When men love and admire us, we think it is for some merit in ourselves, and for a natural working of pride can love them again. It is for the same reason that we love God so little, notwithstanding his superabundant goodness to us in Christ, because it lays us low, strips us of all excellence, and can only be received in a deep sense of our own unworthiness. (Thomas Adam, Private Thoughts on Religion)
“The heart is more deceitful than all else And is desperately sick; Who can understand it?” (Jeremiah 17:9)
There is a profound and deep theology and understanding of the heart in the quote above. It is a saying that is most likely based on Matthew 5:43-47. We love to think that men love and admire us, but when we see them saying good things about us (whether to us or to others about us) instead of that turning us to think of the grace of God that has been given to us, we tend to admire out own merit. When we “love” them in return, it is in reality nothing but pride working in us to do so and perhaps simply wanting them to continue to think highly of us so we can continue to think highly of ourselves. Clearly, however, this is not Christian love, but is instead something that fallen men can do. It is simply self-love extended toward others in order to gratify self-love.
“You have heard that it was said, ‘YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR and hate your enemy.’ 44 “But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45 so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven; for He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. 46 “For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? 47 “If you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same?
The teachings of Jesus often reached deeper than the skin and went to the very heart of man. Why is it that the command of Christ was (and is) to love our enemies and to pray for those who persecute us? Jesus gives us the reasons. One, it is so that believers would demonstrate themselves to be sons of God. Two, for those who only love others who love them, there is no reward in that. Three, even the worst of sinners (tax collectors) can do that and so one does not need an omnipotent power of love in the soul to do that. Four, if you are only civil to your brothers, then what are you doing more than even the Gentiles or anyone else?
The person that only “loves” others when they are nice to him or her so that they will continue to be nice is a person that is self-serving and proud. That is a person that wants people to think highly of him or her as opposed to thinking highly of Christ. It is, in other words, to be like Adam and Eve after the fall and it is an effort to be like God. Only God has the right to have all others love Him as the focus of all things and yet we live in a way to get people to love us rather than to love God. The reality of the situation is hard and perhaps even harsh when we see out true motives and the true intents of the heart come out in the open.
It is so hard to see ourselves as those who only love out of self-centered motives (which is a vicious pride) when we know that Christ loved others and went to the cross for others out of love for God and not because of any love sinful men had for Him. In fact, sinful men were at enmity with Him and yet He still suffered and died for them. Sinners are totally reliant upon God for a love that can love the unlovely and even those who are at enmity with them. Oh how wicked the heart is and how utterly unable the unregenerate person is to love in any real sense of the word. Only the triune God is the source and origin of true love, yet man wants to do something he thinks of as love and do that based on himself. Oh how man must have a new heart and have grace in the heart to truly love another. But before then, even the best of what a man can do is nothing but filthy rags as it comes from a wicked heart that loves self rather than God.
Perhaps, however, this also shows us one more and a very deceitful thing about the hearts of men. Fallen humanity can love God when it thinks that God loves it. Fallen humanity will do religious things and deceive itself about how it loves God when the real fact of the matter is that the is that the love of God is not in the soul and the soul only “loves” God because that soul thinks that God loves it. Oh how deceptive the heart is and how many appear to think that they love God when in fact they are only loving a god that they imagine loves them.
God Loves... Himself 
Leave a comment