You Are What You Love

"As in water face reflects face, so the heart of a man reflects the man" -Proverbs 27:19

"I love my car, I love my dog and I love my wife." Anything wrong with this? It's certainly ok to love these things, but love them in this order and things in your life will start to break down - particularly your relationship with your wife.

Another more relatable example might be: "I love my career, I love making money, I love my family." In this example, you might envision the career-driven man who sacrifices his family on the altar to achieve his career dreams and is largely absent from his family. You may also see this in the profit-driven boss who works his employees dry and keeps their wages low to serve his love for profit, financial success or status. Treasure money above people and you will sacrifice the good of people for the sake of money. When push comes to shove something has to give; something has to get sacrificed on the altar, and you will inevitably sacrifice your lesser loves to serve your greatest love.

"The problem of the world is not that we don't love enough, but that we love the wrong things too much"

People often suppose that the biggest problems of the world derive from a lack of education or poverty. If only you can educate people and eliminate poverty, then people will finally start treating each other well. But think about it for a bit. We live in the most educated, wealthiest and scientifically advanced age in all of history, and yet in the last century we had the bloodiest wars, revolutions and genocides of all time. Mustard gas, atom bombs and death camps- the 20th Century taught us that more education and wealth can often mean smarter ways of killing each other.

Of course, education and wealth has been used for tremendous good as well, but assuming that providing these external things will ultimately solve the world's evils, is no wiser council than giving someone a machete. Like any tool, you can use it for good purposes or for evil; for opening coconuts or for slaughtering people.

So what’s missing here to the human puzzle? What's the deeper issue behind evil in the world and the evil in my own life? The answer is disordered loves. The biggest problem is not that we don’t love enough, but that we love the wrong things too much.

"The worth and excellency of a soul is measured by the object of its love." -Henry Scougal

You’ve heard the phrase, you are what you eat. Essentially meaning your body will be shaped by the food you put into it. Fatty foods will make you fat. Healthy foods will make you healthy. In the same way that food is to the body, so our loves are to the soul. Your soul is shaped by the things that you love, and the reality is, you start to become like the very thing you love most. Henry Scougal once said, "The worth and excellency of a soul is measured by the object of its love.”

A soul that loves what is superficial will become superficial and miserable. But a soul that loves what is truly valuable will shine and reflect the beauty of the thing it loves. Love the wrong things and your soul will be miserable, love the right things and your soul will flourish.

It's easy to see the reality of this problem in the money-loving person who cheats, lies and exploits others to get what he wants. His soul begins to wither and resemble the lifeless money that he loves so much. It's the same way with other worthless things we put at the top of our list. You might call these supreme loves your "god" or "idol". Psalm 115:4-8 paints a picture of the person who worships lifeless idols:

"But their idols are silver and gold,

made by human hands.

They have mouths, but cannot speak,

eyes, but cannot see.

They have ears, but cannot hear,

noses, but cannot smell.

They have hands, but cannot feel,

feet, but cannot walk,

nor can they utter a sound with their throats.

Those who make them will be like them,

and so will all who trust in them."

You are what you love; and whatever's at the top of your list will shape the kind of person you become. But love the wrong things and your life will start to break down. If you love lifeless, worthless things first, you'll find your relationships with people becoming very superficial, your heart becoming calloused toward others and your soul increasingly discontent as you slowly turn into the worthless thing that you love and sacrifice to. So what thing in this world is most valuable that deserves to be our supreme love then? What should be at the top of our list?

"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."

A man once asked Jesus, “Teacher, what is the greatest commandment?” 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.” -Matthew 22:37-40

Of all the things Jesus could have said, he replied, “Love”. Notice that Jesus doesn't say "Do." Instead, the greatest command is to "love God with all of your being" and second to "love other people as you love yourself" - to ascribe to God and to people the value that's due them. All the other "Do" commands - to honor your father and mother, not steal, commit adultery, lie, murder, etc. ultimately derive from these two "love" commands. His command here gets to the heart of the human condition and the main issue of our brokenness; namely our problem of disordered loves. Jesus says that to love the right things is the single most important command we should focus on.

However, his command is not just to love anything, but to love the right things first; namely God and people. While most people of all religious or non-religious backgrounds could probably agree on prioritizing loving people above other things, Jesus' first commandment to love God is a different story. After all, what does loving God have to do with morality? What does loving God have to do with not stealing, cheating, ect?

We need to first clarify, however, that when Jesus tells us to love God, he's not talking about the general idea of God, some metaphysical concept, force or energy, or even about a god of your own choosing. He's talking about Yahweh - the God of the Bible, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. He's speaking of the one true God who created the universe, and then entered into that same universe in space, time history. Yahweh is the God who came down and delivered the Jewish people from slavery in Egypt, who bound himself to them in steadfast love, and who never gave up on them though they often turned their backs on him. Yahweh is the God who provides for his people and cleanses them from their sins. And in his ultimate expression of love for the world, Yahweh took on human flesh and came to our world in 4 B.C. in the person of Jesus Christ, God the Son. He lived the righteous life we couldn't live, then in 33 A.D. he suffered and died in our place for our sins, taking our judgment on his own shoulders. Three days later he rose from the dead, conquering death and sin for us, so that those who trust in Him could have his righteousness, purity and eternal life.

This is the God that Jesus tells us to love- not just any god, but Yahweh. In fact, if you do love another god with all your heart, it will leave you empty as your soul begins to reflect this lifeless god. Any other god but Yahweh has no power to save, to heal our broken lives, to give eternal life or everlasting joy. But love the true God, the God of life who created all things and you will find real life.

As mentioned before, what you supremely love affects everything else you do in life- how you view and treat others and how you view and treat yourself. And what if the thing you love deepest in life is a God who sacrificed himself for you? How would this affect the way you view yourself? What if your deepest love was for a God whose own love was so radical, he gave his life to save his enemies? How would this affect the way you treat people around you?

Everything you "Do" in life flows from what you "Love"

Everything you "do" in life flows from what you "love". Therefore, Jesus' greatest commandment is simply to "love God with all of your being." Love God and your soul will flourish as you naturally begin reflecting God, himself, the source of love.

Therefore, more important than anything else in your life- more important than your career, finances, family or relationships, cultivating your heart to love Jesus with all your heart should be the supreme focus of every morning of every day. First and foremost, to find your delight and joy in Jesus Christ every morning, to pray and commune with him in his presence, to read his Word, imitate him, practice his commands, to flee from the sin that separates you from him - devote yourself to these things. In doing so, you're cultivating your heart to love God with all your being, and soon you will find yourself naturally loving others with a love you never knew you were capable of; a love that derives from God himself.

"You have made us for yourself oh Lord. And our hearts are restless until they rest in you." -St. Augustine

Only when we know and love God with all our heart can we begin to love other things in their proper order; because at the core of our being we were made for God. All things in life fall into place when he is at the center. In the words of Augustine: “You have made us for yourself oh Lord. And our hearts are restless until they rest in you.”