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Note: Part of this blog post comes from the March 26, 2020, blog post “Are you affectionate with God?” Part was drafted but not posted on December 26, 2023, when I asked myself, “How much love is enough?” on a cold December morning . . .
A persistently returning lie. “I am thinking again that You are mad at me. Again!” I sighed with pencil poised above the clipboard holding a thick stack of looseleaf notebook paper in my lap, slowly rocking back and forth. The air here near the window was pleasantly cold. Staring into the darkness of the December morning, I shook my head.
“Again that silly feeling comes up. Why, Lord?” I asked, “Why does that feeling still surface when I know it is a lie? You have shown me so many times when I have lapsed into a works attitude, the attitude that I have to work hard to stay in Your favor and Your love. Will some part of my heart always forget the blessed truth in Ephesians 2:8-10, that we are saved and live a righteous life because of grace, not because of what we do?”
8 God saved you by his grace when you believed. And you can’t take credit for this; it is a gift from God. 9 Salvation is not a reward for the good things we have done, so none of us can boast about it. 10 For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things He planned for us long ago. (NLT).
As I continued journaling with God in the early morning chill that penetrated the walls–which this native-Floridian-turned-Texan prolongs by keeping the heater turned off–some answers came.
What led to hearing that lie? It had been a busy week, making final preparations for Christmas, fitting physical therapy appointments in, and spending as much time as possible with my grandsons while they were out of school. All this, though good, had meant I spent less than the usual time with my personal spiritual disciplines, like prayer, Bible study, Bible reading and just being with the Lord.
“That’s where the false guilt came in, isn’t it, Lord? And that’s when I subconsciously began thinking You don’t love me as much because I am not doing the things I think I should do for You and with You. And the guilt and the lie grew with each passing, busier than usual day.”
I paused, cradled the warm mug in my hands, took a sip of tea, inhaled the apple-ish, vaguely floral scent of chamomile, and looked out the window again.
“Hmm. . . maybe this should be a blog post. I definitely need to study this subject for myself. I only have an hour before I have to leave for the gym and another busy day, so I don’t have time to get into work on the book, and my bank of ready-to-post blogs is empty. Do I know any Scriptures that speak to this problem?”
What will destroy that lie? Immediately I thought of First Corinthians 8:3, the only new verse I had meditated on this past week. I walked to the middle of the front room, the big countertop—the command center, so to speak, of my blessed little home, the place where I keep to-do lists and verses I am meditating upon–and picked up the half-sheet of paper from its place by the sink. Spattered dishwater had made wrinkled spots on it, as numerous as summer freckles. I read:
But if one loves God truly
[with affectionate reverence,
prompt obedience, and
grateful recognition of His blessing],
he is known by God
[recognized as worthy of His intimacy and love,
and he is owned by Him]. (I Corinthians 8:3, AMPC)
“Hmm, Lord. I think You are saying I need to study on this phrase by phrase. Yes, I see that the amplifying phrases in the AMPC show what to truly love You actually means.”
“but If anyone truly loves God” – true love for fellow believers, true love for God. Before I began studying word by word and phrase by phrase, I briefly got the context for the book, then the chapter. Paul wrote First Corinthians to the church in Corinth, a wicked city where the wickedness made it hard for believers to live a Christ-like life. Paul addressed many problems, scolding the Corinthians believers for their errors and teaching them how they should be living. Chapter Eight (part of the section on Christian rights and responsibilities) addresses food sacrificed to idols, as the NIV labels this section.
Verse 3 is tucked in as a parenthetical aside, a little side comment, where Paul says all of us (meaning him and the Corinthian believers) understood about idols, that they are really nothing. But Paul explains that having knowledge, for example about the true nature of idols, can make you feel important, but love will lead you to build others up. Paul warns that if you think you know all the answers, you really do not know “as you ought to know.” (I Corinthians 8:2, NIV). In the rest of the chapter, Paul explains that if you really act in love toward your fellow believers, you will not do anything that will make them stumble in their walk with Christ.
For the Corinthians, that meant they would not eat meat sacrificed to idols if it would lead new believers who did not yet fully realize that idols were nothing to also eat such meat and thereby sin against their conscience.
The whole chapter is about acting in love toward our fellow believers. That is why Paul starts the chapter by contrasting how love and pride affect our behavior. Perhaps that is why he puts that little-but-big statement in verse 3 about what truly loving God is. Perhaps pondering what a believer’s true love for another believer looked like led Paul to ponder what a believer’s true love for God looked like.
“But if one loves God truly, (with affectionate reverence . . . ” Part of truly loving God truly is having affectionate reverence toward Him. Let’s consider the word affection first. Webster’s 1828 online dictionary defines affection as:
“a permanent bent of the mind, formed by the presence of an object, or by some act of another person, and existing without the presence of its object. It also means “a settled good will, love or zealous attachment; as, the affection of a parent for his child.”
God’s Word tells us to be affectionate with Him. A quick search reveals the word “affection” or “affectionately” appears 55 times in the AMPC, most of which appear in the psalms”. After the words bless the Lord, we see [affectionately and gratefully praise]. The words in brackets are amplifying words that show what people in Bible times would automatically have thought when they heard the words “Bless the Lord.”
(By the way, a similar search for the word “affection” in the KJV, NASB, NIV, and the NLT shows that it appears between seven and ten times. However, in no instance is “affection” used in speaking of our love for God. I rarely used the AMPC until recent years. How I wish I had heard this idea before!)
Luke 7:36-50 gives a clear example of what affection for God is. Mary gave Jesus her very best as she kissed His feet, washed them with her tears, dried them with her hair and anointed them with costly perfume.
“… and as she stood behind Him at his feet weeping, she began to wet his feet with her tears. Then she wiped them with her hair, kissed them, and poured perfume on them.”(verse 38). In verse 45, the AMPC says that Jesus told the Pharisee that Mary had, from the moment He came into the room not stopped kissing His feet “tenderly and caressingly.”
Reading the whole story as recorded in Luke 7:36-50 and Mark14:3-9, shows us that Jesus obviously approved of the affectionate way Mary demonstrated her love for Him. To the self-righteous people who criticized and said the perfume on His feet was a waste.
“Leave her alone,” Jesus said, “Why are you bothering her? She has done a beautiful thing to me. . . I tell you the truth, wherever the gospel is preached throughout the world, what she has done will also be told, in memory of her. (Mark 13:6, 9, NIV)”
Today, you and I can likewise show God our affection by giving our best effort, for Him, all day, in whatever we are doing. (“Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might”, Ecclesiastes 9:10a, NIV). We also give Him our best by loving Him with all our heart, with all our soul and with all our might (Deuteronomy 6:5).
An awesome reason to be affectionate. Next, notice that, in 1 Corinthians 11:24, during the Lord’s Supper, when Jesus had given thanks, He broke the bread, and said “Take, eat. This is my body which is broken for you. Do this to call Me [affectionately] to remembrance.” And He repeats His request when the wine is taken, in verse 25. “Similarly, when supper was ended, He took the cup also, saying, This cup is the new covenant [ratified and established] in My blood. Do this as often as you drink [it], to call Me [affectionately] to remembrance.” Every time I take the Lord’s Supper, Jesus wants me to remember Him with affection.
I knew that believers observe the Lord’s supper to honor and respect Him by remembering His incomprehensible sacrifice for us. However, until I read this verse in the Amplified as I wrote this blog, I did not know that Jesus specifically asked us to remember Him with affection.
He could have, very appropriately, said to call Him to remembrance with respect and awe and fear. This is certainly part of the way we should approach God and it is the most basic, foundational way to think of God. But He clearly wants us to think of Him with affection, too. If you have deep respect and awe and appreciation for Who God is and what He has done for us, if you know Him well and pursue a close relationship with Him, eventually your love for Him will also include affection.
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I believe that Jesus was, as always, putting us above Himself here because He knew that thinking of the agony He endured for us could make us sad. I understand that because I would, if he were alive, affectionately kiss and hold my earthly father’s hands, hands roughened by years of operating heavy equipment, big strong hands covered with sun-bronzed skin and scars. I would gaze with fondness at the tan lines on his forehead and arms, acquired through decades of loving labor for his family. I would do the same for my mother’s soap roughened hands. And so, when I think about what Jesus did for me, I am affectionately grateful, and privileged to come so close to Him.
We are only affectionate with those we know intimately. Synonyms for intimate include private, personal, secret, innermost, cherished, familiar, dear, devoted, and deepest. Help us, Father, to be more intimate with You!
Being affectionate with the Lord might not come naturally at first. As a new believer in Jesus, I had an overly formal attitude toward Him. I had at least a measure of proper reverence and fear (Deuteronomy 13:4, I Chronicles 16:25, Psalm 2:11) but I also had an unhealthy subconscious fear that I was not doing enough, fear that I was not worthy, and fear that God would one day abandon me because of that. Those wounded attitudes were caused by events in the past, obviously the work of the evil one, but God (whose power no foe can withstand, Psalm 91:1, AMPC) brought those hurts, with the shame and guilt, into the light of His love and forgiveness.
Over time, He helped me learn to ask Him into each moment of my day, including the undignified times (like exercising or scrubbing the bathroom) and times when I fail Him in my reactions to frustrations, like with traffic and technology. I began learning to practice the presence of the Lord.
In Part Two, we will continue exploring what true love for God is. Until then ponder First Corinthians 8:3 and see what God shows you.
But if one loves God truly
[with affectionate reverence,
prompt obedience, and
grateful recognition of His blessing],
he is known by God
[recognized as worthy of His intimacy and love,
and he is owned by Him]. (I Corinthians 8:3, AMPC)
They are together fulfilling the purpose for which they were planted: to help mark the boundary of a fence line. The tree that lost many branches is indeed smaller but it fulfills its purpose in the original place where it was planted just as the other trees do. I barely notice the scars of the tree’s past.
And how about this last picture. What do you see? I see that there are many of these boundary marking trees spread along the fence. The fence frames a broad and lush pasture, where cows graze. And beyond that one pasture, and that one farm, lies another farm, then another, and still beyond that I see vast stretches of untouched countryside, with trees, brush and the natural undulations of land unmarred by the hand of man, a countryside filled with sounds of birdsong, squirrel chirrups and the rustlings of many common creatures sheltering there.
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