Affections

'Withhold not thy affection from us'

        That's an unusual admonition, isn't it? For it implies that we have a choice as to whether we will have or show affection or “tender mercies” towards other people. Love is not something you generate yourself but it's a gift from God because “God is love” and the fruit of the Spirt begins with love: “The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. . . .” Gal. 5:22-23

         Not only so, “God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.” Romans 5:5 ESV But the Apostle Paul, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit told us that it's possible for us to block that love or “withhold it.” He wrote to his Corinthian brethren, “We are not withholding our affection from you, but you are withholding yours from us. As a fair exchange—I speak as to my children—open wide your hearts also.” 2 Cor. 6:11-13 So you can either “close your heart” towards others or “open wide your heart.”

        The Apostle John speaks to the same matter: ^'By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers. But if anyone has the world’s goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God’s love abide in him? Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth.' 1 John 3:16-18 esv

        “Affection” is a very interesting word. Similar to love but not quite the same, perhaps a sub-division within the broader category of the word love. Jonathan Edwards has written extensively about the importance of our affections and how they are directed. We do well to heed his many scriptural teachings. Philippians 1:8 speaks of the “affection of Christ Jesus and Luke 1:78 and many places in the Psalms speak of “the tender mercy of our God.” That's what affection does. Love may or may not have emotion, but affection always does. Even more than fondness, affection has pity and compassion and emotional feeling for the other person. You esteem them highly, respect them and admire them. Affection certainly motivates you to serve and help and encourage the other person.

        And when we think of our affection towards God, it goes even deeper because of the majesty and glory of God Himself. Jonathan Edwards, 1703-1758, wrote 250 years ago, 'There is a divine and superlative glory . . .an excellency that is of a vastly higher kind, and more sublime nature than in other things, a glory greatly distinguishing from all that is earthly and temporal . . . . We rationally believe that God is glorious, and we also have a sense of the gloriousness of God in our heart. There is not only a rational belief that God is holy, and that holiness is a good thing, but there is a sense of the loveliness of God in our heart. We know that God is gracious but we also have a sense of the beauty of this divine attribute.'

        We understand truths about God but God also gives us 'the sense of the heart, as when there is a sense of the beauty, amiableness, or sweetness of a thing, so that the heart is sensible of pleasure and delight in the presence of the idea of it.'

        'There is a difference between having an opinion that God is holy and gracious and having a sense of the loveliness and beauty of that holiness and grace. There is a difference between having a rational judgment that honey is sweet, and having a sense of its sweetness. If you've never tasted honey, you do not know exactly how it tastes.

       'So there is a difference between believing that a person is beautiful, and having a sense of her beauty. . . . There is a wide difference between speculative rational judging any thing to be excellent and having a sense of its sweetness and beauty. . . . Wlhen the heart is sensible of the beauty of something or someone, it necessarily feels pleasure. . . .

      “This sense of the divine excellency of things contained in the word of God brings a conviction of the truth and reality of them.'” from The Rational Biblical Theology of Jonathan Edwards by John Gerstner, vol. I, pages 201-202.

       Love longs for response and affection gives it. One of the most satisfying parts of love is to be able to share a particular event or situation with someone you love. When you see something beautiful or desirable or worthwhile, your first reaction is to want to share it with someone you love. That's an important part of enjoyment and pleasure. It is part of our fellowship with the other person. “I carry you in my heart” even when they are not with you.

       But affection can also simply mean “tender mercies.” And Ephesians 4:32 tells us to be kind and “tenderhearted” one to another. God treats His people with “tender mercies.” We see them daily. 'The Lord is good to all: and his tender mercies are over all his works.' Ps.145:9 'Great are thy tender mercies, O Lord. . .' Ps. 119:156

       And in Psalm 40:11 David prays that God will not “withhold” His tender mercies from him. He won't withhold them because God is in His Being, in His attributes, “tenderhearted” towards all He has made. He always does what is best for them. But it is possible, as we have seen, for us to “withhold” our affection or tender mercies from each other. That's why Jesus told His disciples that “By this shall all know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.” John 13:35 So affection and love are the “final apologetic” to show the truth of the Gospel and its reality in our lives and the Presence of God Himself giving us that love and affection.

Growing old with the love of your youth

                                 Growing old with the love of your youth
        I feel sorry for people who are married and don’t love each other! Sometimes I see people acting rude to their own husband or wife or treating them unkindly or even with arrogance! Life is too short for pettiness and unkindness. Few people are so privileged as my wife and I to have had 54 good years together and part of the goodness is being able to go through the hard times together, helping each other, sharing with one another. 

        Today I came across an e-mail that my wife wrote to one of our granddaughters the day before our 53^rd anniversary.  "Tomorrow will be our 53rd anniversary. How wonderful to grow old with the love of your youth--and I love him more today than then. It just gets better and better. . . ." (Mimi to Julie, Sept.25, 2008) I remember being so touched by her words when I first read them and I kissed her and told her so. And she smiled.

        But when I read those words again today, I thought that I am glad that our granddaughters also love their husbands and want to please them. And scripture tells us that it is a very natural, God-given part of life for a husband to want to please his wife and a wife wants to please her husband. That’s as God intended. 1 Cor. 7:33-34

         I smile when I remember the many times I heard my wife tell one of our students at Christ’s College in Taipei in answer to her question, "Why do you and your husband have such a good marriage?" She would tell them of the Lord, of course, because it is He who we pattern our lives after, but she also always said, "It’s very simple. I take good care of him and he takes good care of me!" "Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you." Eph. 4:32
                                                                                             Love,                    
                                                                         Pastor Burnside & Minnie

A Willing Heart

A Willing Heart
Can you say, as Jesus did, “I delight to do thy will, O God.” In order to do that you must look beyond the immediate to what lies ahead. How did Jesus endure the agony of the cross and all the horrible treatment that was a part of it? “For the joy that was set before Him, He endured the cross. . . .” Heb. 12:2

Jesus laid down His life willingly! “. . . I lay down my life, that I might take it again. No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This commandment have I received of my Father.” John 10:17-18
And Jesus told Peter, “Do you think that I cannot appeal to my Father, and he will at once send me more than twelve legions of angels?” Mt. 26:53 “He could have called 10,000 angels to destroy the world and set Him free!” but how then would we have been saved? It was His love and His grace that contrained Him and motivated Him.

And it is that same love that He gives to us who know Him as Savior “ because God's love (agape love) has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.” Romans 5:5 We know that love is from God and not from us because our fallen natures are self- centered and preoccupied with ourselves. But God gives a measure of His love to His children. Love is part of the fruit of the Spirit. Gal. 5:22

“This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down His life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers. If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him? Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth.” 1 John 3:16-18 NIV

I share with you the greatest experience of my life when my wife and I experienced God’s love poured into our hearts with a depth we had not known so deeply. We both loved each other a great deal for 54 years. Eros married love, phileo friendship love, and God’s unselfish agape love–God had given all that to us. My wife was by far my best friend in my entire life. But when she was stricken with pancreatic cancer, we both faced by far the greatest test or trial of our lives. And God sustained us with His love, with His peace, and with His joy in the midst of that three-year trial. We prayed together and asked the Lord not only for His sustaining grace and His peace and joy, but also for a depth of love that would carry us through it all. He immediately answered with His approval and we both gained an insight into the depth of God’s love greater even than we already knew.

Those three years were by far the worst experience of our entire lives (and I’m 77) and also the greatest because we experienced a love for each other and for and from the Lord that made it all worthwhile, painful though it was and still is. The apostle Paul experienced tremendous pain and hardship in his life and yet he could pray, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, “I pray that you may . . . grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge–that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.” Eph. 3:17-19

God gave me such a strong desire to care for and serve my wife in her terminal illness and how thankful we both are that He enabled her to stay at home (except for surgeries and a 12-day hospital stay and later a 22-day stay). What a wonderful gift from God is a willing heart to serve Him and to serve others. If you don’t have it, ask him for it “for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to His good purpose.” Phil. 2:13 It is God who gives you the motivation; you don’t generate it of yourself, but if you realize you are lacking it, then you look to Him and ask Him to change your attitude. “Lord, I believe; help thou my unbelief.”

There’s an additional by-product of all of this. If God’s love is at work in your life as you serve Him and because of your love for Him, you serve one another as He commanded, then you have no room left for discouragement. “We faint not” because “we know that our labor is not in vain in the Lord.” 1 Cor. 15:58 “A cheerful heart does good like a medicine” and a willing heart makes a cheerful heart. Jesus said, “In the world you will have tribulation, but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.” John 16:33

“My cup runneth over” with joy; let’s pray that it will also “run over” with God’s love. “Bear ye one another’s burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ.” Bear those burdens with a willing heart, going the second mile knowing you are pleasing the Lord. “We make it our ambition to please the Lord.” 2 Cor. 5:9 “See that you love one another with a pure heart fervently.” 1 Peter 1:22

[Note: thank you for the parts of this devotional I borrowed from last night’s message at Covenant Church in Siloam Springs, Arkansas.]
–Pastor Burnside