Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates. When the LORD your God brings you into the land he swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, to give you--a land with large, flourishing cities you did not build, houses filled with all kinds of good things you did not provide, wells you did not dig, and vineyards and olive groves you did not plant--then when you eat and are satisfied, be careful that you do not forget the LORD, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. Deuteronomy 6:4-12 (NIV)
Our God is a God of order – particularly when it comes to our affections. He knows full well when we have the tendency to give the greater love to lesser things. And aren’t we all so prone to it – “Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it, prone to leave the God I love”- as the hymn goes (and so goes the sinner!). Isn’t that ever so true, Amen? If we are not carefully diligent in ordering our affections it can lead to all sorts of depravity which can be leprous to our souls. We rot from the inside out. Even perhaps with the outside signs flourishing.
There was this tremendous tree standing right outside the house I was in. All of a sudden, with no warning of wind or rain or anything else, there was this huge commotion and loud noise sounding like gunshots going through the woods. I ran to the door only to see this presumably healthy tree fell in the woods. The tree was covered with branches of vibrant new growth and green leaves seemingly flourishing yet closer inspection of the downed tree proved it was rotten through the core. Sometimes, like the tree, we can convince ourselves that we are flourishing when inside we are filled with decay and ready to fall. We are not to be consumed with foolish imaginations of our own goodness. No one is good but God alone. He has left us the Great Deposit of the Holy Spirit to give us a new heart and new understanding and power to give a death blow to our habitual pollution. And it begins with ordering our affections He is to be our first love – He is always to be our first love – always for our good and His glory. We must labor to love Him rightly.
“I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. You shall have no other gods before me.” Deuteronomy 5:6-7 (NIV)