Identity (Part 3): Delighted in God

Articles

Jul 31

In the last two posts (part 1, part 2), I’ve been discussing identity, particularly reestablishing our identity on the reality of God and what He says we are. In this post, I want to continue building on that foundation of our God-defined identity by constructing a positive understanding of our affections.

The Affections of the Soul

My simplification of Jonathan Edwards’ definition of “affections” is that affections are deep, willful, intelligent, desires.1

Deep meaning that they are significant and influential, not fleeting and transient
Willful meaning that they are also in correspondence with what you truly want
Intelligent meaning that they are always informed by the mind and understanding
Desires meaning that they involve strong feeling for what pleases you

To clarify, by “affections,” I do not merely mean feelings. Feelings can change in a second, but affections are deep and lasting. But affections do involve feeling (desire). You have strong feeling for what you delight in.

Similarly, by “affections,” I do not mean merely liking something. You can like something without good reasons, but affections are always connected to the mind. But affections do involve inclinations toward what you like, what you enjoy, what pleases you holistically.

So affections are not feelings, but they involve feeling. Affections are not your likes, but it does involve what you have affection for. To put it another way, affections are deep, willful, intelligent, desires for what pleases you holistically.

But why talk about affections in relationship to our identity? Because it is easy to hear that the therapeutic worldview is bad (it is) and then swing from one side of the pendulum to other. In an attempt to not believe “my feelings define me” you swing to “what I feel is always bad” or “it is always bad to feel anything.”

But neither of those extremes are true. Just because feelings are not ultimate nor self-determining does not mean that God doesn’t care how you delight or what you delight in. Or, more simply, feelings aren’t everything, but they do have a significant place in the Christian life. Why? Because God cares what you feel. God cares what you enjoy. God cares what you delight in. God cares what you love.

Just as He gave you a mouth with the capacity to speak, a mind with the power to think, hands with the ability to serve, He gave you the capacity to delight, of affections, for His glory. He designed you to feel, to desire, to want, to treasure, to delight, to enjoy for His honor. In other words, God not only cares what you do, but what you desire. And that is why God not only commands what you do, but even commands what you desire. Just one example: “Delight yourself in the LORD!” (Psalm 37:4)

Delight deals with the affections. Delight means take pleasure in, be happy in. And the command? Delight in God. Delight is not an activity you can check off a list or an event you can schedule in your calendar. It is all encompassing, essential to the Christian life.

Sadly, a deficient understanding of affections has led and continues to lead many Christians to dark places void of true joy:

Some Christians equate Christian maturity with stoic emotionlessness, as if the less you feel, the more godly you are.
Some Christians strive to feel nothing negative in their suffering, like a Christianized version of Buddhism
Some Christians downgrade “love the Lord your God” to mere duty, deeds, and responsibility void of devotion and delight.
Some Christians operate as if their purpose in life is only to do the things of God rather than to desire the things of God.

I should know, because I was one of them. Checkboxes and hoops, religious deeds done by rote, sacrifice but little joy—these are the habits of a Christian who has forgotten what it is to delight in God.

Being a Christian is so much more than just going to church, learning right theology, and going through the motions of being a “good Christian.” I want all that you are—your heart, soul, mind, strength; your affections, desires, wants; your hopes, dreams, ambitions; your love, your joy, your peace—to be for our Savior. That is the good life. That is the abundant life that Christ promised, when we are enraptured with His love and fully happy in Him.

To recap: (1) affections are deep, willful, intelligent, desires—desires to enjoy what pleases you holistically; (2) God cares about all of our life, that we love Him with all our faculties and capacities, including what we set our affections on; (3) Therefore, God commands what we do and what we desire.

Simply put, this comes back to the great commandment.

Mark 12
29 Jesus answered, “The most important [commandment] is, ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.
30 And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’

Love demands obedience—doing the things God commands (John 14:15). But love also demands affections—desiring the Giver of those commands. Simply put, our supreme desire and sole satisfaction must be God Himself.

To illustrate and illuminate this truth, I want to take a look at Psalm 73, particularly verses 25 and 26, where the psalmist Asaph, a worship leader in the nation of Israel, gives his testimony of a severe trial he endured.

Psalm 73
73:25 Whom have I in heaven but you?
And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you.
73:26 My flesh and my heart may fail,
but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.

Asaph’s Problem

To understand those verses, we have to understand the context. Psalm 73 was written by Asaph as he reflects upon one of the most bitter times of his life: when his jealousy over the wicked exceeded his love for God. He was envious of the prosperity, health, and ease of the wicked (73:3-5).

They cheat, steal, lie—yet they get prosperity, riches, and pleasure! They are proud, violent, wicked, mockers, brawlers, blasphemers—yet instead of being punished, they are satisfied with the blessings of earth!

In Asaph’s eyes, God does nothing. God promises over and over in His Word that He will destroy the wicked for their sinful deeds.

Proverbs 2:22 but the wicked will be cut off from the land, and the treacherous will be rooted out of it.

Yet Asaph looks around and sees exactly the opposite! They are not cut off; their lives are even better than those who fear God!

Therefore he says:

Psalm 73
73:13 All in vain have I kept my heart clean and washed my hands in innocence.
73:14 For all the day long I have been stricken and rebuked every morning.

In other words, “What is the benefit of godliness? For no profit have I walked in righteousness. I’ve obeyed and what does it get me? Stripes and rebukes. Chastisement and pain.”

If you’ve ever felt like that, you’re in good company. Asaph says:

73:16 But when I thought how to understand this, it seemed to me a wearisome task,
73:17 until I went into the sanctuary of God; then I discerned their end.

When Asaph entered the temple to worship the Lord, he saw the light. The truth struck him in the face: “they will get what they deserve and I get God.”

First, the wicked get what they deserve:

73:18 Truly you set them in slippery places; you make them fall to ruin.
73:19 How they are destroyed in a moment, swept away utterly by terrors!

Although he does not see it yet, justice will be served. God will vindicate His name and reign in righteousness, and they wicked will receive the due penalty of their sin.

Second, the godly get God:

73:23 Nevertheless, I am continually with you; you hold my right hand.
73:24 You guide me with your counsel, and afterward you will receive me to glory.
73:25 Whom have I in heaven but you? And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you.
73:26 My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.
73:27 For behold, those who are far from you shall perish; you put an end to everyone who is unfaithful to you.
73:28 But for me it is good to be near God; I have made the Lord GOD my refuge, that I may tell of all your works.

Asaph’s resolution to his puzzle—that the wicked are prosperous in this life and that the godly suffer—is that eventually all of the wicked’s earthly blessings are taken away, and that the godly receive something far better: God Himself. Look how God-centered, how God-obsessed he is:

v23 I am continually with you, you hold my right hand
v24 You guide me in counsel; You will receive me to glory
v25 nothing on earth I desire besides You
v26 God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever
v28 it is good for me to be near God. The Lord God is my refuge

The riches, the ease, the pleasure, the comfort, the success, the prosperity of the wicked which bothered Asaph so much suddenly don’t matter. Because he saw something better: God. His supreme desire and sole satisfaction is God. To him, having God is better than having everything else.

To him, having everything but God is worthless, yet having God and nothing else is worth it.

God, Our Supreme Desire (73:25)

73:25 Whom have I in heaven but you? And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you.

Asaph is proclaiming that God is his supreme desire in heaven and earth. “If I could choose anything in heaven or on earth, God I want You!”

His desire for heaven is not that he would be reunited with his relatives, not that he would be freed from the pains of this world, not that he would finally have ultimate rest from fighting against sin. He wants God!

His desire for earth is not money or girls or boys or fame or influence or followers or food. He doesn’t want a comfortable life, a nice house, and all of his dreams to come true. He wants God!

“I want You, Lord!” That’s the shout, the yearning, the battlecry of every heart captivated by God.

That’s what David meant when he said, “I said to the LORD, “You are my Lord; / I have no good besides You.” (Ps 16:2).

That’s what Peter meant when dozens, maybe hundreds of other disciples left Christ because His teaching was too hard.

John 6
6:67 So Jesus said to the twelve, “Do you want to go away as well?”
6:68 Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life,

That’s what Paul meant when he looked stared death in the face while sitting in that Roman dungeon and said,

Phil 1
20 …it is my eager expectation and hope that I will not be at all ashamed, but that with full courage now as always Christ will be honored in my body, whether by life or by death.
21 For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.

And after contemplating all that he had accomplished in his religious life: circumcision, Israelite pedigree, Pharisaical obedience to the law, unmatched zeal, righteousness according to the law, Paul said,

Phil 3
7 But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ.
8 Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.
For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish,
in order that I may gain Christ 9 and be found in him, [having] the righteousness from God that depends on faith—
10 that I may know him and the power of his resurrection,
and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death,
11 that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead.

How can David, Peter, Paul say such things? Because they were captivated by one singular, all-consuming desire: a holy affection for God. They saw Him as supremely worthy, as infinitely valuable, as worth sacrificing everything for Him. That’s why they lived for Him. That’s why they died for Him. Their faith was fervent.

But do not think that their faith was somehow unique; every Christian must have exactly the same kind of supreme, fervent love for their Savior.

Affection for God or His Stuff?

Imagine at church this Sunday a teenager told you, “I only put up with my parents because they give me stuff and do stuff for me. They house me, feed me, buy me clothes, drive me places, pray for me.” Failing to see your shock, she continues, “But I don’t care about them at all. I can’t wait until they die so that I can finally get my inheritance. In fact, maybe I’ll kill them tonight so I can get it now.”

I don’t know what I would do, but I’d be heartbroken, angry, and scared all at the same time!

But isn’t this what we so often do to God?

We take His blessings, but we don’t want Him. We want Him to serve us, to give us stuff, to do what we want, but we don’t ever ask Him for more of Him.

Instead of praying, “Lord, may You be glorified! Lord, help me love you!” We just list off what we want from Him. Grades, friends, smooth transitions, easy future, all our desires met.

If that’s you, you rarely (if ever) praise or thank God for what He does give. You don’t confess sin, you don’t ask for faith to persevere through trial. You just want what you want, and God happens to be the way you try to get it. You transform the living God into a heavenly vending machine.

With such a heart, even good religious deeds turn rotten. We read the Bible, pray, sing, and serve not out of delight in Him, but in attempt to purchase what we really want from God.

This is the heart of a Pharisee, who assumes that his deeds of obedience can purchase God’s good gifts!

Mark 7
7:6 …“ ‘This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me;
7:7 in vain do they worship me, …

When we say to someone, “I love you,” what are we really communicating? If we mean it biblically, we are not saying, “I love what you can do for me,” or “I love how you make me feel,” or “I love what I can get from you.” If we mean it biblically, “I love you” means “I delight in you for you. I have affections—deep, willful, intelligent, desires—for you because you are love-ly. I want good for you for hte glory of God. ” Is that what we mean when we say to the Lord, “I love you Lord with all my heart, soul, mind, and strength?”

The first verse of Be Thou My Vision says,

Be Thou my vision, O Lord of my heart;
Naught be all else to me, save that Thou art.
Thou my best thought, by day or by night,
Waking or sleeping, Thy presence my light.

In other words,

Be beautiful to me, O God. You command and demand my every affection
May everything else be nothing to me except this: that You are
You are my best thought, during the day and during the night
All the time, whether I am awake or asleep, Your presence is my hope, my joy, my light

So easily we sing these words. But we ought to tremble. We ought to weep that our lives fall so short of our profession. We ought to beg God, “O God make this true of me!”

For what is this stanza but a confession of “I love you, Lord!” What heart can say, let alone sing, such words without feeling simultaneously joy in its truth, sorrow for our own shortcomings, delight in God our love, shame for our sin?

How do you have an affection for God like that? How can He be your supreme delight? Psalm 34 beckons to us:

Ps 34 (ESV) 34:8 Oh, taste and see that the LORD is good! …

When will you find your supreme delight in God alone? Only when you have tasted and seen that Yahweh is good, and that He alone is your ultimate satisfaction. Those who delight in God have tasted God’s goodness. All those who have drunk deeply from the well of God know delight that exceeds all else, the ultimate satisfaction that pleases the whole person.

We’ll look at how God is our ultimate satisfaction in the next post.