Holy Affections

"Though you have not seen him [Jesus], you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls."

 -1 Peter 1:8 (ESV)



    In my previous post, I wrote about how we experience spiritual misery. This passage from 1 Peter shows how Christianity is meant to be lived. This letter was addressed to the diaspora Jews who were living in Asia Minor and experienced suffering from persecution. According to Peter, the Christian life is filled with love, faith, and joy in Christ even in the midst of suffering, trial, or difficult circumstances. There is no confusion nor dissonance but a presence of joy "inexpressible and filled with glory". It seems so far away from a weak, dull, and lifeless religion that so many people experience today.

    Jonathan Edwards wrote, "True religion, in great part, consists in holy affections." And it must be so because a Christian possesses a heart that has been changed and this heart happens to be the seat of affections. What drives our actions depend in great part to where our affections lie. Jonathan Edwards describes it this way:

"We see the world of mankind exceedingly busy and active; and their affections are springs of motion: take away all love and hatred, all hope and fear, all anger, zeal, and affectionate desire, and the world would be, in a great measure, motionless and dead: there would be no such thing as activity amongst mankind, or any earnest pursuit whatsoever."

- Jonathan Edwards in Religious Affections

   Reading the Psalms, you will find many expressions of holy affections. Here's a few of them:

Psalm 27:4 (ESV) -

One thing have I asked of the LORD, that will I seek after: that I may dwell in the house of the LORD

all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the LORD and to inquire in his temple.

Psalm 42:1 (ESV) -

As a deer pants for flowing streams, so pants my soul for you, O God.

Psalm 63:1-4 (ESV) -

O God, you are my God; earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you; my flesh faints for you, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water. So I have looked upon you in the sanctuary, beholding your power and glory. Because your steadfast love is better than life, my lips will praise you. So I will bless you as long as I live; in your name I will lift up my hands.

The apostle Paul shows his affections for Jesus Christ in many of his letters :

Philippians 3:8-11 (ESV) :

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 and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith- that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead.

    This is just a small list among countless expressions of desiring, loving, and thirsting after God in Scripture. Our affections are set upon Jesus Christ. We delight in Jesus Christ. We love Jesus Christ. All our Christian duty is happily rooted in this. Good works are the fruit of a heart that finds supreme satisfaction and pleasure in Jesus Christ.

"And as in worldly things, worldly affections are very much the spring of men's motion and action; so in religious matters, the spring of their actions are very much religious affections: he that has doctrinal knowledge and speculation only, without affection, never is engaged in the business of religion."

- Jonathan Edwards in Religious Affections

    This is why a weak, dull, boring, and lifeless Christian religion is so un-Christian. The lack of affections for God indicates that something is missing or something is out of whack. Don't be satisfied living in this way. Don't go through the motions. Love God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength. As John Piper said, "God is most glorified when we are most satisfied in Him."