he sought after God in the previous verse.  There are three components to David’s simple statement of preference: that which is not preferred (life), that which is preferred (God’s love), and the basis of the preference (better).  
Life

David preferred God’s love to life.  The logic of the passage demands that the term “life” refer especially to the most delightful and desirable parts of life.  The comparison is designed to show God to be supremely desirable, and that goal would hardly be accomplished by saying that the love of God is merely better than the undesirable elements of life.  The point is that God’s love is better than life at its best.  It is better than eating, drinking, houses, clothes, money, work, family, friends, vacations, recreation, sex, sleeping, reading, and any other part of life that a person might normally prefer above other treasures.  David preferred God’s love to even the most desirable elements of life.
God’s Love

The word translated love (hesed), in this context, refers to God’s gracious disposition toward His people that grants access into His presence.
For the believer there is a certain amount of God’s hesed that is always experienced and that never wavers or diminishes.  “Your love (hesed) is ever before me.”  “From everlasting to everlasting the LORD's love (hesed) is with those who fear him.”  “Surely goodness and love (hesed) will follow me all the days of my life.”  This steadfastness of God’s love is precious to the believer because it is a consistently reliable object of trust.  “My foes will rejoice when I fall.  But I trust in your unfailing love (hesed); my heart rejoices in your salvation.”  “The king trusts in the LORD; through the unfailing love (hesed) of the Most High he will not be shaken.”  God’s people can rely on his constant, unwavering, unfailing, uninterrupted flow of favor and kindness.  For the believer this is “the ground of hope.”
There are, however, other texts that seem to point to an experience of God’s hesed that can increase or decrease.  When the psalmists ask for God’s love in their lives the implication is that there is some experience of the love of God for which they longed but did not presently have.  “May your love (hesed) come to me, O LORD.”  “Show us your love (hesed), O LORD.”  “Satisfy us in the morning with your love (hesed), that we may sing for joy and be glad all our days.”  “Remember not the sins of my youth and my rebellious ways; according to your love (hesed) remember me.”  If the writers of these psalms were already enjoying the greatest experience of God’s hesed possible it would not make sense for them to make such requests.  
Following the example of the psalmists, every believer should seek an ever-greater experience of receiving, seeing, and being satisfied by God’s love.  A.W. Tozer laments the modern error of thinking that experiencing God’s love is merely a matter of conversion. 
Everything is made to center upon the initial act of 'accepting' Christ (a term, incidentally, which is not found in the Bible) and we are not expected thereafter to crave any further revelation of God to our souls. We have been snared in the coils of a spurious logic which insists that if we have found Him we need no more seek Him. … In the midst of this great chill there are some, I rejoice to acknowledge, who will not be content with shallow logic. They will admit the force of the argument, and then turn away with tears to hunt some lonely place and pray, `O God, show me thy glory.' They want to taste, to touch with their hearts, to see with their inner eyes the wonder that is God. 

During times when there is a diminished experience of the favor of God it is appropriate for believers to ask God to cause his love to come to them, that God would “show” it to them (that is, set it apart as wonderful in their eyes, distinguish it as marvelous and spectacular, set it apart in their vision and draw clear boundaries around it, and showcase it in their perspective), and that God would satisfy them with it.
Better 

The basis for the psalmist’s preference is the superiority of the direct experience of God’s favor over the best life has to offer.  God’s love is better (tov).  If a person had a choice between being tortured in the most horrible dungeon in the world, but with the experience of the favor of God in that dungeon; or a vacation in the most pleasurable paradise in the world minus the direct experience of God’s favor, the former would be preferable.  And it would be preferable not only because of future reward, but also because of the benefits in this life.  It would be more satisfying to the soul.  
This principle is confirmed by the Prophets.  The knowledge of God’s judgment was so awful to Habakkuk that it made his heart pound and his lips quiver.  And yet as he experienced God as his strength Habakkuk was full of joy. 
I heard and my heart pounded, my lips quivered at the sound; decay crept into my bones, and my legs trembled. Yet I will wait patiently for the day of calamity to come on the nation invading us. Though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines, though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food, though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the LORD, I will be joyful in God my Savior. The Sovereign LORD is my strength; he makes my feet like the feet of a deer, he enables me to go on the heights.

When bereft of the direct experience of God’s favor the psalmists describe their situation as being similar to thirst in a dry wasteland.  Such images point to feelings of discouragement, weakness, hopelessness, loneliness, discontentedness, restlessness, emptiness, frustration, weariness, fearfulness, joylessness, confusion, and inability to enjoy life’s pleasures.  When enjoying the presence of God, however, the experience is described in terms of a feast.  Satisfaction at a feast is the opposite of hunger and thirst in a desert.  The experience of the love of God, then, brings sensations opposite those listed above.  And such benefits are precisely what God promises his people.
The question of why the experience of God’s love is better than life at its best, then, is clear.  The temporal pleasures of life are worthless if one is discouraged, restless, discontented, dry, distracted, and unable to enjoy them.  If a person is encouraged, invigorated, happy, assured, rested and joyful, however, circumstances are of little importance. 
Desire

The natural response of the heart toward that which is highly esteemed as precious is desire to experience that which is wonderful about the object of love.  “My soul yearns, even faints, for the courts of the LORD; my heart and my flesh cry out for the living God.  “Whom have I in heaven but you? And earth has nothing I desire besides you.”  John Calvin comments insightfully on this text:
David declares that he desires nothing, either in heaven or in earth, except God alone, and that without God, all other objects which usually draw the hearts of men towards them were unattractive to him. And, undoubtedly, God then obtains from us the glory to which he is entitled, when, instead of being carried first to one object, and then to another, we hold exclusively by him, being satisfied with him alone. If we give the smallest portion of our affections to the creatures, we in so far defraud God of the honor which belongs to him.

Where there is no desire there is no love.  From the deepest to the shallowest forms of love, desire is at the core.  It is nonsense for a person to say “I love ice cream, but I have no desire for it.”  And if desire is an essential part of the lesser loves, how much more for the greater?  No wife would be honored by a husband who told her, “I have no desire to be with you, no desire to talk to you or look at you or listen to you – but do not fret, I am fully committed to keep serving you in a self-sacrificial way.”  The commitment is a good thing, but for her to feel loved the commitment must rise out of desire.  Conversely, when a husband says to his wife, “I want to spend all day with you today; there is nowhere I would rather be because nothing brings me as much pleasure as being with you,” she does not respond by rebuking him for his selfish, pleasure-seeking motives.  It is no surprise, then, that when Scripture presents the model for the highest human love of all (love for God), desire is of supreme importance.  
Hunger and thirst imply anticipated satisfaction

The descriptions of the psalmists’ desire to experience the presence of God are described quite often in terms of hunger and thirst.  “As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, O God.  My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.  When can I go and meet with God?”  “O God, you are my God, earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you, my body longs for you, in a dry and weary land where there is no water.”  “I spread out my hands to you; my soul thirsts for you like a parched land.”  
Anderson sees the imagery of thirst merely as a statement of the indispensability of God.  However the metaphor also provides insight into the nature of desire for God.  It is a desire that arises from an appetite of the soul that is comparable to hunger and thirst.  That which is desired, then, must be in some way analogous to food and drink.  And this is precisely the way God is described in the Wisdom literature as well as in the Prophets.
Delight

John Owen, though he defined Christ’s love for the saints differently than e saints’ love for Christ, included delight as an essential component of both. 
Now the love of Christ, wherewith he follows his saints, consists in these four things: - I. Delight. II. Valuation. III. Pity, or compassion. IV. Bounty.  The love, also, of the saints unto Christ may be referred to these four heads: - Delight; Valuation; Chastity; Duty.  Two of these are of the same kind, and two distinct; as is required in this relation, wherein all things stand not on equal terms. … Delight is the flowing of love and joy - the rest and complacence of the mind in a suitable, desirable good enjoyed.  

Owen’s conception of delight as an essential component of love is confirmed by the prophetic use of the terms in Hebrew parallelism.  "Here is my servant whom … I love, in whom I delight.”  Love is married to delight.  Desire is what the soul feels prior to experiencing the benefits of the object of its love and delight is what it feels when it does experience them.  Love cannot be separated from desire and enjoyment.  If there is no delight there is no love.  It is for this reason that love and delight are used almost interchangeably.  “How long will you simple ones love your simple ways? How long will mockers delight in mockery?”  “The LORD your God … will take great delight in you, he will quiet you with his love, he will rejoice over you with singing."  The Lord rewards all those who love him so that they might rejoice in him.
The Song of Songs has often been interpreted as a metaphorical description of the love relationship between God and his people, although such an approach is far from enjoying any kind of consensus among scholars.  Other approaches include the dramatic, historical, cultic, funerary, wedding, and love song interpretations.  It is beyond the scope of this paper to discuss which hermeneutical method is most appropriate for the Song, however regardless of which approach one takes there is no question that the descriptions, whether they be metaphorical or literal, are descriptions of sexual love.  Contrary to the claims of some, the terms agape and agapao are used 19 times of sexual love in the LXX version of the Song of Songs.  The use of these terms to describe the most emotional kinds of love is undeniable. 

CHAPTER FIVE:  The Meaning of Love for God in the Prophets

The prophets speak much more about God’s love for his people than about their love for him.  The descriptions of God’s love, however, are instructive in the discussion regarding the definition of love, since throughout Scripture believers are called upon to love God with the very same kind of love with which God loves his people.  To understand New Testament commands to love God with such love, then, it is necessary to have a good grasp of the nature of God’s love for his people.  D.A. Carson lays out the logic that forbids any radical disconnect in the definitions of human love for God from God’s love for humans. 
In passages such as 1 John 4:7-11, believers are urged to love one another since love is of God; indeed, God is love.  The high point in the demonstration of God’s love is his sending of his Son as the “atoning sacrifice” for our sins.  “Dear friends,” John concludes, “since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another” (4:11).  Do you see the point?  Whatever the distinctive elements in the love of God, the same word is used for God’s love and the Christian’s love, and God’s love is both the model and the incentive of our love.  Doubtless God’s love is immeasurably richer than ours, in ways still to be explored, but they belong to the same genus, or the parallelisms could not be drawn.

If the metaphors and images God uses to describe his love are taken seriously the emotional core of love can hardly be denied.  “As a father has compassion on his children, so the LORD has compassion on those who fear him.”  “Is not Ephraim my dear son, the child in whom I delight? … my heart yearns for him; I have great compassion for him," declares the LORD.”  Love, in this figure, is described in terms of the delight, compassion and heartfelt yearning of a father for his beloved child.  It would be difficult to imagine of a more emotional conception of love.  
“The LORD your God is with you, he is mighty to save.  He will take great delight in you, he will quiet you with his love, he will rejoice over you with singing."  “As a bridegroom rejoices over his bride, so will your God rejoice over you.”  “I will rejoice in doing them good and will assuredly plant them in this land with all my heart and soul.”  See also the entire book of Hosea, where, in the words of Thomas McComiskey, “”We feel Yahweh’s deep emotions welling up within his heart.  He looks at his erring child and is overwhelmed by love … We see the grace of God here as we have not yet seen in the whole of prophecy … The intensity of emotion is underscored by the word yahad (together)…. It pictures all the emotions of tenderness and love in Yahweh as burning within his heart.”  It would seem that all theories of emotionless, passionless love run aground on the descriptions of God’s love in the prophets.
While man’s love for God is not emphasized in the Prophets as much as God’s love for man, there are nevertheless some insights that can be gained about the former.  Particularly instructive is the rebuke of the priests in Malachi one.
My name will be great among the nations … But you profane it by saying of the Lord's table, 'It is defiled,' and of its food, 'It is contemptible.'  And you say, 'What a burden!' and you sniff at it contemptuously,’ says the LORD Almighty. ‘When you bring injured, crippled or diseased animals and offer them as sacrifices, should I accept them from your hands? says the LORD’.
  
Ministry to the Lord is like a delightful banquet spread out before the servants of God, and to sniff at it contemptuously and to regard it as burdensome is a gross display of ingratitude that dishonors the Provider of the feast.  And the result of such ingratitude is substandard service (manifested by the priests in the offering of blemished lambs).  Those who love God will serve him out of joy, not grudgingly.  

CHAPTER SIX: The Meaning of Love for God in the synoptic Gospels 

The centerpiece of Jesus’ teaching about love for God is his restatement of the Shema when asked which was the greatest command.  The differences in the Matthean and Markan accounts are instructive.
Hearing that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, the Pharisees got together.  One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question: "Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?"  Jesus replied: "'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.'  This is the first and greatest commandment.  And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'  All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments."

One of the teachers of the law came and heard them debating. Noticing that Jesus had given them a good answer, he asked him, "Of all the commandments, which is the most important?"  "The most important one," answered Jesus, "is this: 'Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one.  Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.'  The second is this: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' There is no commandment greater than these."

The primacy of the command to love God is underscored by Jesus in his description of the commandment as both the greatest (megas), and the first or most important (protos).  The first term means predicated of rank, things to be esteemed highly for their importance, of great moment, of great weight, important, and the second means first in rank, influence, honor; chief; principal.
The supreme importance of the command is further highlighted by the statement, “All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”  The command to love God not only rises above any other command in importance and scope, but it also serves as the foundational support upon which all other commands rest.  
Moses widened and deepened the scope of human responsibility to love God by adding a third descriptor (strength) to his already superlative “with all your heart and all your soul” formula.  And lest anyone imagine that perhaps there may be some aspect of one’s being that is exempt from the command Jesus piled on yet a fourth term, requiring a love that controls all of one’s heart, soul, mind, and strength.
The use of polysyndeton amplifies the point even further.  While asyndeton would have presented the list to the reader as a conceptual whole, the use of the conjunction between each term slows the reader down and calls for consideration of each term individually.
Furthermore, the word holos is repeated each time.  It is not enough to love God with each and every part of one’s being, but with the whole of each and every part.
Any conception of love, then, that would excuse the emotions from responsibility is a misconception.  Without question Jesus required that people love God not only with their thoughts, words, actions, will, and resolve; but also with their affections, emotions, desires, and feelings.  Jesus portrays love as something that must be hot rather than cold.  
Heart

In the Matthean account the emphasis is on the heart as the sphere (en) of one’s love for God, while in Mark points to the heart as the source (ek) of love for God.  The heart is saturated with love utterly. 
In the synoptics kardia refers generally to the inner man and the seat of the emotions as it is the place of desire, forgiveness, compassion, and gladness.  Even in contexts where the volitional or intellectual aspect of the heart is emphasized it is incorrect to interpret the word as having no emotional component at all.  Eugene Merrill suggests that, “Matthew appears to distinguish between ‘heart’ and ‘mind’ by viewing ‘heart’ (Gr. kardía) as synonymous with love or affection.”
Soul

The first century Jewish conception of the soul was shaped by the Old Testament use of the term nephesh.  The soul, in the Old Testament, was the seat of appetite and desire.  The human soul is set apart from the animals because it has the capacity for an appetite for God.    
“My soul thirsts for God.”
“O God, you are my God, earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you, my body longs for you, in a dry and weary land where there is no water.”
“My soul yearns, even faints, for the courts of the LORD; my heart and my flesh cry out for the living God.”
“My soul is consumed with longing for your laws at all times.”
“My soul faints with longing for your salvation, but I have put my hope in your word.”
The soul, then, is the seat of desire.  And desire that is fulfilled produces delight.  Therefore love generates delight in the soul.  This Old Testament conception is confirmed by Jesus when he quotes one of the very passages that draws the connection between love and delight.  "Here is my servant whom I have chosen, the one I love, in whom my soul delights.”
Mind

There is a modern tendency to draw a sharp distinction between the heart and the mind, as though feeling and believing were only remotely related to thinking.  A recent article by Darren Maracin, pastor of Church on the Move World Outreach Center, demonstrates this.  The article is titled, “Love is a Matter of the Heart, not the Mind,”  and conceives of that which takes place in the heart as very different – even opposed to what takes place in the mind.  This is a tendency that is not found in Scripture.  When Bible writers make an emphasis on the heart it is generally not over against the mind.  The discussions of heart and mind in Scripture are such that it is difficult to even make a distinction between the two in many cases.  T. Sorg, in his discussion of the LXX usage of kardia, states that, “The heart is the seat of the emotions … [and] the seat of the understanding and of knowledge, of rational forces and powers.”  It is no surprise, then, that the term that Jesus inserts into the Shema is mind (dainoia).  Jesus widens and deepens the description of the whole of the inner man by underscoring the thoughts and understanding.  F.D. Bruner comments insightfully: “Good thinking loves God as much as good feeling and good willing, and deserves equal time with these usually more celebrated faculties.”  Pascal notes, “Thought constitutes the greatness of man … Let us endeavor, then, to think well.”  Any trend within Christianity that minimizes the importance of the intellect must be resisted.  Understanding is crucial for knowing God. “We know also that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding, so that we may know him who is true.”
It is instructive that Jesus did not begin his answer by saying, “Love the Lord your God.”  The first thing he said was “Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one.”  With regard to loving God, the starting point for Jesus was to identify specifically whom we are to love – Yahweh, the God of Israel.  It is impossible to love God without knowing God, and it is impossible to know God without an intellectual awareness and acceptance of the truth about God.
Strength

The word strength (ischus) refers to ability to perform actions.  Love is not restricted to the inner man, but gathers in the deeds that are performed by the body.  Actions per se are not love, but there is no love that does not affect the actions.
The Importance of Comprehensiveness in Love

For Jesus, love for God is not acceptable unless it arises from the totality of one’s being.  The importance of comprehensiveness in love can be seen by considering the errors that arise from elevating some aspects of one’s being to the neglect of others.  
Elevating the will and the actions of the body to the exclusion of the affections leads to legalism.  The legalist imagines that mere action is love, regardless of what is in the heart.  It is this error that will bring many to rely on their impressive ministries done in the name of Jesus only to arrive on Judgment Day and hear the dreadful words, “I never knew you.  Away from me, you evildoers”' 
One the other hand, those who would emphasize the thoughts and feelings of the inner man to the exclusion of the responsibility to will and to act fall into a quietist error that imagines a love for God that requires no action or effort.  Those who caricature virtually all religious effort or action as legalistic may find themselves in the number who will hear some other dreadful words on that Day: “You wicked, lazy servant! …. throw that worthless servant outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”  
Work is mentioned last in the list, as works have no meaning except inasmuch as they reflect what is in the heart, soul and mind; but work is mentioned because love that involves the heart, soul, and mind but not the strength is fictional love.
Adam Clarke offers an insightful summary of the Great Commandment:
But what is implied in loving God with all the heart, soul, mind, strength, etc., and when may a man be said to do this?
1.	He loves God with all his heart, who loves nothing in comparison of him, and nothing but in reference to him: - who is ready to give up, do, or suffer any thing in order to please and glorify him: - who has in his heart neither love nor hatred, hope nor fear, inclination, nor aversion, desire, nor delight, but as they relate to God, and are regulated by him.
2.	He loves God with all his soul, … who is ready to give up life for his sake - to endure all sorts of torments, and to be deprived of all kinds of comforts, rather than dishonor God: - who employs life with all its comforts, and conveniences, to glorify God in, by, and through all: - to whom life and death are nothing, but as they come from and lead to God …
3.	He loves God with all his strength (Mk 12:30; Lk 10:27) who exerts all the powers of his body and soul in the service of God: - who, for the glory of his Maker, spares neither labor nor cost - who sacrifices his time, body, health, ease, for the honor of God his Divine Master: - who employs in his service all his goods, his talents, his power, credit, authority, and influence.
4.	He loves God with all his mind (intellect - διανοια) who applies himself only to know God, and his holy will: - who receives with submission, gratitude, and pleasure, the sacred truths which God has revealed to man: - who studies no art nor science but as far as it is necessary for the service of God, and uses it at all times to promote his glory - who forms no projects nor designs but in reference to God and the interests of mankind: - who banishes from his understanding and memory every useless, foolish, and dangerous thought, together with every idea which has any tendency to defile his soul, or turn it for a moment from the center of eternal repose. In a word, he who sees God in all things - thinks of him at all times - having his mind continually fixed upon God, acknowledging him in all his ways - who begins, continues, and ends all his thoughts, words, and works, to the glory of his name: - this is the person who loves God with all his heart, life, strength, and intellect. He is crucified to the world, and the world to him: he lives, yet not he, but Christ lives in him. He beholds as in a glass the glory of the Lord, and is changed into the same image from glory to glory. Simply and constantly looking unto Jesus, the author and perfecter of his faith, he receives continual supplies of enlightening and sanctifying grace, and is thus fitted for every good word and work. O glorious state! far, far, beyond this description! which comprises an ineffable communion between the ever-blessed Trinity and the soul of man!
Mary & Martha

While Jesus’ statement regarding the Shema details the nature of love for God in abstract terms, the account of Mary and Martha in Luke 10 demonstrates how proper love for the Lord looks in its practical outworking.
As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him.  She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord's feet listening to what he said.  But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She came to him and asked, "Lord, don't you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!"  "Martha, Martha," the Lord answered, "you are worried and upset about many things, but only one thing is needed. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her." 

Like the psalmists, Jesus affirms that fellowship with him is not merely the most important thing that is needed, but rather the only thing that is needed: the “better”   thing that Mary had chosen.  Vital to the interpretation of this text is the question: What is that better thing?  It would be a mistake to assume that it was inactivity as opposed to busy service.  Such an interpretation would contradict Jesus’ teaching elsewhere about the importance of serving.  The “good part” chosen by Mary and neglected by Martha was not inactivity versus service, but rather a quality of attitude.  Mary was offering her “undivided devotion to his Word.”  In the words of Joel Green, Mary was “fixed on the guest, Jesus, and his word; she heeds the one whose presence is commensurate with the coming of the kingdom of God.” 
Martha’s error was not in serving (contra Marshall), but in the attitude with which she served.  While she is no doubt unhappy with her sister, the displeasure that she verbalizes is directed not to Mary but to Jesus.  “Martha…came to him and asked, ‘Lord, don't you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself?  Tell her to help me!’”  Her complaint does not focus mainly on Mary’s lack of help, but on Jesus’ being complicit in her failure to help.  
The task of preparing the meal could have been just as much an act of acceptable worship as Mary’s sitting at his feet if Martha had been pleased to offer it as a gesture of love.  But the task had become burdensome to her.  Favors grudgingly given are not actions of love.  Just as a wife would not feel loved if her husband regarded it as a burdensome chore to take her on a date, so God is not honored by grudging service.  Burdened service was the great sin of the priests in Malachi one.  
That which is truly given out of love is joyfully given (which is why God loves a cheerful giver).  Where love is genuine, giving and serving is a delight.  If love is mere commitment to action then all action done in service of God would be, by definition, love.  Jesus warned, however, against the possibility of insincere actions.  This would be impossible if commitment to action were, in itself, love.  Calvin observes: 
We shall thus succeed in mortifying ourselves if we fulfill all the duties of charity.  Those duties, however, are not fulfilled by the mere discharge of them, though none be omitted, unless it is done from a pure feeling of love.  For it may happen that one may perform every one of these offices, in so far as the external act is concerned, and be far from performing them aright.

Martha, then, did not err in choosing to prepare the meal.  Had she done it out of love for Christ and the others it would have been just as acceptable as what Mary chose.
 Self-Denial and Joy

Jesus’ teaching about the kingdom, particularly in the parable of the hidden treasure, sheds light on the role of self-denial in love.  Self-denial is an important aspect of love, however it would be wrong to suggest that love is merely a commitment to do what is in someone else’s best interests regardless of one’s desires or feelings.  Self-denial should not be conceived as a setting aside of one’s pursuit of joy.  Rather, as Jesus made clear in the parable of the treasure, proper self-denial is driven by one’s desire for joy. 
“The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field.  When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that field.”  Jesus’ point was not simply that the man sold everything, but that he was driven to do so by his joy.  The man both knew and felt that the treasure was worth vastly more than all his possessions.  If the treasure were only slightly more desirable and valuable than all of the man’s possessions then the decision to sell the possessions to get the treasure would have been an agonizing one.  If the man knew the treasure was more valuable but did not feel it in his emotions it would have been only through his intellect and resolve that he sold his goods in spite of, not because of how he felt.  To give up everything one owns would be difficult to say the least, and yet this man did not agonize over the decision at all.  The treasure was so exceedingly desirable that it was not resolve or commitment or meticulous consideration of pros and cons that drove him to sell his possessions; it was joy.  The “self-denial” of giving up all his possessions was not a setting aside of his pursuit for joy; it was the highest expression of it. 
Love does call for a kind of self-denial.  However it is a denial only of lesser joys in favor of greater joys.  Much like an avid skier denies herself the pleasure a few extra hours of sleep in order to have the greater joy of a full day of skiing, or a person denies himself the pleasure of a snack an hour before Thanksgiving dinner so he can the greater pleasure of enjoying the feast with a full appetite; so love says, “no” to lesser treasures and joys in order to have the greatest kind of joy.
If the selling of the man’s possessions were burdensome or grievous to him it would not show the treasure to be supremely valuable.  God is most honored not when preferring him is a burden, but when it is a joy.  When his people so prefer his grace to any other treasure that their giving up of even the greatest pleasures of this world in their pursuit of nearness to him is a deep joy that shows God to be supremely valuable and desirable.  The Christian life calls for “joyful … exercise of self-denial for Christ’s sake.”
Obedience

Without question Jesus laid heavy emphasis on the importance of obedience with respect to love.  He spoke strongly against those who would claim to have a love for God that does not produce the fruit of obedience to God, or a love for people that does not produce the fruit of kind, self-sacrificial, generous actions for people.  Like faith, love without works is dead. 
Jesus said, ““If you love me, you will obey what I command.”  The word keep refers to both a guarding of something as precious as well as a carrying out of a command.
“If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching. … He who does not love me will not obey my teaching.” 
You have heard that it was said, 'Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your brothers, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that?

This same emphasis appears in the Epistles.
It is apparent, then, why Jesus laid such emphasis on the fact that love for God will always result in obedience to him.  The point is not that obedience itself is love, but rather where there is no obedience there is no love.  If a person esteems God so highly that she prefers him above anything else, it will be impossible for her to be indifferent about sin in her life or to have an attitude of unrepentance.  Sin is a preferring of something above God, and so by definition it is the opposite of loving God.
The same can be said of desire and delight.  If one’s greatest desire is the nearness of God in unbroken fellowship, and the greatest impediment to that is sin, he will not cling to that sin.  If God is regarded as the greatest source of delight, he will not make sinful alternatives the main object of his search for delight.  

CHAPTER SEVEN: The Meaning of Love for God in the Johannine literature

Love for God, in the Johannine corpus, is described variously as fellowship with God, knowing God, and remaining in God.  These terms refer to an ongoing relational interaction, not a mere soteriological status.  Hiebert, for example, comments on 1 John 2:28:  “John’s terse appeal is ‘abide in him’ … The present imperative calls for a continuing intimate fellowship with Christ as a standing duty.  It is not a call to maintain a static relationship but rather to enjoy and deepen a vital, personal fellowship with Christ.”  
While John does not conceive of love as a mere soteriological status, however, love for God is very much a matter of salvation.  The claim to be a genuine believer is identical to the claim: "I love God."
More than any other writer in Scripture John emphasizes the connection between love for God and obedience to God.  Jesus stated that all who love him will obey his commands.  Jesus also affirmed that both the converse (and all who obey his commands love him) and the inverse (those who do not love him will not obey him) are true as well.  So important is the connection between love and obedience that even Jesus’ own love for the Father was authenticated by his obedience.
This emphasis is just as pronounced in John’s first epistle. 
Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God, and everyone who loves the father loves his child as well.  This is how we know that we love the children of God: by loving God and carrying out his commands.  This is love for God: to obey his commands. And his commands are not burdensome.

“If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him?  Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth.”
“If anyone says, ‘I love God,’ yet hates his brother, he is a liar.”
These statements on the close connection between love and obedience are very much in harmony with the conception of love presented in the Old Testament.  If love is a devotion of one’s whole being that arises out of esteem, desire, and delight; it is no surprise that Jesus would point out the impossibility of divorcing love for God from obedience.  If God and his will are esteemed more highly than one’s own impulses, his way will be preferred above sin.  The closer one’s heart is to the heart of God the less one will be at odds with the will of God.
In 1 John 5:3 John seems to take the connection further than the cause and effect relationship discussed above.  John appears to move beyond conceiving of obedience as the result of love to identifying obedience itself as love.  “This is love for God: to obey his commands.”  To take obedience as a definition of love, however, would turn the previous verse into a redundancy.  “This is how we know that we love the children of God: by loving God and carrying out his commands.”  Clearly John conceives of love and obedience as two separate things.  Rather than interpreting verse three in a way that would overturn all that John says elsewhere about the relationship between love and obedience it is better to understand verse 3 as an ellipsis, by which John is saying, “This is (the inevitable expression of) love for God: to obey his commands.”
Ridderbos suggests that in John 8:42, 3:19, and 1 John 3:14b John uses the word love to refer merely to “taking someone’s side or opting in favor of something.”  He offers no support for such a suggestion, however, and fails to explain why, if the meaning were merely one of choosing and not affection, the word love is used rather than the word choice.
Just as Paul warns of the possibility of external actions being devoid of love, so does John in Revelation 2:4.  The church in Ephesus was commended for their faithfulness in obedience, and yet rebuked for their lack of love.  If obedience and love were identical it would be impossible to have one without the other.
John records an explicit statement from Jesus regarding the emotional component of love.  "If you loved me, you would be glad that I am going to the Father, for the Father is greater than I.”  Love desires the joy of its object and is delighted when the beloved receives that which is good.  Failure to be delighted at the glorification of Jesus, then, demonstrates the absence of love for him.
The particular expression of obedience that John finds most significant is love for the brothers.  “If anyone says, ‘I love God,’ yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen.  And he has given us this command: Whoever loves God must also love his brother.”  Since love for God involves taking delight in his will, it is impossible to love God and be at odds with his feelings toward people.  If God loves people so intensely that he would give his Son to die for them, anyone whose heart is close to the heart of God will have a deep love for those whom God loves.
Once again it should be noted, however, that while love for the people of God is the inevitable expression of love for God, love for people is not love for God per se.  It is not sufficient to have an affection for people that does not arise out of esteem for God, desire for God, and delight in God.  “This is how we know that we love the children of God: by loving God.”
John is also exercised to point out the essential connection between love for the Father and love for Jesus.  “Everyone who loves the father loves his child as well.”  “The Father himself loves you because you have loved me.”  “If God were your Father, you would love me.” 
The exchange between Jesus and Peter in John 21 has sparked a great deal of discussion regarding the nature of love.  Following Nygren and Spicq several commentators have seen a sharp distinction between the terms agapao and phileo in this text.  Most, however, hold that the terms are used synonymously.  The latter interpretation is supported by John's penchant for word variety, the fact that the two terms are used interchangeably elsewhere in the gospel, and the fact that in this same section John uses multiple terms for feeding, lambs, and knowing.  
Carson notes that “No reliable distinction [between agapao and phileo] can be based on the LXX.  For instance, Jacob’s preferential love for Joseph is expressed with both verbs (Gn.37:3,4).  When Amnon incestuously rapes his sister Tamar, both verbs can be used to refer to his ‘love’ (2 Sam.13).  Despite one verb for ‘love’ in the Hebrew text of Proverbs 8:17, the LXX uses both agapao and phileo.”  
The sharp distinction that is often made between agape and philia is not supported by the lexicons nor by New Testament usage.  Synonyms are rarely, if ever, exactly identical in meaning, and it is possible for agape and philia to be used in different ways in different contexts.  The two words do have different shades of meaning.  It cannot be shown from usage, however, that one is significantly more emotional than the other.  
Even the Louw-Nida Lexicon, which has been criticized for being too quick to make distinctions between synonyms, downplays the distinction between agape and philia.
Though some persons have tried to assign certain significant differences of meaning between avgapa,w, avga,ph and file,w, fili,a (25.33), it does not seem possible to insist upon a contrast of meaning in any and all contexts. For example, the usage in Jn 21.15-17 seems to reflect simply a rhetorical alternation designed to avoid undue repetition. … Though the meanings of these terms overlap considerably in many contexts, there are probably some significant differences in certain contexts; that is to say, file,w and fili,a are likely to focus upon love or affection based upon interpersonal association, while avgapa,w and avga,ph focus upon love and affection based on deep appreciation and high regard. …It would, however, be quite wrong to assume that file,w and fili,a refer only to human love, while avgapa,w and avga,ph refer to divine love. Both sets of terms are used for the total range of loving relations between people, between people and God, and between God and Jesus Christ.

Elliott states the matter clearly: 
As recent research has shown, the common interpretation of agapao as being a term the translators of the LXX infused with noble and divine meaning while avoiding the more secular meaning of phileo is unfounded.  This does not fit the usage of the LXX which, for example, uses agapao for immorality and other godless loves.
  
Jesus himself used the term agape to describe the normal love pagans have toward one another.  “If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that?”
The purpose here is not to claim that agape and philia are identical in meaning.  Nor is it to explore the precise shades of meaning or various uses.  It is only to highlight the point that both terms describe an emotional phenomenon.  They are terms that describe “affection.”  Thayer, BDAG, NIDNTT, and TDNT all define agape as “affection” or “a feeling.”  And rather than translating agape with words like obedience or commitment, all English Bible translations use the word love.
Whether or not the terms were intended to be taken synonymously in John 21 the point stands: Jesus made the question of love for him the singular issue for the restoration of Peter, indicating that in addition to being the chief commandment and the defining element distinguishing the saved from the lost, love for the Lord is also the most important prerequisite qualifying one for service in ministry.  
No matter what the sin or how great the failure, the only important factor in defeating and recovering from sin is love for the Lord Jesus Christ.  Such love, of course, will issue forth in the fruit of repentance, commitment, and obedience; but those are acceptable to God only if they come from love in the heart.  
An important passage with regard to the nature of love for God in John occurs in 1 John 2:15-17.  “Do not love the world or anything in the world … For everything in the world--the desire of the flesh, the desires of the eyes and the boasting of life--comes not from the Father but from the world. The world and its desire pass away.”  This text makes very clear the connection between love and desire.  The terms are used as virtual synonyms.  The readers are not to love the world because such desire does not come from God.  
The connection of love with desire is so undeniable that the commentators who hold to the non-emotional theory of love suggest that John is suddenly using a completely different definition of agapao here than the normal definition.  I. Howard Marshal, for example, says, “the word ‘love’ here must mean something different from what it did in 2:10 …. Here the thought is of the pleasure which the person hopes to get from the object of his love.  To love, in this sense, is to be attracted by something and to want to enjoy it; the thought is of appetite and desire.”  It will not do, however, to imagine two different definitions for love in this text because the love the readers are not to have for the world is the very same love that they are to have for God.  Desire, then, is a fundamental aspect of love for God.

CHAPTER EIGHT:  The Meaning of Love for God in the Pauline Literature 

Love for God, in Paul, is used mostly as a descriptor for believers.  Paul takes for granted that all believers are lovers of God, and only lovers of God are believers.  
“And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.”
“No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him."
“If anyone does not love the Lord-- a curse be on him. Come, O Lord!”
“Grace to all who love our Lord Jesus Christ with an undying love.”
Those who are puffed up with knowledge demonstrate their lack of knowledge, but those who truly know God are known by God, and the privilege of being known by God is enjoyed only by those who love God.  Anthony Thiselton comments, “an authentic Christian process of knowing … is inextricably bound up with loving.”
For Paul, the fundamental difference between the righteous and the unrighteous is what they love or do not love.  Demas’ failure was due to his love for the world.  The factor that makes the wickedness of the last days so evil will be their love for themselves and the world, and their lack of love for God, others, and the good.  “People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, … without love … not lovers of the good, … lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God.”  To be qualified as an overseer one “must not be … a lover of money but one who loves what is good.”  “Hate what is evil; cling to what is good.”  
In pointing to the object of one’s affections as the best indicator of the condition of the heart Paul is following the clear teaching of the Prophets.  Amos 5:15, for example, does not say “Do good and avoid doing evil.”  It says, “Hate evil, love good.”  “Let those who love the LORD hate evil.”  “I gain understanding from your precepts; therefore I hate every wrong path.”  
Those who fail to love the truth are lost, whether they accept it as being true or not.  The intellect is important, but so are the affections; and to ignore the latter is to miss a great deal of what God requires of his people.  Jonathan Edwards shows the relationship between the inclination of the emotions and love:
The soul does not behold things, as an indifferent unaffected spectator, but either as liking or disliking, pleased or displeased, approving or rejecting…The exercise of this faculty are of two sorts; either those by which the soul is carried out towards the things that are in view, in approving of them, being pleased with them, and inclined to them; or those in which the soul opposes the things that are in view, in disapproving of them, and in being displeased with them, averse from them, and rejecting them.  …these are not essentially different from those affections of love and hatred: that liking or inclination of the soul to a thing … is the very same thing with the affection of love; and that disliking and disinclining … is the very same with hatred. 

The idea that love can be reduced to mere resolve or self-sacrificial action is refuted by Paul in his famous love chapter.  
If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal.  If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.  If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.
 
The fact that it is possible to give all of one’s possessions to the poor or die as a martyr and still not have love demonstrates that there is more to love than resolve and action.

CHAPTER NINE:  The Meaning of Love for God in Hebrews 

The only explicit statement of love for God in Hebrews appears in 6:10.  “God is not unjust; he will not forget your work and the love you have shown him as you have helped his people and continue to help them.”  Love for God, in this text, is expressed through showing love to the people of God.  This is not to say, however, that any kind treatment of people is automatically love for God by definition.  If kindness to people has any other motive besides love for God then that kindness can hardly be called an expression of love for God.  The fact that Scripture contains warning against showing kindnesses to people with wrong motives demonstrates that for kindness to people to be an expression of love for God it must be done as an overflow of love for God.
When a person deeply loves a dear friend it is natural for that person to also have affection for that friend’s loved ones.  It is the same with love for God.  The more esteem, desire, and delight one has toward God the more esteem, desire, and delight there will be toward those who are especially dear to God.
Another expression of love for God that can be observed in Hebrews is the love the Son has for the Father.  Jesus’ love for the Father is expressed in his preference of righteousness over wickedness, and that preference resulted in joy for Jesus.  “You have loved righteousness and hated wickedness; therefore God, your God, has set you above your companions by anointing you with the oil of joy."   Jesus’ preference of righteousness over wickedness is given in chapter 12 as an example for believers of how to overcome sin.  A person will resist the impulse to sin when she genuinely prefers unbroken fellowship with God over the pleasure of that sin.  That preference will not always be a conscious decision.  People make hundreds of decisions throughout the day, most of them without conscious deliberation.  The decisions that are made apart from conscious deliberation are made in the direction of the inclination of the affections, which is why attempting to overcome sin through resolve and commitment alone will mostly fail.  As demonstrated in previous chapters, decisions that are made without any thought at all come from the affections, and if those affections are inclined toward the world and they prefer the world’s delicacies to the grace of God, no matter how strong their resolve is they will find themselves seated again and again at folly’s feast.
Evil, then, will be displaced by good when good is preferred above evil in the affections.  The delights of the world are not to merely be rejected; they are to be rejected because that which God offers is more desirable.  “No human is immune from the magnetic appeal of whatever he/she regards as beautiful. … beauty is the battlefield where God and Satan contend with each other for the hearts of men.”
Jesus is the believer’s supreme example for every aspect of the Christian life, including this important matter of preferring.  
Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.  Consider him who endured such opposition from sinful men, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.

The term scorning (kataphroneo, translated despising in most translations) is easily misunderstood.  The point is not that Jesus especially hated the shame, as though that were the worst part of His suffering.  Perhaps it was the worst part, but the term kataphroneo does not mean to hate.  It means to think little or nothing of.  The writer’s point is not that Jesus thought of the shame as being especially bad, but that he thought little of the shame.
It is evident from the account of Jesus’ praying in Gethsemane that he thought a great deal of the pain, beseeching the Father that the cup be taken from him.  This “thinking little,” then, is comparative.  Measured against Jesus’ regard for the coming joy his thoughts about the pain were comparatively small.  Jesus suffered unimaginably, but compared to the joy that compelled Jesus that suffering was as nothing.  
The cross, then, should be considered as an amazing act of preferring.  It is to Jesus’ astonishing preference of the joy over avoidance of suffering that the Hebrew writer draws the reader’s attention.  Had Jesus avoided the suffering by bypassing the cross he would have forfeited the joy set before him.  But that joy was such a powerful motivation to him that he preferred it above avoidance of the suffering. 
Jesus’ example exposes yet another error in Nygren’s conception of love.  The belief that Christian love “has nothing to do with desire and longing” and “does not ascend … to secure advantages for itself runs aground on Jesus’ repeated commands to secure eternal advantages for the very reason that they are more advantageous than temporal advantages.
“Store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal.”
“Go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven.” 
The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that field.  "Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant looking for fine pearls.  When he found one of great value, he went away and sold everything he had and bought it.

Love for God is powered by intense desire to secure for one’s self that which is better than anything in this world.
CHAPTER TEN:  The Meaning of Love for God in James and Peter 

For James, lovers of God are the sole inheritors of future glory.  In 1:12 those who love God are identified as those who will receive the crown of life due to their perseverance; and in 2:5 they are said to inherit the kingdom due to having been chosen by God to be rich in faith.  James leaves no room for the possibility of a genuine believer who does not love God, nor for a conception of love that does not involve perseverance in faith. 
Like Jesus and John, James requires his readers to choose between love for this world and love for God.  
What causes fights and quarrels among you?  Don't they come from your desires that battle within you?  You want something but don't get it. You kill and covet, but you cannot have what you want. You quarrel and fight.  You do not have, because you do not ask God.  When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.  You adulterous people, don't you know that friendship with the world is hatred toward God?  Anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God.

Here James casts love for God in terms of marital love in the sense that setting that love upon another object constitutes adultery.  Just as marital love is exclusive, so is love for God.  The severity of such rhetoric demonstrates the importance of the inclinations of one’s soul.  When a person’s desires are perverse to the point of preferring the world’s pleasures to God’s Scripture writers frequently compare that to a wife whose heart desires another man instead of her husband.  Much like John in the parallel passage in 1 John 2:15-17, James speaks of love in terms of desire.  Hedonistic desires for the world are equivalent to love (philia) for the world. 
Peter praises his readers for loving the Lord even without having seen him, and that love, along with faith, is associated with inexpressible and glorious joy.  Believers’ love for one another is to be fervent, and from the heart.
When Peter spoke of love as a function of the heart it was for the purpose of describing the depth of love.  “Now that you have purified yourselves by obeying the truth so that you have sincere love for your brothers, love one another deeply, from the heart.”  Love that is from the heart is love that is deep (ektenos - earnest, or fervent).  The first step is for love to be sincere.  But sincerity alone is not enough.  From there love must become increasingly fervent and earnest.  Love for God must dominate the whole of one’s inner man such that it is passionate and fervent.  

CHAPTER ELEVEN:  Love and Self-Interest

Among the most common errors regarding the nature of love is the idea that love is devoid of self-interest.  If the greatest commandment is for us to love God, and at the core of love is esteem, desire, and delight, then the pursuit of obedience to the greatest commandment is identical with the pursuit of one’s own delight.  This has caused some to criticize this approach as selfish.  Seeking one’s own happiness, it is assumed, cannot be the noblest course.  
Nygren, for example, insists that Christian love “does not ascend … to secure advantages for itself.  Emmanuel Kant taught that the goodness of an action is morally tainted if there is a selfish motive.  A dealer who does not overcharge an inexperienced purchaser, according to Kant, should not be judged to be acting morally because part of his motive may have come from gaining personal advantage (increased profitability due to honest dealings).  New Testament scholar T. W. Manson writes, "The promise of reward for this kind of life [Luke 14:14] is there as a fact.  You do not live this way for the sake of reward.  If you do you are not living in this way but in the old selfish way."  Darla Blatnik agrees: “What is our motive for living the Christian life … The motive isn’t, really can’t be, an expectation that we will be rewarded.  The motive is merely that is what is expected of us.”  J. Oswald Sanders also confounds self-interest with selfishness: “There can be an element of selfishness even in love.  True, we should worship God for the great things He has done for us, but our worship reaches a much higher level when we worship Him simply and solely for what He is, for the excellences and perfections of His being.”  Craig Booth has written numerous articles propagating this idea. 
“Hedonism is the pursuit of pleasures, generally as the primary motivation for action. When Christians do this as the motives for their actions, it is Christian Hedonism.  Just as extramarital sex between believers could rightly be labeled "Christian Adultery."  … if a Christian asks God for anything purely out of hedonism, James calls it "wrong motives” … Consider this scene.  A young man enters a corporate worship service and asks God to give him a glorious emotional experience.  Does God grant this to him?  Possibly not if the man intends to spend this emotional experience on himself, as his own pleasure for his own pleasure’s sake; his own personal hedonistic experience.

Booth’s remarks are aimed at the teaching of John Piper, undoubtedly the most well known current opponent of the anti-reward ethical system.  For Piper the motive of seeking reward is “the” key to obeying the command to love others.  Piper is careful to avoid the error of introducing merit, but at the same time does not shy away from the importance of rewards as a motive for obedience.  “Loving your enemy doesn’t earn you the reward of heaven.  Treasuring the reward of heaven empowers you to love your enemy.”  Booth counters that such an approach is condemned in Scripture as selfishness.
Booth’s error is to confuse the sin of selfishness with self interest in general, which is not always sinful.  Scripture forbids all selfishness, but does not forbid doing things to benefit one’s self.  To the contrary, Scripture commands believers to have self-benefit as a motive.  Each time reward is offered as a motive, God is calling his people to do that which is their own best interests.  
If it were always selfish to do that which is in one’s best interests or that brings some benefit to one’s self, it would be wrong to do anything that one desires to do, since fulfillment of desire is a benefit.  Ayn Rand, simply by summarizing this view, points out the folly of it.  
An action is moral, said Kant, only if one has no desire to perform it, but performs it out of a sense of duty and derives no benefit from it of any sort, neither material nor spiritual.  A benefit destroys the moral value of an action. (Thus if one has no desire to be evil, one cannot be good, if one has, one can.)
 
 It is true that love is not self-seeking in that when there is a conflict between some pleasure for self and what is in a neighbor’s best interests, love prefers the latter over the former.  The sin of selfishness is to choose the pleasure over the neighbor’s best interests.  If there is no conflict between one’s own desire and the neighbor’s best interests, however, then fulfilling that desire is not sinful selfishness even though it does benefit one’s self.  If a man desires the first place in line and cuts in front of someone else to get it, that is selfishness because the man chooses his own benefit above the benefit of someone else.  If the man’s desire is to edify his wife, however, then there is no conflict between the man’s desire and the wife’s best interests.  It is not selfishness, then, for the man to fulfill his desire.
Sam Storms shows that the biblical appeal to pursue pleasure demonstrates that self interest per se is not opposed to love.  
There is an unspoken premise apart from which [the promise of pleasure in Ps.16:11] makes no sense. … It is this: Human beings desire…pleasure – and it is good that they do!  We must come to grips with the fact that the Bible unashamedly appeals to our desire for pleasure and happiness.

As established above, the most accurate measure of one’s moral soundness or unsoundness is what one loves, and at the core of love are esteem, desire, and delight.  If a godly woman sees a child being abused and seeks to rescue the child because she loves (esteems highly, desires, and delights in) justice, kindness, and mercy; then, according to the anti-reward view, her actions are morally tainted because she is receiving the reward of fulfilled desire.  The only way she could be truly moral would be if she had no desire at all to help the child.  Such an idea, apart from being absurd on its face, is soundly refuted by Scripture.  The more the woman desires to help the child the more praiseworthy is her moral character.  
If rewards were a sub-Christian motive for doing good the Lord would not have offered rewards to us as a motive.  But not only has he offered them, he has commanded that we be motivated by them and that we make an effort to accumulate them.  “Store up for yourselves treasures in heaven.”  
According to Booth, anyone who has reward as a motive for becoming a Christian puts his very faith in jeopardy.  “Jesus made the pointed argument that to come to the decision of ‘faith’ simply out of the desire to obtain joy can create a shipwreck to one’s future faith.”  Oswin Craton argues similarly: “It is worth noting that Christ never used the concept of rewards to win people over.”  Jesus, however, did indeed use rewards as a motive not only as a motive for godly living on the part of the believer, but also as a motive for unbelievers to be converted.  He called all who were weary and burdened to come to him and promised rest.  To all who would come to him and drink he promised rivers of living water that would well up to eternal life.  Jesus even described conversion as being like a man doing all he could do to obtain a priceless treasure. 
To disregard the rewards God offers is to dishonor God.  If a woman asks her husband to take her away for a weekend and tells him, “I will make you the happiest man alive,” and the husband responds by saying, “That offer of reward has no pull on my heart at all – I will do it only out of sheer duty, because it is the right thing to do;” that would not be a sign of great love for his wife.  When God offers us the delights associated with being in his presence and we are not motivated by those delights we make God out to be undesirable and one whose gifts are of no great value.  C.S. Lewis’ remarks are apt.
If you asked twenty good men today what they thought the highest of the virtues, nineteen of them would reply, Unselfishness.  But if you had asked almost any of the great Christians of old, he would have replied, Love.  You see what has happened?  A negative term has been substituted for a positive, and this is of more than philological importance.  The negative idea of Unselfishness carries with it the suggestion not primarily of securing good things for others, but of going without them ourselves, as if our abstinence and not their happiness was the important point.  I do not think this is the Christian virtue of Love.  The New Testament has lots to say about self-denial, but not about self-denial as an end in itself.  We are told to deny ourselves and to take up our crosses in order that we may follow Christ; and nearly every description of what we shall ultimately find if we do so contains an appeal to desire.  If there lurks in most modern minds the notion that to desire our own good and earnestly to hope for the enjoyment of it is a bad thing, I submit that this notion has crept in from Kant and the Stoics and is no part of the Christian faith. Indeed, if we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak.  We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea.  We are far too easily pleased.

What sets Christian love apart from the world’s love is not a different definition for the word (kindness apart from self-interest as opposed to attraction).  The definition of love is the same.  What differs is the reasons people and things are valued and highly esteemed.
Love, like everything else, should be God-centered rather than man-centered.  It is not necessary, however, to eliminate self-interest from love in order for it to be God-centered.  The soul that delights in God for God’s sake is a God-centered soul, and the more that soul seeks the object of its delight the more it focuses upon God.  Seeking joy in that way and honoring God are not in competition, but are one in the same action.  Augustine made this point clear in his definition of love: 
I mean by charity that affection of the mind which aims at the enjoyment of God for His own sake, and the enjoyment of one's self and one's neighbor in subordination to God; by lust I mean that affection of the mind which aims at enjoying one's self and one's neighbor, and other corporeal things, without reference to God.

CHAPTER TWELVE: Expressions of Love for God

The most essential core of the Christian life is to love God, and being loved by God is to be preferred above life at its best.  The Christian life, then, is a relational interchange of love with God in which the believer loves God with all her being while seeking ever greater experiences of God’s love.    
The question of how relational interaction with God takes place is one that is not often discussed with precision.  One person may believe that all his experiences with God are indirect or strictly intellectual or volitional, while another believes the deepest experiences with God bypass the intellect altogether.  To speak of the expression of love for God, then, without careful definition, communicates very little.  Some have even suggested that love cannot be defined.  If it is the center of the Christian life, however, the need for a precise understanding is self-evident. 
The aim of this chapter is to explore precisely how expressing and receiving love in relational interaction with God takes place by examining the various terms Scripture uses to describe such interaction.  These terms include talking to God, fellowship with God, nearness to God, seeking God, attending to God, eating and drinking God, seeing God, walking with God, remaining in God, and knowing God.
Experiencing God

Before considering them individually it should be noted that each of these aspects of the Christian life point to experiences.  Because of the abuses of those who fall into the errors discussed in chapter three (experientialism, emotionalism, and superstitious mysticism), there is a tendency on the part of some discerning Christians to recoil from lifting subjective experience with God to a high level of importance.  

[Gary Burge – NIV app commentary p.153 second to last pp.]

Most would agree, however, that prayer is a direct experience with God that is subjectively experienced.  The experiential nature of the analogies discussed below, however, point to other kinds of subjective experiences beyond prayer.  God’s people are to hear God, behold him, walk with him, listen to him, enjoy him, eat and drink him, and be satisfied by him.  Each of those images communicates experiences. When the psalmists asked God to come to them, turn to them, or to satisfy their hunger and thirst, they were not merely requesting that more information be sent to them.  They desired to experience something that would bring them from being dry and weary to having a soul satisfied as with the richest of fare.
The word “experience” is defined as something personally encountered, undergone, or lived through; the act or process of directly perceiving events or reality.  So to say that a person has had an experience of God is to say that she encountered God personally and directly by undergoing God’s expressions of his attributes toward her at a given time.  If God expresses his kindness, wisdom, mercy, or any other attribute to one of his children at a given moment in time, and she is aware of what is happening and enjoys it as a personal interaction, it is proper to say she has experienced God at that moment.  

Talking to God (Prayer)

Of all the phenomena in the Christian life, the one that is most obviously a personal, direct experience of God is prayer.  Saying words addressed to God is not necessarily an experience with God, but if the heart of the one praying is attending to God and delighting in the experience of being listened to by a God who is taking a keen interest in what is being said; then that delight is delight in a direct encounter with God.  Indeed, Baxter saw prayer as the most direct of encounters with God.
The Christian now knows, by experience, that his most immediate joys are his sweetest joys; which have least of man, and are most directly from the Spirit.  Christians who are much in secret prayer and contemplation, are men of greatest life and joy; because they have all more immediately from God himself.  Not that we should cast off hearing, reading, and conference, or neglect any ordinance of God; but to live above them while we use them, is the way of a Christian.  There is joy in these remote receivings; but the fullness of joy is in God’s immediate presence. 

Fellowship with God

The entire Christian calling is summarized in 1 Corinthians 1:9 as a calling into fellowship with Jesus Christ: “God, who has called you into fellowship with his Son Jesus Christ our Lord, is faithful.”  Gordon Fee observes that this fellowship points to more than a mere forensic standing.  “Thus in all likelihood this language is to be understood not only positionally, but also relationally.  Believers are not only in Christ, and as such freed from the guilt of their sins, but are also in fellowship with Christ, and as such are privileged to commune with him through the Spirit.”  According to Friedrich Hauck this means believers “enter into a spiritual communion with the risen Lord” as “his fellows.”  
John also formulates the Christian life in terms of fellowship with God.  Fellowship with God is put as the very purpose of the proclamation of the gospel.  The Apostles proclaimed the gospel for the purpose of producing fellow-fellowshippers with God: “We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you also may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ.”  Fellowship with the Father and the Son, then, become synonymous with authentic salvation.  “If we claim to have fellowship with him yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live by the truth.”  
It would be a mistake to reduce the concept of fellowship with God to prayer and Scripture alone, as though the only personal interaction that takes place between God and his people is when they speak to him in prayer and he speaks to them in his Word.  As will be shown below, there are many forms the believer’s interactions with God take both from man to God and from God to man.  One such form is worship; particularly the worship of communion.  “Is not the cup of thanksgiving for which we give thanks a participation in the blood of Christ?  And is not the bread that we break a participation62 in the body of Christ?”   At the Lord’s Table there is a personal, relational interaction between the individual worshipper and God that surpasses more common forms of fellowship with God.
Fellowship with the Holy Spirit

The fact that Scripture speaks individually about believers’ fellowship with each person of the Trinity underscores the personal nature of what is meant by fellowship.  Within the Trinity the most immediate agent of relational, personal interaction with God is the Holy Spirit.  When each member of the Trinity is mentioned in a passage, fellowship tends to be associated with the Spirit.  “May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.”  “If you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any fellowship with the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and purpose.”  And since he is the most immediate agent of fellowship special warning is given against grieving him and blaspheming him.
When the Disciples were distressed over Jesus’ announcement that he would be leaving, Jesus consoled them by promising the coming of the Holy Spirit.  The believer’s interaction with the Holy Spirit, then, not only replaces what the Disciples lost when Jesus departed, but is actually to be preferred to the kind of interaction they enjoyed with Jesus during his earthly life.
Bruner has warned against the Pentecostal tendency to look only to miraculous evidences as authentic experiences of the Holy Spirit.  It was into this very error, says Bruner, that Satan attempted to thrust Jesus in the temptations that followed Jesus’ baptism.
There are a number of direct actions the Holy Spirit carries out upon the individual soul of a believer.  And those actions result in numerous subjective benefits that are experienced in a detectable way by the believer, such as joy, hope, enlightenment (the action of the Holy Spirit that enables a person to understand a truth clearly and to be favorably inclined to accept that truth), the experience of God’s love, peace, assurance of salvation, guidance, enablement for ministry, power in opposition to the flesh, help in prayer and worship, the benefits of sonship along with reminders and enablement for believers to behave as sons and daughters, and the sanctification process in general.  
Some evangelicals resist any emphasis on subjective experience at all.  Peter Masters, for example, in critiquing John Piper’s “Christian Hedonism,” (seeking joy in God as means of glorifying God), opposes it simply because of the subjective aspect.  “[John Piper] frequently uses the language of direct mystical communion.  Although the joy pursued is derived from reflecting on the Lord, the end is still subjective, and this will lead to a self-conscious nurturing of happiness.”  
The benefits that come as a result of the ministry of the Holy Spirit, however, are indeed direct, subjective experiences.  They should not be thought of in indirect terms, as though the Spirit provided hope or peace simply by giving instructions in the Bible on how to obtain them.  They come not merely from instructions, but from the Spirit directly.  
When a believer receives guidance or comfort or enlightenment from the Holy Spirit, such things are not indirect, theoretical abstractions or mere positional standings, but direct, literal experiences of God in person.  They are just as direct an experience of God as a man’s experience of his wife when he holds her in his arms.  Those who would regard such a statement as extreme may have an inadequate understanding of the doctrine of the imminence (nearness) of God.  God is both transcendent and imminent – both far off in heaven and nearby, close to his beloved children.  
When Jesus taught that God will always give His children good things when they pray, Matthew records the concluding statement this way: “If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!”  Luke records the concluding remark this way: “If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!"  The Spirit is put in place of the phrase good gifts.  Any request a believer makes for anything good is, in essence, a request for the Holy Spirit, since God gives his grace through his Spirit.  The action of God pouring out his love upon his people takes place by means of the Holy Spirit, which means the Spirit causes them to experience God’s love.  John Owen sees such requests as the primary act of faith for the Christian: “…indeed, this asking of the Spirit of God, in the name of Christ, either directly or indirectly, or under the name of some fruit and effect; of him, is the chiefest work of faith in this world.”  Owen comments further on this ministry of the Holy Spirit: 
The Comforter gives a sweet and plentiful evidence and persuasion of the love of God to us, such as the soul is taken, delighted, satiated withal.  This is his work, and he doth it effectually.  To give a poor sinful soul a comfortable persuasion, affecting it throughout, in all its faculties and affections, that God in Jesus Christ loves him, delights in him, is well pleased with him, hath thoughts of tenderness and kindness towards him; to give, I say, a soul an overflowing sense hereof, is an inexpressible mercy.  
Eating and Drinking God 

Scripture frequently describes experience of God in terms of eating and drinking.  God is to the soul like water, milk, wine, and rich food are to the mouth and body.  God is the real bread and real drink that satisfies all who come to Him.  He is a storehouse of food and river of delights.  He is the feast that satisfies those who call his holy day a delight.  He is the banquet that is superior to folly’s banquet.  He is the richest of foods that refreshes the dry, weary soul.  He is the true bread and drink that feeds the souls of all who come to him.  He is the milk, wine and bread offered for free that satisfies so much more than the bread that is not bread.  He is the spring of living water that is to be preferred over the broken cisterns and that never fails.  He is the cool streams of water for which David longed like a panting deer.  He is the water that makes the soul flourish like a well-watered tree or garden.  He is the delicacy that, once tasted, will be craved by the soul.  
The descriptions of the food-likeness of God appear with remarkable frequency throughout the Bible.  The analogy is not to a meager subsistence diet, but to the richest and most celebrative of food and drink.  God is even depicted as being like the fat portions of an animal.  “My soul is satisfied as with marrow and fatness.”  Leviticus 7:23 and 3:16 forbid the eating of such portions, as they were for the Lord alone.  What was taboo in the physical realm is available in the spiritual realm in fellowship with God.
These many descriptions of God as being like food and drink underscore the fact that food-likeness is part of God’s nature.  It is one of his attributes.  Just as eternality, omnipotence, and omniscience are attributes that describe essential aspects of his very being, so is this: that when his favorable presence comes in contact with a human soul he satisfies that soul.  
It is impossible, then, to experience his favorable presence and not be satisfied.  It is not a matter of taste or preference.  One person may be satisfied by a steak dinner while a different person may not care for steak.  But the favorable presence of God is different in that it is guaranteed to satisfy the human soul.  The many promises that God will be like food and drink to the soul do not appear with disclaimers restricting the promise to certain tastes or preferences.  
For God’s presence to fail to satisfy a human soul, then, would be as impossible as it would be for God to die or to sin or to make a mistake.  It would violate his nature, which is literally the most impossible of all impossible things.  To the degree that one has fellowship with God that person’s soul will be satisfied.  Psalm 34:8 does not say, “Taste and see if the Lord is good,” but “Taste and see that the LORD is good.  Calvin observes, 
The words literally rendered are, Taste and see, for the Lord is good; but the particle כי, ki, for, is taken exegetically.  David’s meaning, therefore, is, that there is nothing on the part of God to prevent the godly, to whom he particularly speaks in this place, from arriving at the knowledge of his goodness by actual experience.
  
It should not escape notice that sometimes David was hungry and thirsty; other times he was full and satisfied.  God is everywhere present all the time and yet the Christian is not full and satisfied all the time.  This is because even though the Christian has access to God perpetually, he is not always drinking and eating (that is, experiencing the food-likeness) of God.  When the prophets wrote of their hunger and thirst for God they were describing their desire to have an experience of fellowship with God in which their souls enjoyed and were nourished, strengthened, refreshed, sustained, and satisfied by direct involvement with one or more of God’s attributes.
According to Ps.103:5 God does not merely offer good things; he satisfies his people with good things.  Calvin comments on that passage as follows: “Whatever good things our hearts can wish flow to us from God’s bounty, even to perfect satisfaction.”  This has implications for the way God’s people approach him each day in times of prayer, worship, fellowship, and communion with him.  The Christian must understand that if she truly encounters the favorable presence of God it is certain that she will go away with an increased level of satisfaction.  If she does not then she has not communed with God.  
Love is esteem, desire and delight.  Believers express love for God by desiring (hungering and thirsting) and delighting (feasting) in God.  
Nearness to God

The mutual, personal interaction with God that is the exchange of love is expressed by drawing near to God and enjoying his presence. 
Scripture speaks frequently about proximity to God.  While God is everywhere present, he is not present in the same way in every place.  When Bible writers refer to the presence of God they most often mean the favorable presence of God to bless.  Perhaps the most explicit description of the meaning of God’s presence appears in Psalm 145:18-20.  “The LORD is near to all who call on him, to all who call on him in truth.  He fulfills the desires of those who fear him; he hears their cry and saves them.  The LORD watches over all who love him, but all the wicked he will destroy.”  Some take the promise of nearness to refer merely to answered prayer.  Verses 19 and 20, however, are epexegetical; elucidating what is said in verse 18.  The LORD is near, that is, he fulfills, hears, saves, and watches.  The favorable presence (nearness) of God, then, refers to the direct experience of the benefits of his grace, such as the fulfillment of the desires of the soul, his attention and response to prayers for help, and his watch care over his people.  To the degree that God is afar off from an individual, then, that individual does not experience those benefits. 
The presence of God to bless is never completely removed from a believing person.  
Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence?  If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there. If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast. If I say, ‘Surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night around me,’ even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you.
  
While a certain degree of the experience of God’s favorable presence to bless is always experienced by the believer, however, not all believers experience God’s presence to the same degree at all times.  Indeed, even the individual believer experiences God’s presence in varying measures.  Sometimes God is more near than other times.  The psalmists were very concerned to ask God not to be far from them. 
Nearness to God, then, should be perpetually sought by every believer.  Nothing is more fundamental to the expression of love than the movement of the soul toward the object of its love.  Indeed, the very valuing of the presence of God as one’s only good is what sets apart the faithful from the unfaithful.  “Those who are far from you will perish; you destroy all who are unfaithful to you.  But as for me, the nearness of God is my good.”  Those who love God desire His presence more than anything else.  Those who are far from God commit adultery against Him because they prefer some other thing to his presence.

Seeking God 

Seeking God is so characteristic of a redeemed life that Scripture very often refers to believers simply as those who seek God.  Every part of the believer’s life can be summarized under the heading of seeking the Lord, such that the psalmist could refer to seeking God as his only desire.  
There is a kind of seeking after God that is possible even for unbelievers.  God created and strategically placed the human race so that they would seek him.  This not the seeking of love, however.  The seeking of the unbeliever is a blind groping after that which is not known.  The seeking of love is the activity of the soul that attempts to draw nearer to the presence of one who is known and desired.  The difference in the two kinds of seeking is like the difference between a single man seeking a wife (whom he has yet to meet) and a married man seeking intimacy with the wife he loves.  The latter variety of seeking is impossible for the unbeliever because it requires a love relationship.
Seeking God is a major theme in God’s Word, mentioned over 70 times.  The soul that hungers and thirsts for God and longs for nearness to God takes action to fulfill that longing, and that action is described as seeking.  Seeking God, then, is the action of the soul to fulfill its desire for God.  To seek God is to seek His presence.  It is no surprise, then, that seeking the Lord is connected in Scripture with rejoicing, gladness, love, joy, and life.
God has promised never to leave or forsake His people and to be with them always, even to the end of the age.  The question, then, is if God is always with the believer why is there a need to seek him?  One may wonder how David could have written both the 101st and the 139th Psalms.  In the latter he says that God is always nearby and accessible: “Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence?  If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there. If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast.”  In Psalm 101, however, he says, “when will you come to me?” and in Psalm 13, “How long, O LORD? Will you forget me forever?  How long will you hide your face from me?”  Clearly there is one sense in which God was always with David and another sense in which God was sometimes far from David.
The promise that he is always with his people means fellowship with Him is always available.  There are some times when greater fellowship is available than other times, but some fellowship with God is always available to the believer.  There is never a time when seeking fellowship God would be a fruitless effort.  If there were then God would be a liar when he says “Seek me” because the command implies the possibility of success.  Such is the logic of Isa.45:19.  “I have not spoken in secret, from somewhere in a land of darkness; I have not said to Jacob's descendants, 'Seek me in vain.' I, the LORD, speak the truth; I declare what is right.”  The fact that God speaks the truth means that when He says, “Seek me” the seeking cannot be an impossibly vain effort.  God promises success when his people seek Him.  The genuine seeker should always expect a response from God.
God can always be found by the repentant sinner, and seeking restored intimacy with God is the primary activity of the repentant sinner.  The person who clings to his sin is closing his eyes to God.  Such a person will not be able to find fellowship with God because he is not truly seeking.  The one who repents, however, will be able to find fellowship with Him.  This is the sense in which God is always near to the believer.  
The implication of this is there is never a time when joy and satisfaction of soul are impossible for the believer – even in the midst of great pain.  Therefore any time a believer is not experiencing satisfying joy, it is always because he is not experiencing something he could be experiencing – fellowship with God.  
While it is true that God is always with his people in the sense that fellowship with him is always available, there is another sense in which it is possible for a believer to be far from God.  While fellowship with God is always possible, his people are not always experiencing fellowship with him.  To experience fellowship with him the believer must seek it, as David did in times of dryness and distance from God.  
Such seeking requires considerable effort.  In Psalm 63:1 David provides an indication of the degree of effort that is required in seeking God during a time of relational distance: “Earnestly I seek you.”  The term “earnestly” implies a certain degree of difficulty, as one does not earnestly seek that which is easily found.  No one earnestly seeks after his right hand.  Finding fellowship with God requires nothing less than wholehearted seeking.  “But if from there you seek the LORD your God, you will find him if you look for him with all your heart and with all your soul.”  God is a great and awesome king, and He will not be belittled by allowing Himself to be found by half-hearted seekers.  
Attending To God

Listening is a function of love, and failure to listen to God is a failure to love him.
It is a fundamental truth of Christianity that God has revealed himself to his people.  Apart from revelation there could be no knowledge of God.  All Christians agree that there is communication from God to us.  There is debate, however, on the nature and extent of that communication.  Does God speak only generally through the Bible, so that His communication is exactly the same to each person?  Does He give new revelation today?  How is His voice discerned?  
Avoiding common errors 

Christians have tended to fall into one of two errors on either side of the truth with respect to listening to God.  The Charismatic tendency has often been to focus on the immediate, direct, personal aspect of God’s communication to believers.  This can lead into the error of superstitious mysticism.  Examples of superstitious mysticism would be the assumption that whenever a thought or impression appears suddenly in the mind it must be a direct communication from God, interpreting circumstances or coincidences as hidden messages from God, or attempting to discern God’s will through misinterpretations of Scripture.  A related error is allegorizing (turning details of a passage into symbols even though nothing in the context or literary structure calls for a symbolic interpretation).  It is wrong to expect God to give insight by means of misuses of his Word, and any method that draws an interpretation that differs from what was originally intended by the author is a misuse of God’s Word.  
The error on the other extreme is that of making God’s guidance nothing but impersonal, indirect, general information recorded in the Bible that is the same for everyone.  From such a perspective God does not speak directly to anyone.  He simply gave his people the Bible, and provides no individualized guidance.  
If God’s only communication to believers is in the print on the page of the Bible, then what is to be made of all the promises that God will guide his people on the condition that they repent of their sin?  The Bible can be read by anyone – even the unrepentant.  When the psalmists cried out to God for guidance they were not merely asking God to give them a copy of Scripture.  They had the Scriptures and yet still prayed for guidance.  Scripture speaks of guidance from God that is quite personal and individual. “Whether you turn to the right or to the left you will hear a voice behind you saying, ‘This is the way; walk in it’.”  “The LORD confides in those who fear him.”  The word confide in this context most likely refers to the secret communications within an inner circle.  “God opens his mouth to speak to them without any reserve.”  
Illumination

Between the errors of superstitious mysticism on the one hand and no direct, individual speaking on the other hand lies the biblical doctrine of illumination.  Illumination is the act of God to open a person’s eyes to see and embrace some specific truth and certain implications of that truth, and it is a function of fellowship with God.  
Paul prayed that God would open the eyes of believers in a greater way to some specific truths.  “I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you.”  God speaks to the individual not by showing her things that are not really there in the text, but by enabling her to see (and understand, accept, and delight in) what is there.  God guides the believer by turning on the lights.  “I will guide them; I will turn the darkness into light before them.”  “Send forth your light and your truth, let them guide me; let them bring me to your holy mountain, to the place where you dwell.”
Those who fall into error on the superstitious side have the problem of never knowing for sure if what they are hearing is God’s voice.  Since it is possible to have a feeling or witness a coincidence that is not a message from God, the process of discerning when it is a message from God becomes hopelessly subjective and superstitious.  There is no rational foundation for proving that one type of feeling or coincidence is divine communication while another is not.
Once it is understood that God speaks by means of illumination (or enlightenment), however, the question of how one knows it is God is no difficulty at all.  If there is light, it is God.  If the plain meaning of the text can be clearly seen, then the interpreter knows it is the enlightening work of the Holy Spirit that has granted that clarity.
Superstitious error: 	God guides by means of vague, hidden messages.
Generalist error: 	God does not give specific, individual guidance.
Truth: 		God guides by opening one’s eyes to clearly see what he has revealed.
This principle can be illustrated with regard to wisdom as well as interpretation of Scripture. 
Wisdom

When there is no direct statement in Scripture regarding a particular decision, wisdom is required.  For example, if a person is deciding whether to purchase a house or to rent there is no verse in the Bible that prohibits one or the other, and so wisdom principles must be used to discern God’s will.  
How should a person expect God to answer the prayer for guidance in such a case?  Should he watch for an unexpected coincidence that has to do with buying or renting and interpret it as a message from God?  Such a method would leave one with the impossible task of guessing the meaning of the coincidence.  God does not use darkness and obscurity to communicate; he uses light.  The most common way is for God to answer a prayer for guidance in a case like this would be to simply open the person’s eyes to wisdom by means of providence.  Perhaps the person will go to a helpful realtor who will explain to him that in the current market a person generally has to own for several years before selling becomes profitable.  If the person is a senior in college and is planning on moving away within a year or two, the wise approach has now become clear.  
That clarity (or light) is the guiding voice of God.  God spoke by providentially bringing someone along who could explain principles that exposed the wise path.  God enabled the realtor to be a clear communicator, enabled the student to be able to understand and accept the advice, and orchestrated circumstances so he could discern what was wise.
Interpretation of Scripture 

This principle applies in the same way to interpreting God’s Word.  Paul’s message to Timothy in 2 Timothy 2:1-6 was such that Paul did not expect Timothy to fully understand the meaning until God gave Timothy insight that goes deeper than mere awareness of information.  Scripture cannot be properly understood, accepted, and applied apart from God opening the reader’s eyes so she can understand the meaning and significance of what is written.  “The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned.  The spiritual man makes judgments about all things.”  The Holy Spirit enlightens by working in the heart and transforming the affections and desires and biases so the believer is willing to accept the truth and take delight in that truth. 
God does speak to his people through Scripture – not only generally (the same for everyone), but specifically and uniquely according to specific needs.  God speaks through Scripture not by importing a message that was not originally there, but by opening the reader’s eyes to what is there, and when God does so there is no question as to whether it was God who spoke because the correct interpretation is plain for any unbiased observer to see. 
Seeing God

Though God is spirit and invisible to the physical eye and no one has ever seen him, there is a sense in which those who know him have seen him.  Both senses of the term “see” are used in Hebrews 11:27: “By faith Moses … saw him who is invisible.”  God is invisible to the eyes of the body but through faith and enlightenment can be seen by “the eyes of your heart.”  
Since love desires and delights in experiencing that which is wonderful about the object of love, the heart that loves God will earnestly desire to see the parts of God’s glory that can be seen by the eyes of faith.  And that experience will be delightful.  David saw God in the sanctuary, beholding both his power and his glory.  As a result he had only one request of God: to be in a position to see the beauty of the Lord on an ongoing basis.  Whereas unbelievers cannot see God’s glory because of blindness, light has been shown upon believers that they might see. 
Clearly the references to seeing God are uses of figurative language, since the definition of invisible is unable to be seen.  No one has ever literally seen God’s glory but, figuratively speaking, it is possible to see God.  The purpose of a figure of speech is to reveal a truth about something by comparing it with something to which it is analogous in some way.  The question, then, is in what way is this kind of experience analogous to seeing?  
One point of commonality is that like literal seeing, spiritual apprehension of God is an experience.  It is not uncommon for Bible writers to use the metaphor of seeing to describe an experience.  When Psalm 16:10 declares that God will not let his Holy One “see decay” the point is that he will not experience decay.  When John 3:36 says “whoever rejects the Son will not see life” the point is that he will not live.  
Another aspect of the analogy has to do with what is meant by seeing a person.  If someone says, “I am flying to Florida to go see my best friend” there is much more implied than a mere visual glimpse.  The statement refers to interaction with and enjoyment of the friend.
David provides insight into what it means to see God by the clarifying statement in Psalm 63:2.  “I have seen you in the sanctuary and beheld your power and your glory.”  Seeing God refers not to a visual image in the mind, but to an experience of God’s attributes (in this case, glory and power).  
A. W. Tozer has defined an attribute of God simply as, “something true about God.”  By that definition, then, the only knowledge of God that it is possible is knowledge of his attributes.  Therefore the only way to see God is to experience his attributes.  David “saw” God by experiencing God’s power and glory.  
The experience of power may have been strengthening or empowerment of some kind.  The experience of God’s glory was something that was greater, evidently, than the display of God’s glory in the sky, since David, who was in the desert, had full view of the heavens that “declare the glory of God,” and yet he longed for the experience of the glory of God that was in the Sanctuary.  Such an experience could come in the form of a special ability to appreciate what marvelous about God’s glory, filling the heart with joy and delight.
The writer of Psalm 119 asked God to open his eyes to see what is wonderful in Scripture.  Doubtless he knew where the wonderful things were and what they were; his prayer was that he would be able to see them – to experience, appreciate, delight in, and be moved by them. 
Walking With God

Another common way love is expressed through daily relational interaction with God is seen in the Hebrew phrase hithalek lfanay, which literally means walk before my face or walk in my presence.  That phrase appears several times in Scripture in contexts describing what God requires of his people.  
“When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the LORD appeared to him and said, ‘I am God Almighty; walk before me (lit. walk in my presence) and be blameless’.”  
“Now LORD, God of Israel, keep for your servant David my father the promises you made to him when you said, 'You shall never fail to have a man to sit before me on the throne of Israel, if only your sons are careful in all they do to walk before me (lit. walk in my presence) as you have done.”  
“He has showed you, O man, what is good.  And what does the LORD require of you?  To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.”  
“Then he blessed Joseph and said, "May the God before whom (lit. before whose presence) my fathers Abraham and Isaac walked, the God who has been my shepherd all my life to this day...”  
“Jotham grew powerful because he walked steadfastly before (lit. steadfastly in the presence of) the LORD his God.”
Walking with God is a summary of the godly life.  “Noah was a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time, and he walked with God.”  
The imagery of walking points to the process of progressing through life by incremental advances.  Each action, word, and thought is a “step” in some direction.  Walking with God, then, refers to making each of life’s incremental advances – every thought, word, and deed – in a direction and manner that could be described as being close by God’s side.  Walking “is the constraint of [one’s] whole life which is henceforth to be lived in the presence of … God.”
A very similar image appears in the New Testament: “Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit.”  The conduct of life is to have the same source as the spiritual life within the heart.  The person who walks with God is close to the heart of God in affections (loving and hating the same things God loves and hates), motives (having the same goals and objectives God has), perspective (interpreting things the same way God does), attitudes (having the same orientation toward people, ideas, and events that God has), and actions (working in concert with what God is doing). 
Enoch’s walking with God is interpreted by the writer of Hebrews as the equivalent of pleasing God.  The Hebrew of Genesis 5:24 says, “Enoch walked with God; then he was no more, because God took him away.”  The LXX puts the word pleased in place of the phase walked with.  “And Enoch pleased God and he was not found because God had taken him.”  The author of Hebrews follows the LXX. 
Genesis 5:24 LXX: kai. ouvc hu`ri,sketo o[ti mete,qhken auvto.n o` qeo,j (and he was not found because God had taken him)
Hebrews 11:5: kai. ouvc hu`ri,sketo dio,ti mete,qhken auvto.n o` qeo,j/| (and he was not found because God had taken him)

Genesis 5:24 LXX: (euvhre,sthsen Enwc tw/| qew) “Enoch pleased God”
Hebrews 11:5: (Enw.c…  memartu,rhtai euvaresthke,nai tw/| qew/|)“Enoch…commended as pleasing God”  

Ellingworth takes the term pleased to be an interpretation of the anthropomorphism walked with God.  By following the LXX the writer of Hebrews confirms that walking with God is the equivalent of pleasing God.  
Scripture speaks not only of the believer’s walking with God, but also of his walking with the believer.  “I will put my dwelling place among you, and I will not abhor you.  I will walk among you and be your God, and you will be my people.”  “What agreement is there between the temple of God and idols?  For we are the temple of the living God. As God has said: ‘I will live with them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they will be my people’."
It should not be assumed, however, that the figure of walking with God points only to conformity to a certain standard in thought and action.  The fact that the walking is so often described as being before the face, or presence of God demonstrates that the figure communicates not only agreement in thoughts and actions, but agreement that comes as a result of nearness to his presence.  Walking with God is the activity of love.
Remaining in God

The term remain (meno), when used in a relational sense, can mean to lodge or live with someone for the purpose of relational interaction or enjoyment of the company.  Jesus asked His disciples to remain with him when his soul was swallowed up in sorrow.  Mary remained with Martha for three months after receiving the news of her pregnancy.  The Samaritans prevailed upon Jesus to remain with them two days.  Peter remained many days with Simon, Lydia pleaded with the Apostles to remain with her,
John frequently speaks of remaining in God, or God remaining in the believer.  John connects remaining in Christ with eating and drinking him, knowing him, producing fruit through him, being listened to by him, being loved by him, following his example, being unashamed before him, being  indwelt by the Spirit, and loving one another.  Clearly remaining describes “an attitude directed immediately to Christ.”
Knowing God

Of all the expressions of love for God, knowing God is perhaps the most profoundly relational.  Just as in English the term “know” can be used to describe experience (e.g. “That person is proud because he has never known hardship”), so the Bible writers also used the term to refer to that which is experienced in a profound way.  “They have made their roads crooked; no one who walks on them will know peace.”  Knowing peace refers to experiencing peace in an especially significant way. 
When Scripture speaks of knowledge of a person, much more than awareness or acquaintance is in view.  The Hebrew word for know includes emotion and a “movement of the will,” and when used relationally it refers to an experience of that person in an intimate exchange of love.  “Adam knew his wife Eve and she conceived.”  “[Israel] only have I known of all the families of the earth.”  Knowing God, then, involves a relational experience of God through an intimate exchange of love. 
This relational experience of God through an intimate exchange of love is the mark of true, saving faith.  Indeed, the entire Christian life is cast in terms of knowing God.  It is through knowing him that the believer receives grace and peace and all that she needs for life and godliness, escapes corruption and evil desires, and participates in the divine nature.  This is why Paul prayed that his readers would increase in their knowledge of God.
Knowledge of God, then, is much more than mere awareness of information about God.  The error of thinking about God as if he were a mere set of propositions results in detachment from God.  There is a set of propositions that are true about God, and they must be learned before one can know him.  But knowledge of the Lord occurs only when awareness of and agreement with those truths leads to a positive experience of his presence.  Satan, with all his awareness of theological information, is not among the ones Scripture describes as knowing God.  
It is crucial that the proper role of information be understood.  For a man to know his wife in the most profound way he must go beyond merely gathering data about her.  However if he has no data – no awareness of who she is or what she is like – he can hardly claim to know her.  Knowing God is more than information, but it is not less.  The intellectual aspect is essential.  Attempting to achieve closeness to God by bypassing the intellect is a mark of eastern mysticism, not Christianity.  
Scriptural descriptions of experiences with God are tied closely to the intellect.  “Send forth your light and your truth, let them guide me; let them bring me to your holy mountain, to the place where you dwell.  Then will I go to the altar of God, to God, my joy and my delight.”   “Let us know. Let us press on to know the LORD.  His appearance is as sure as the dawn.  He will come to us like the rain, like the spring showers that water the land.”  
Failure to understand intellectually was, on the part of the Disciples, a sign of little faith.  Indeed, lack of understanding, warns Jesus, is the cause of the seed of the gospel being snatched away from one’s heart.  The blamelessness, purity, and righteousness with which believers seek to be filled come by means of ever-increasing knowledge, depth of insight, and discernment.  “And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless until the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ-- to the glory and praise of God.”  Without question the book of the Bible that focuses most heavily on personal, subjective experiences with God is Psalms, and the Psalms are as cogent and intellectually rigorous as any part of Scripture.  
Intimacy is the fruit that grows out of the root of information.  Just as it is pointless to have the root without the fruit, it is impossible to realize the fruit without the root.  God has revealed himself in his Word, which is written.  To receive what God has communicated, then, requires at least as much intellectual effort as is required in the painstaking process of learning an alphabet, vocabulary, grammar, syntax, and logic.
The revelation made of Christ in the blessed gospel is far more excellent, more glorious, and more filled with rays of divine wisdom and goodness, than the whole creation and the just comprehension of it, if attainable, can contain or afford. …. This, therefore, deserves the severest of our thoughts, the best of our meditations, and our utmost diligence in them.

Warfield commented similarly on the error of considering the academic and relational aspects to be in conflict with one another. 
Nothing could be more fatal, however, than to set these two things over against one another.  Recruiting officers do not dispute whether it is better for soldiers to have a right leg or a left leg: soldiers should have both legs.  Sometimes we hear it said that ten minutes on your knees will give you a truer, deeper, more operative knowledge of God than ten hours over your books.  “What!” is the appropriate response, “than then hours over your books, on your knees?”  Why should you turn from God when you turn to your books, or feel that you must turn from your books in order to turn to God?
Obeying God

Jesus taught that there is a special closeness of relationship between him and anyone who does the will of the Father.  “For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother."  Obeying God is the same as doing God’s will.  When a person delights in carrying out the desires of God, that person’s desires are in step with God’s desires.  Just as the intimacy of a relationship is hindered when the two parties are at odds with one another, so unity of desire generates relational closeness.
Obedience, then, when carried out from the heart, can be an expression of love for God.  And among the commands God has given, the command to love people carries special significance. 
Loving People

When asked which was the greatest commandment Jesus answered with both the greatest and the second greatest.  The questioner did not ask for the second– only the first.  The implication of Jesus’ answer seems to be that the first and second greatest commands are so inseparable that it would be incomplete to think of one without the other.  This conclusion is supported by Jesus’ words, “The second is like it.”  No discussion of loving God is complete apart from some consideration of loving one’s neighbor.  One kind of love cannot exist in satisfactory form without the other.  The one who would claim to love God without loving her neighbor is a liar.  And the one who would claim to love the children of God without loving and obeying God is equally mistaken.  God has so closely associated himself with people that any conception of love for one that does not involve love for the other is an invalid conception.  
As demonstrated in previous chapters, esteem is a key component of love.  Part of loving a person is having a high regard for that person.  Just as a high estimation of the worth of God is fundamental in loving him, so it is with loving people.  This is not to suggest that love must be earned or deserved, but love is offered for a reason (contra Nygren).  The wayward son may not deserve his father’s love, but there are reasons why he has it.  Scripture gives reasons for love.  
As shown above in chapter two, love is an emotion that is a response to the assessments made by the soul.  To increase love for another person, then, one must begin by increasing his estimation of that person’s worth.  Several passages of Scripture offer guidance that enables the Christian to make high assessments of the person under consideration.  When the attention of the soul is directed to consider these truths there will be an inclination of the soul toward the person.
The most basic of such truths is the fact that people bear the image of God.  
"Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed; for in the image of God has God made man.”
 “With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been made in God's likeness.  Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing.  My brothers, this should not be.  Can both fresh water and salt water flow from the same spring?  My brothers, can a fig tree bear olives, or a grapevine bear figs?  Neither can a salt spring produce fresh water.”
While both passages are spoken from a negative point of view, the positive is also implied.  If murder and cursing are to be avoided because of the fact that people bear the image of God, the correct attitude is certainly much more than mere indifference.  Those who bear the divine likeness should be regarded with the utmost respect.
Another truth to consider when making an assessment of one’s brother is the depth of affection God has for that person.  
The man who eats everything must not look down on him who does not, and the man who does not eat everything must not condemn the man who does, for God has accepted him. … He who regards one day as special, does so to the Lord. He who eats meat, eats to the Lord, for he gives thanks to God; and he who abstains, does so to the Lord and gives thanks to God. … anyone who serves Christ in this way is pleasing to God and approved by men.  Let us therefore make every effort to do what leads to peace and to mutual edification.  

Paul’s argument is that since the brother is doing whatever he is doing for the sake of Christ with gratitude to God, that should causes a fellow Christian to delight in that person.  The soul that truly loves the Lord Jesus will have affection for anyone who is making an honest effort to honor the Lord Jesus.  This is why the Lord is both pleased and served by anyone who accepts a weaker or stronger brother.
A third truth that enables a high estimation of the value of a brother is the fact that the person is also Christ’s brother.  “Pointing to his disciples, he said, "Here are my mother and my brothers.  For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.”  "The King will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me’.”  It would have been remarkable if the Lord had said, “whatever you did for the least of these servants of mine you did for me.”  But for the Lord to refer to them as his brothers is particularly striking.  The more time one spends contemplating the fact that a fellow believer is a brother to the Lord Jesus Christ, the easier it will be to formulate a high estimation of the worth of that person. 
Perhaps the most compelling of the truths Scripture offers to assist believers in loving one another is the fact that each one was purchased with the blood of Jesus.
For if anyone with a weak conscience sees you who have this knowledge eating in an idol's temple, won't he be emboldened to eat what has been sacrificed to idols?  So this weak brother, for whom Christ died, is destroyed by your knowledge.  When you sin against your brothers in this way and wound their weak conscience, you sin against Christ.

“If your brother is distressed because of what you eat, you are no longer acting in love. Do not by your eating destroy your brother for whom Christ died.” 
“Be shepherds of the church of God, which he bought with his own blood.
If there is any love in one’s heart for the Lord, even a moment’s consideration of the depths of love in the heart of God that drove his Son to the agony of the cross for a brother can be enough to elevate one’s assessment of that brother.
Furthermore, because God is invisible and intangible there is a danger of deceiving one’s self into thinking there is love for him when there is not.  The test of one’s affection for the saints, then, becomes a concrete, visible indicator of the genuineness of what would otherwise be quite subjective and difficult to discern.  “If anyone says, ‘I love God,’ yet hates his brother, he is a liar.  For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen.  And he has given us this command: Whoever loves God must also love his brother.”
Peter Toon points out the tendency of many mystics to invent of love for God that is divorced from love for people. 
I assume that there are four elements in Christianity, all of which are to be held together.  There is the fact of belonging to the fellowship of faith, the church with its order and worship; there is the exercise, according to ability, of the intellectual element of doctrine and theological reflection; there is the practical element of serving God in his world, which includes evangelism and loving the neighbor; finally, there is the personal, experiential element of knowing God as Father and Jesus as Lord.  If the last element is cultivated alone, in an individualistic way, then a strong possibility exists that spiritual life will be warped and imbalanced.  True contemplation is of course a highly personal activity, but it ought to be the prayer of the person who is an integral part of the household of faith and of the body of Christ and who with fellow Christians is pressing onward in grace to the maturity of faith, hope, and love.

In surveying books on contemplative prayer, I have often noticed that they usually have nothing to say of petitionary and intercessory prayer.  I suspect that a lot of people draw the conclusion from this fact that petitionary prayer and intercessory prayer are lesser grades of prayer.  Such a conclusion is a false one….  If we look at the example of Jesus, especially as that is provided for us in the gospel of John, we see that Jesus makes requests of the heavenly Father in the context of his communion with him.  ….  The fact that fervent supplication is intimately related to mystical communion serves to make the point that genuine contemplation is not an exercise in self-actualization or self-formation but is the communion of the creature with the Creator and of the Father with his child, leading to the practical loving of the neighbor.  Genuine contemplation increases true virtue and compassion.

Enemy Love

Most of what is discussed above has to do with loving brothers in the faith.  Indeed, that is the predominant emphasis in Scripture.  While it is the emphasis, however, Christian love is not to be exclusively offered to other believers.  Jesus also commanded love for enemies and persecutors.  
Like any word, the word love can be used in various ways, some of which emphasize one particular aspect of the word’s semantic range over others.  Passages that speak of love alongside terms such as “from the heart,” “compassion,” “deeply;” or with family images (such as “nursing mother,” or “compassionate father”) underscore the emotional aspect.  The texts that call for love of enemies do not use such terms.  Instead they focus on benevolent actions of kindness.  In Luke six, for example, Jesus begins by commanding love for enemies and then expands on what he means with other descriptions: "Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.”  Believers are to love enemies in the sense of doing good, blessing, and praying for them.
Kind actions, rather than feelings of attraction are the emphasis.  It would be going too far, however, to suggest that emotion has no part at all.  Jesus could have said, “do good…bless…pray for” without using the emotional term love had he desired to refer to mere action devoid of emotion.
Furthermore, the examples of enemy love in Scripture involve emotion.  In Psalm 35 David was faced with enemies who fought against him, pursued him, sought his life, plotted his ruin, set traps for him, testified against him mercilessly– all without cause.  When he stumbled they gathered in glee, ceaselessly slandered him, maliciously mocked him, and gnashed their teeth at him.  David responded with deeds of kindness, for which they repaid him with evil, leaving his soul forlorn.  At some point they became ill and David’s response was to put on sackcloth, humble himself with fasting, and pray fervently for them.  When his prayers went unanswered he went about mourning as though for a friend or brother and bowed his head in grief as though weeping for his own mother.  Similarly, when the man who had devoted his life to killing David died, David lamented with deep emotion.  
When Jesus was confronted with the godless, sign-seeking crowds (the very crowds he was trying to escape for rest), his heart was moved with compassion for them.  It would be a mistake, then, to conceive of enemy love as utterly without emotion.
As with love for fellow believers, the emotional component of love for enemies arises from one’s love for God.  The passages cited above regarding the image of God would encompass all human beings, saved or lost.  Even persecutors of Christians were made in the image of God. 
The love of God for unbelievers is also a truth that assists in enemy love.  While God loves believers in a special way, there is still some sense in which he loves all human beings.  It is this love that is to serve as a motive for believers to love all people.
Furthermore, not only does God love unbelievers, he strongly desires that they be loved by his people.  This is the significance of the fact that God offers rewards to those who love their enemies.  The more one loves God the more compelling will be the knowledge that God desires a certain thing.  As the child of God contemplates the fact that God strongly desires unbelievers to be loved by his people, such contemplation will lead to a warming of the affections toward unbelievers.
Perhaps the emotional expression of love for enemies that should be most pronounced is compassion, which was the response of Jesus when he considered the condition of lost people.  In their lost condition they are objects of the fearsome wrath of God, the very fate from which the believer was delivered most undeservedly. 
Desire, then, is present in enemy love.  Just as love for a friend desires that friend’s highest good, so does love for one’s enemy.  
The errors of experientialism, emotionalism, and superstitious mysticism 

Love for God is expressed through personal interactions with God, including talking to God, fellowship with God, eating and drinking God, nearness to God, seeking God, attending to God, seeing God, walking with God, remaining in God, knowing God and obeying God.  Clearly, then, subjective experience is a lofty and important goal of the Christian life.  At the same time, however, it should be acknowledged that wrong conceptions of experience have lead to the very destructive errors of experientialism, emotionalism, and superstitious mysticism.  
Experientialism 

When a person has an especially moving, delightful, or profound religious experience it is natural for that person to assume the experience to be from God.  This is particularly the case when the experience results in outcomes such as professions of faith in Jesus Christ or increased desire for Scripture and prayer.  When such wonderful outcomes result from an experience it seems impossible to imagine any other source but God, since every good and perfect gift is from him.
It must be remembered, however, that “Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light.”  Light represents all that is of God, and darkness represents that which is of Satan.  In his masquerades, then, Satan generates experiences and outcomes that appear as though they are of God.  If it is assumed that every experience that appears to be of God must indeed be of God, then it will be impossible to ever discern the masquerading actions of Satan.  
While the Charismatic movement has often been criticized for an over-emphasis on subjective experience, the problem is not over-emphasis but rather misuse.  Direct, personal experiences with God in phenomena such as prayer, illumination, worship, receiving guidance, or walking with God are of utmost importance and should be emphasized with ever increasing passion.  
In one sense it might even be said that experience is actually a higher goal than truth.  The fact that the demons are aware of truth demonstrates that knowledge of accurate doctrine, by itself, is inadequate.  Truth must be used to bring the individual to an (experiential) knowledge of and love for God.  Truth, then, is a stepping stone on the pathway to the higher goal of experience. 
While God would have his people use the Bible to discover truth, and then use that truth to experience fellowship with him; the experientialist errs by turning the process on its head and using subjective experiences to determine truth.  If an experience is sufficiently delightful or has certain outcomes it is assumed to be a good experience from God.  The truth claim (“This experience was from God”) is derived from the experience itself.   But neither subjective experiences nor the way one feels about those experiences are valid means of determining truth.  Since it is possible to be in a condition of refusing to love the truth, of loving darkness instead of the light, and of desiring that which Satan desires, feelings cannot be relied upon as accurate means of acquiring truth about God.   
It is natural to attempt to interpret experiences.  Interpreting physical experiences is mainly a function of the information gathered through the senses.  Interpreting non-physical experiences, however, must be done another way.  For the assessment to be accurate the source of information about the experience must be Scripture, not the experience itself.  
Those who highly prize experiences with God are right in doing so.  Any bypassing of the mind or of diligent, careful hermeneutics in the path to experience, however, is a fatal detour.  Nothing can be known about God that is not revealed in Scripture.  It is an error to study Scripture merely to increase one’s knowledge.  But it is also an error to set aside diligent, careful study of doctrine in an effort to attain experiences with God apart from God’s ordained means.  To arrive at the destination one must take the pathway to that destination, and the pathway to God is revelation and truth from his Word.  
Superstition

For the purposes of this study superstition is defined as irrational belief.  When an idea is believed without rational warrant (that is, that is not based on sound reasoning and logic and adequate evidence), that act of believing is superstition.  Believing that black cats or broken mirrors bring bad luck, or that the alignment of stars determine destiny is superstitious because there is no logical process of reasoning from evidence that lead to those conclusions.  
It is not superstitious for a Christian to believe he will be raised from the dead someday because there is a rational reason for that belief (reliable testimony from Jesus Christ).  Believing that those who seek wholeheartedly after God will find him is not superstitious because that is promised in a book that Jesus regarded as the Word of God.  If, after seeking God’s presence in the way Scripture calls believers to seek his presence, he experiences a sensation of joy; it is not superstitious for him to believe that joy to be the result of the presence of God because Scripture promises joy in the presence of God.  
It is superstitious, however, to assume that merely because a thought came unexpectedly into one’s mind that it is a verbatim message from God; or that merely because there is a sudden, strong impulse to do or say something that it must be a “prompting” from God.  God is in control of which thoughts come into a person’s mind and which impulses arise within him, but in his providential rule he often allows thoughts and impulses that are not from him.  It is possible for untrue, ungodly, or impure thoughts to suddenly arise in one’s thinking, as well as thoughts that seem to be pure and good but that are subtly misleading or altogether meaningless.  Some thoughts that arise in the mind are from Satan.  
If one feels an impulse to do something Scripture commands it would be fitting to thank God for providentially allowing such an impulse.  The same is true for a thought that gives insight into a proper application of Scripture.  Both are means God uses to guide his people in life.  Impulses, “gut-feelings,” and thoughts in and of themselves, however, should not be assumed to be messages or promptings from God.  Since God has not promised that all impulses, feelings, and thoughts are from him, then assuming some of them to be from him, apart from biblical warrant, is superstitious.
Mysticism

Mysticism has been variously defined.  Some define it as nothing more than “any direct experience of God.”  The Wikipedia article on mysticism defines it as “the pursuit of achieving communion … with … God through direct experience, intuition, or insight; and the belief that such experience is one's destiny, purpose, or an important source of knowledge, understanding, and wisdom.”  The first definition listed in the Free Online Dictionary is “Immediate consciousness of the transcendent or ultimate reality or God, and the experience of such communion as described by mystics.”  
If mysticism is defined simply as a direct experience of God then it is a good pursuit (as shown in chapter two).  Certainly all Christians would agree, for example, that all true prayer is a direct encounter with God, and would therefore, by this definition, qualify as mysticism.  This is the sense in which the term is used by writers such as Calvin and Owen.  Calvin, for example, writes, “The mystical union subsisting between Christ and his members should be matter of reflection, not only when we sit at the Lord's table, but at all other times.”  John Owen refers repeatedly to the mystical communion between Christ and his people in his book, Of Communion with God the Father, Son and Holy Ghost.
Many, however, have defined mysticism more specifically.  According to Webster’s New World Dictionary, mysticism is the doctrine that it is possible to achieve communion with God through contemplation and love without the medium of human reason… vague, groundless speculation.  Merriam-Webster Online describes it as, “the belief that direct knowledge of God, spiritual truth, or ultimate reality can be attained through subjective experience (as intuition or insight); vague speculation : a belief without sound basis; a theory postulating the possibility of direct and intuitive acquisition of ineffable knowledge or power.”  The Evangelical Dictionary of Theology states, “Christian mysticism seeks to describe an experiential, direct, nonabstract, unmediated, loving knowing of God, a knowing or seeing so direct as to be called union with God,” and that “is beyond the level of concepts, for reasoning, ideas, and sensory images have been transcended (but not rejected) in an intuitive union.”  Norman Geisler describes Christian mysticism as a direct experience of God that is private, particular, and noncognitive (not mediated through concepts or ideas).  By these definitions, Christian mysticism is not a good pursuit at all, as it falls into the category of superstition.   
Peter Toon exemplifies this error.  In a section describing Paul’s communion with God, Toon speaks of “the bridge between meditative and affective prayer and the ever-enlarging possibilities of mystical prayer.”
      Such contemplation is understood as a simple, loving gaze upon some divine object … The movement of the mind in search of truth has ceased.  In its place is a simple intellectual gaze that is motivated by love. ... that is mystical experience. … The soul quitting reasoning, uses sweet contemplation, which keeps it peaceful, attentive, and receptive of any divine impressions the Holy Spirit may communicate. 

[Deepening your conversation book makes the same error]

The latter definitions have arisen from the fact that most writers who are considered mystics have included more in the system of mysticism that the former definitions acknowledge.  It is not objectionable to think of the valid experiences of God detailed in chapter two as being “experiential, direct, nonabstract,” and often “unmediated” knowing of God in a loving way.  Nor should objection be raised against the idea of experiences of God that are private and particular.  When the experiences are described as “noncognitive” or beyond the level of concepts, reasoning, and ideas, however, the definition departs sharply from the kinds of experiences Scripture sets forth as true fellowship with God.  
Each of the experiences of God described in Scripture is described by means of words and concepts.  They are very much cognitive, and not at all outside of the realm of reason.  If they were beyond reason or words, then they could not be described in Scripture and discovering the infallible truth about them would be impossible.  
The Christian doctrine of revelation, far from making the human mind unnecessary, actually makes it indispensable and assigns to it its proper place.  God has revealed himself in words to minds.  His revelation is a rational revelation to rational creatures.  Our duty is to receive his message, to submit to it, to seek to understand it and to relate it to the world in which we live.
 
The non-cognitive influences of the mystics have done great harm in the church.  Scripture’s warnings about doctrinal error are frequent and urgent because being deceived has disastrous consequences.  When present day teachers urge listeners to set aside reason or bypass the intellect in any way, those teachers should be rejected.  
CHAPTER THIRTEEN: Conclusion  

While the various writers of Scripture emphasize different points about love for God in differing contexts, there is a great deal of consistency in the conception of love for God across the whole landscape of Scripture.  The foundation laid by Moses and affirmed by Jesus is never overturned, and the points of consistency across the authors who address the subject are several.
The touchstone statement in Scripture regarding love for God is certainly Deuteronomy 6:5, which Jesus dubbed the greatest of all commandments and the basis of the whole law.  And so the most fundamental truth in Scripture about love for God is that it must rise from one’s entire being.  Love that does not spring from the totality of one’s being is at best defective.  We must love God with all our emotions, attitudes, thoughts, intentions, motives, words, and actions.  The wisdom literature consistently holds esteem, desire, and delight; all expressed through obedience, as fundamental components of love.  
Jesus taught that obedience and self-denial are crucial aspects of love, however he also taught that proper self-denial is driven by one’s desire for joy.  Jesus was emphatic on the point that where there is no obedience (especially love for the saints) there is no love, however he never defined love as mere obedience.  Where obedience is carried out grudgingly, true love for God is absent.  John and Paul also emphasize the crucial link between love and obedience, and yet also warn of obedience that is not truly love.  Love must include desire and gladness or it does not exist.  Equally important is the role of truth.  No one who denies the truth about the Father or Son loves God, nor is it possible to love one apart from the other.
Paul, John, James, and Jesus all underscored the incompatibility of love for God and love for the world.  One cannot simultaneously love both.  Because desire, delight, and esteem are at the core of love and a person has desire for, delight in, and esteem for that which she truly believes to be a great treasure.  The beliefs that generate love for God are the opposite of the beliefs that generate love for the world.  Loves that arise from the same belief are not exclusive.  For example, a person can love one of his children without diminishing his love for another of his children because the love for each child comes from the same beliefs.  But since love for God and love for the world come from contradictory beliefs, the two loves are mutually exclusive. 
Love is not indifferent to gain.  Quite the opposite: love for God is powered by intense desire to obtain that which is better than anything in this world.
Because love arises from beliefs love is the most accurate gage of righteousness.  The fundamental difference between the righteous and the unrighteous is what they love or do not love.  The object and degree of one’s love tell the truth about the presence or absence of righteousness in the heart.  Temptation is conquered when the delights of God’s presence are preferred over the delicacies of the world.
All believers are lovers of God, and only lovers of God are believers.  Each believer, however, must continually grow and progress in love for God.
The form of obedience that is the greatest expression of love for God is love for the people of God (only, however, when that love is affection for God’s people that exists because they are loved by God).  Love for God is the soul’s delight in God that rises out of esteem and desire, impels complete commitment to him, and which is most joyfully expressed through loving those God loves.  
Love for God is expressed through personal interactions with God, including talking to God, fellowship with God, eating and drinking God, nearness to God, seeking God, attending to God, seeing God, walking with God, remaining in God, knowing God and obeying God.  Clearly, then, subjective experience is a lofty and important goal of the Christian life.  At the same time, however, it should be acknowledged that wrong conceptions of experience have lead to the very destructive errors of experientialism, emotionalism, and superstitious mysticism.  

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