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MarK 12:30:
30And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment.
Underneath, deeper yet than your heart, lives your soul.
When God searches a man, He not only tests his heart, but enters deeper still into his being; something which Scripture plastically expresses by saying (Jeremiah 11:20) that God, after He has tried our heart, also trieth our reins, in order thus to examine us in the innermost parts of our being.
In moments of high tension it is sometimes felt even among men, that the heart is not all, and that, through the heart, the very center of our self must be reached. See it in the case of Jonathan. When David swore to him that he would always be faithful to him and to his house, in that moment of violent and deep emotion Jonathan replies (I Samuel 20:4): "Whatsoever thy soul desireth, I will even do it for thee."
When you consider it seriously, the only thing of worth in your life is that which comes into your heart from your soul, and what by way of your heart enters into your soul.
What goes on outside of your soul can also have considerable attraction for you. In lesser degree when only the outward appearance interests you; in greater degree when you admire in some one his courage and energy, devotion and self-sacrifice. But all this passes away. You do not assimilate it into your life. And, as a rule, the emotions and utterances of your heart, which go on outside of your soul, do not rise higher than the feelings—sometimes even not above the dream life—of the sentimental.
The function of your heart derives all real, permanent worth only from the relation in which your heart stands to your soul.
This, however, must never be taken as though your heart were something superfluous, and as though the soul alone were of consequence.
Rather the contrary is true; your heart has been given you by God as an absolutely indispensable organ of your soul.
Only by means of your heart can that which stirs in your soul come to this supreme perception and lofty utterance which we glorify as love.
In the great commandment, therefore, Jesus puts the heart in the foreground. First: "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart," and only then, "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy soul."
This could not be otherwise.
Love does not begin in our soul, but in God. It comes from God to us. Our heart drinks it in. And thus only when this love of God, by way of the heart, enters into our soul, there wakens in our soul the life of reciprocal love for God, which now presses from the soul into the heart, and causes us to love God.
This last stage is reached only through our heart. Only in our heart is the spark ignited and the fire of love made to glow.
The love of the soul partakes more of the character of worship. Only the heart gives out the tenderness and the warmth.
Only when it becomes a loving of God with all your heart, does this love begin to glow in you with real human feeling.
This love of the heart is an irresistible mutual attraction. More than once, therefore, it is described in the Scriptures as a cleaving of the soul unto God.
When the magnet draws the steel so closely to itself that there is no air between, then the steel cleaves unto the magnet. When, therefore, between people, there springs up so tender an attraction that at length everything that separated them falls away, then heart cleaves to heart, soul cleaves to soul. And so there is no perfect love for God, until everything that makes separation between us and God, is taken away. And then it is true of this love also, that our heart, and, through our heart our soul, cleaves to God.
A strong, forcible expression, which Scripture uses again and again. So strong, that you ask yourself whether it ever will prove true with you. And yet, to God's child this is not open to doubt. As a rule there lies such a mountain of hindrances between our soul and our God, that there is no mention of a cleaving unto God. But this does not alter the fact that every child of God has known brief moments, in retirement and solitude, in which the love of God drew him so mightily and so irresistibly, and God's blessed fellowship in Christ overwhelmed him so blessedly, that, truly, everything fell away, and the cleaving of his heart to the heart of his God, was the only true expression for what his soul enjoyed, and felt for God.
What in nature is called power of attraction, in the spiritual life is called love.
Love is not something manufactured, something studied, but is something in itself.
You feel whether some one loves you or not. You feel whether this love wherewith he interests and draws you is strong or weak. And when a great love directs itself to you, goes out towards you, and begins to work upon you, then you likewise feel the irresistibility of this drawing.
"Drawing" is what Jesus Himself calls this outgoing of love. The Father "draws" His elect. Of Himself the Savior declares: "I will draw all men unto me." That is to say, "I will play upon your heart with such a superpower of grace and love, that you will come to me, surrender yourself to me, and be won by me."
Thus there is a superpower in this love, but superpower through a violence which does not hurt, but blessedly refreshes. As the sun draws the flower-bud upward, and at the same time, by its cherishing warmth makes it to unfold, so this love of God draws you up to itself, and at the same time courses through you with most blessed sensations which cause the heart to swell with holiest joy.
You drink in this love, or, if you will, it is wealth for your soul, and in this wealth of God's love which you enjoy, awakens of itself, pure and tender, the love in your heart for your God.
There is also love for the impersonal.
So we speak of love for nature, when it attracts us by its beauty or awes us by its sublimity. In the same way we can love science, love right, love everything that is noble and of good report.
But all this is a vague, general love which finds no rest, because the soul, which personally lives and loves, can only satisfy itself in a personal love.
Therefore love for a song-bird or domestic animal is of a tenderer nature. For here love concentrates itself upon a definite object, and there is reciprocal expression. The attractiveness of a dog can be very great, because there is personal response. You do not find this in mere nature, in science—in law; but you do find it in a dog who risks his life for you.
All this, however, is but the prelude to higher love, and only with man does love begin to speak its richer language and to reveal its higher character. Here too are different grades in the ascent. The love of mother and child, of father and son, of brother and sister, of friend and friend—till you finally come to marriage; sometimes, oh, so degraded by sin, and yet in its ideal interpretation the highest love on earth, and therefore, marked by God Himself as the symbol of the love which binds Him to His people, to His elect.
But even in marriage, love can not find its consummation. In accordance with its nature it feels within itself an impulse which goes higher. Only when, at last, love begins to reach out after the Highest Being, and when you feel that the spark of love for God has been ignited in your heart by God Himself do you become aware that now love in you has reached its greatest height, that it can rise no higher, but also that it has no such desire, and consequently is most blessed.
The conflict which then ensues lies in your inequality with God. He is everything, you nothing. He the High and Lofty One, you the insignificant creature of His hand. You, owing thanks to Him for everything; He, heeding nothing, and, therefore, can receive nothing from you.
With men our love is mutual, as between equals. Between a great man and a little child no high personal love can develop itself. The little child can not reach up to the broadly cultured man; the man can not come down to the child, otherwise than in simple kindness.
But this is what God has done for you.
He has done it in Christ. He came in Christ as Man to you, in order to make the inequality equal, to unite Himself to your life, to fit Himself to your existence, in everything to become like unto the brethren—only excepting sin.
Here now is the mystery. The great mystery, whereby with him who joined himself to Jesus, and believed in Jesus, and in soul became one with Jesus, the true love for God could develop itself without the disturbance of inequality.
And when you say that Jesus has given you everything, and that you can place no crown upon the head of your Savior which He does not already have—then know that there yet remains one thing, that God can demand from His elect; and this one thing, what is it but the love of your heart? But, then, of all your heart, till at length your heart draws after God, as God's heart drew after you.
* * * * * * *This devotional classic offers 110 meditations on a single thought from Psalm 73: "As for me, it is good to be near to God." The author states, "The fellowship of being near unto God must become reality ... it must permeate and give color to our feeling, our perceptions, our sensations, our thinking, our imagining, our willing, our acting, our speaking. It must not stand as a foreign factor in our life, but it must be the passion that breathes throughout our whole existence."
The meditations reflect the blending of spiritual vigor with doctrinal loyalty so consistently expressed in the life of Abraham Kuyper. These are devotions with true substance, avoiding the extremes about which Kuyper adds a word of caution: "Stress in creedal confession, without drinking from the Living Fountain, runs dry in barren orthodoxy, just as truly as spiritual emotion, without clearness in confessional standards, makes one sink in the bog of sickly mysticism."
Abraham Kuyper (1837-1920) was a Dutch political leader and Calvinist theologian. Elected to parliament in 1874, he became Prime Minister in 1901 and served in that capacity until 1905. As a theologian, he revived a systematic, orthodox Calvinism. He founded the Free Reformed Church and the Free University of Amsterdam. His other works include Principles of Sacred Theology, Lectures on Calvinism, and The Work of the Holy Spirit
Further information about Abraham Kuyper's life can be seen in the translator's "Biographical Note"; further information about To Be Near Unto God can be Abraham Kuyper's "Preface" to that book.
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