Well-Directed Love

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Scripture
 
Psalm 119:16     I will delight in your statutes;
        I will not forget your word.

Observation

The ABC’s of Psalm 119 take us through a beautiful journey. The “B” section focus on the absorbed heart and closes with this verse. The heart that is focused with well-directed love will discover emotions and memory are now properly aligned to the purposes of God. Augustine in “City of God” tells us, “The right will is, therefore, well-directed love, and the wrong will is ill-directed love. Love, then, yearning to have what is loved, is desire; and having and enjoying it, is joy; fleeing what is opposed to it, it is fear; and feeling what is opposed to it, when it has befallen it, it is sadness.” (14.7)

When our hearts are directed toward God, there is an overflow love. This results in good works but the source comes from the well-directed love that delights in God’s laws and remembers the word.

Application

Spending time in the word is absolutely vital to our walk with Jesus Christ. However, it’s not just about knowing the Scriptures, but allowing them to speak to our hearts. We are to be moved to action by that which we read. If we aren’t, then we need to pray that God’s word will soak into our very being, past all of the human barriers.

For the word of God to become truly transformational means that we have to be vulnerable. That is never pleasant. It’s also never pleasant to be willing to be shaped and formed by what we are learning from the word. Admitting that we are wrong about something and asking forgiveness from others can be quite humbling. However, we will never get to the place of delighting in God’s statutes if we aren’t open to constantly listening and learning.

The word of God contains everything that is necessary for salvation because the Scriptures perfectly reveal God to us.  It is in getting to know God that we fall in love with our Creator. Our Creator and Sustainer leads us into this place of well-directed love. This love delights in God’s statutes. Suddenly they mean so much more to us as they are illuminated by our passion to know God and to serve in faithfulness.

Yesterday was Valentine’s Day and many young couples got engaged. You can see their pictures all over Facebook! The pictures all include a young lady showing off her ring finger. This ring becomes a reminder that she will never forget the love of the one who gave her that ring. Every time she looks at it, she is reminded of the love that inspired the gift. The word of God is our constant reminder of the Father’s love for us. When our love is well-directed we will overflow with love for God and love for this broken world.

Prayer

Lord, thank you for the privilege of soaking in your word. Amen.


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