Standing in the Light of Love For God

There is a love for ourselves in which we rob ourselves of God – 

• a sinful self-indulgence, which can express itself in the spiritual as well as in the physical dimension of our life. 
• There is a satisfaction with ourselves in personal pride, but also and most detestably in a so-called spiritual pride, 
• such as when a person boasts of his knowledge of and relationship with God. 
• The equilibrium of our lives then lies within our own self. 
• Almost unnoticed at times, we then slip from resting in God to finding such rest in ourselves.

Then we are, as far as our spiritual side is concerned, not in God’s service and we do not love ourselves for God’s sake. 

• In fact, we do not see that also as to the spiritual side of us we must be entirely from God and through God and to God. 

That wrong self-love also can show up in the physical part of our existence. 

• We can misuse our body in many different ways, 
• not only as pride in bodily strength and a boasting of physical achievements, 
• but also in the use of our body as an instrument of lust. 
• Even our physical life must be dear to us only for God’s sake. 

However, we will lapse into an improper self-love in one direction or the other 

• when love for self does not stand in the light of love for God. 

There is also the kind of love for our neighbor wherein we want to deprive God of that neighbor. 

• Sometimes we can be jealous of God precisely in the most intimate of relations. 
• When we want to love our neighbor differently than in obedience to God’s will, there is bound to be some kind of a competitive tension between the relation of the neighbor to God and his connection with us. 
• Even in the most intimate of relations, we may not see each other differently than as God’s gift. 

Moreover, we must also see the life of the neighbor only as from God and through God and to God. 

• The wrong love for the neighbor, just as our improper self-love, can focus either on his spiritual or on the physical side of his life.
• In that case, it becomes impossible to build each other up in life in the true sense of the word. 
• Instead, our love for the neighbor will then readily tend to degenerate into exploitation of him for ourselves, whether spiritually or physically. 
• In this matter God’s requirement is emphatic and the only redemption of our life and our relationship lies in the acceptance of that absolute demand. 

However, obeying that commandment should not be so difficult for us.

• Love for God and love for the neighbor as well as for ourselves for God’s sake, finds its norm in God’s love because that love has made all things. 
• When we see that motif of the demand to love, the problem of whether love can be required or whether love can be a commandment should not be a problem any more. 

Nevertheless, one could posit the proposition that love can never be coerced and that instead it must be given freely and spontaneously. 

• We would then have concluded that our heart could never be subject to a command. 
• With this we would have stated the thesis that the human heart is autonomous, and we would thus have deified man’s heart. 

This entire line of thought is in opposition to the truth that all things, and thus also the human heart, have been created by the Word of God.

• By virtue of the fact that God created all things by His Word, He thereby placed life under the constraint of obedience. 
• Thus, love became an obligation to be obeyed since in the beginning the Word of love created all. 
• God’s love has spoken and by that Word has called all things into being; thus from the beginning that love has placed life under obligation to respond to it. 
• In this way from our side, love is an obligation and a debt that we must pay but can never fully pay, 
• and therefore we will always be in debt to love. 
• Thus, love has become a law. 

Nothing demands so much and so absolutely the way love does. 

• We may be able to satisfy many obligations and numerous debts, but the debt of love is endless. 
• Even when we have given all, love still asks for more. 
• God’s love in its call for an answer is all demanding – and is entitled to do so as the divine love that created us by its Word.

Moreover, that love will never relinquish its claim, 

• and even in hell the demand to love persists. 
• In this way our love for God finds its motif and norm in God’s love that created us. 

The same is true for our love for self and for our neighbor. 

• The Word of God’s love focused our mind also on ourselves and on our neighbor. 
• All those relations also are called into being by the Word of God’s love. 
• Therefore our love in those relations also finds its ground and its norm in God’s love. 
• This demand is thus also unequivocal. 

We can never satisfy the obligation of love for ourselves or our neighbor. 

• We may be able to pay fully the debt for taxes, revenue, respect, and honor; 
• yet the apostle Paul adds: Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for he who loves his fellowman has fulfilled the law (Rom.13:8). 
• For us this debt is unending and so immense when we have seen the love of God that created those relationships as the reason for it.
• Then every love must be a holy love that is a God-devoted love, and an answer to His love. 

Adapted Excerpt from The True Faith by Simon Gerrit De Graaf (1889-1955)