In our love for God, I believe it is easy to have an "eros" (or erotic) kind of love. Being caught up in the experience and awe, we are full of excitement and our desire for this experience becomes lustful and dangerous. The experience overshadows God.
It is so easy to be constantly seeking the "emotional high", the "movement of God", "the power", instead of understanding the true greatness of who God is, and trusting His character. We become in love with and addicted to some experience and not God, Himself. Just as one is more interested in the physical experience than the person.
It is so easy to be constantly seeking the "emotional high", the "movement of God", "the power", instead of understanding the true greatness of who God is, and trusting His character. We become in love with and addicted to some experience and not God, Himself. Just as one is more interested in the physical experience than the person.
But their is a deeper love, an "agape" love, that is interested only in God and not some idolized version of what we want or an "experience" we desire to have. We take Him for who He is and trust Him for who He says He is. It is coming to know (in the biblical sense) God, in a deep and full way. You don't need a "movement" of God or have to see some "power", or even to feel anything, because His character thoroughly satisfies you.
In the Bible, love is not a noun, the focus is not what we feel or an experience, but what we do. You can seek an experience or you can seek God.
This is not just for those who seek great "experiences" or "events". This is also for you and me in are everyday life.
ReplyDeleteDo we need an "experience" to trust Him?
Here is a good question asked by one of the readers of this entry:
ReplyDeleteQuestion: I wanted to understand what you mean by "It is coming to know (in the biblical sense) God, in a deep and full way." So what you mean by "in the biblical sense".
Answer:
Yeh, I am using literary devices here. Meaning both that our understanding of knowing God comes from the scripture and must come from the scripture, but also that this relationship is intimate. The scripture uses the term knowing in several places to describe God's love for us. With a wife and a husband (though this is pure and not erotic). Or scriptures such as He foreknew us or that we our known by Him. Or even scriptures where he says to those outside that he never knew them. So this word is really weighty and I purposely mean this to be taken in more than one way.
I have heard that the Puritans talked about Christ as a lover, pertaining to the deep intimacy that we have with Christ. This is an allusion to that.
And I also want to reemphasize the fact that our knowing God must be in a biblical sense in the the fact that it must come from the scriptures.