“Resolved, never to allow any pleasure or grief, joy or sorrow, nor any affection at all, nor any degree of affection, nor any circumstance relating to it, but what helps religion.” (Resolution 45)
I was simply unable to leave this resolution with only one blog. This has simply gripped me and set before me what it means to truly love God with all of the heart, mind, soul, and strength. It has shown me how small my desires for God were and it has shown me how great they should be. While I have read this resolution before, perhaps even several times, it has been used of God to grip me in a different way.
I am trying to imagine what it would be like to never allow any pleasure of the body or any joy of the soul unless it was that which helped true religion or was really love for God. I am trying to imagine what it would be not to have any grief or sorrow unless it was out of love for God and His glory. The last few days I have been trying to judge myself and the inner workings by this standard. Talk about falling short of the glory of God! D.L. Moody remarked years ago that the world has not seen what God would to through a man that was really committed to Him. I believe that I am seeing why it is so hard to be committed to God by the standard of the Great Commandment. As Chesterton remarked (paraphrased), it is not that Christianity has been tried and found hard, but it has been found hard and not tried.
Christianity is not hard, it is impossible for the natural man and for the partial-hearted person. No wonder Christ said that He would spit out the lukewarm. No wonder that Christ had such harsh words for the Pharisees. He could see in their selfish hearts and knew that all their religious actions were for themselves. They were using God to gain honor and status for self. Perhaps that is true today as well. Where is the heart of the average professing believer? Why do people desire entertainment in church today with short sermons and hardly any prayer? It is because man is selfish in his religion as well as in his life. Man is bored with prayer and the Word of God. What does that really mean? It means that man only desires the things that interest him and can keep his attention. God cannot do that for man now unless He is packaged in an interesting and non-threatening way. In other words, God has to be changed in order for modern man to be entertained enough to be interested.
Frankly, men are being more honest in that than many in the church that appear outwardly interested while inwardly their hearts are in other places enjoying the thoughts of other things. But God demands all of the heart, mind, soul, and strength of those that will serve Him. One reason that people today would think that Edwards is radical is because the church is so worldly that it is unrecognizable as a biblical church. The standard of what true religion is has been so watered down that when and if true religion is seen it would be thought of as truly nutty and overdone. It would not be respectable in modern society and of course if we want to reach people we are told that we must be respectable in society. Is that true or is respectability simply one way to water down the truth of God and the love for God and help man excuse his sin? It is far easier to be respectable than it is to be holy. It is far easier to water things down and be respectable than it is to refuse any pleasure or joy unless it is for the love and glory of God. It is easy to say that things glorify God when our desires are really for self or other things.
I guess what I am trying to say here is that if we don’t make a similar resolution to what Edwards makes here we will deceive our own hearts. If we are not willing to say that we are not going to have any pleasure or grief except that which glorifies God, we will be settling for a religion that does not desire to love God as He commands. If we are not willing to make this resolution ourselves, we are saying by implication that we are willing to be idolaters a lot of the time in order not to love God with all of our being. How far was the Lord Jesus Christ willing to go with His love for God? How far was He willing to go with His commitment?
How far will the people of the church want to go in order to love God? As long as people in the church are not ready to go along with the radical nature of love for God and settle for institutional functioning or behavioral modification, the power of God will not be evident in the lives of individuals or the churches. Edwards should provoke us beyond the standard theological and behavioral lines of today to a full pursuit of the love of God.
God Loves... Himself 
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