Learning to Love (I Corinthians 13), Part 10

Does Not Delight in Evil.

Love “does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth,” claims the author of I Corinthians 13—the Bible’s love chapter. We innately know the essential component of love is its complete absence of evil. We affirm that statement so easily. Perhaps we can skip over this phrase, ticking off the little box as completed—accomplished!

But the words insist we stay a moment. We need to delve a little deeper. There is something here for us and we must not to sweep it away as peripheral, inconsequential and irrelevant. The inspired words are giving us a glimpse into the inner workings of the human heart—your heart and mine. By now we are aware that words inspired by God, if understood correctly, cut to the quick. They penetrate into hearts and have a habit of revealing thoughts and attitudes we thought were well hidden.

Surprisingly, the key word in this phrase is not evil. That comes eventually. First, the author wants us to look at delighting, at the human heart, its role and purpose and its set point. Our heart is not only capable of delighting; its primary task is to delight. It must absorb the glories of something outside itself that is good and expand with the resulting joy, or else be in bondage to something—even itself—that is not worthy of its worship, and finally shrivel and die.

To be delighted is to be entranced, enthralled and enchanted. It is to be riveted, transfixed and mesmerized. Look at those words again. Do you see what they are all doing? They are holding the heart in a sort of bondage. They do not offer the heart options; they demand the delight response. We become captivated by something and try as we might, we cannot escape. It may have started out as a first look, our attention caught by something interesting, but soon the attraction becomes irresistible. We have begun to delight in it.

Create a list of things that enthrall. The list is endless. To determine what it is that delights us, we simply need to ask ourselves, “What is it I cannot live without, or will be angry with God if it is taken away?” These things may not be evil in themselves, but they do hold sway over our thoughts, emotions, and even our actions.

Now we need to come to the word evil. How do we determine whether the things that delight us are evil or good? The Bible often uses words like wicked to describe people captivated by evil, and like righteous to describe those captivated by good. Even the terms righteous and wicked, though, come with some baggage, some incomplete or faulty impressions. The author of the very first Psalm gives us some insight on how we can determine good and evil, where our heart’s delight lies, and how to rectify the situation if the news is bad.

“…(Y)ou thrill to God’s Word,” explains the author of Psalm 1, describing those captivated by God and everything about Him, “you chew on Scripture day and night. You’re a tree replanted in Eden, bearing fresh fruit every month, never dropping a leaf, always in blossom. You’re not at all like the wicked, who are mere windblown dust—”

Author Timothy Keller looks at it from another angle. “The righteous,” he explains, “are by definition those who are willing to disadvantage themselves for the community while the wicked are those who put their economic, social, and personal needs ahead of the needs of the community.” Good and evil, Keller continues, “is inevitably ‘social’, because it is all about relationships.”

Relationship with God is number one. Growing within that relationship requires absorbing everything He reveals about Himself in His Word, communicating with Him in prayer and living in line with that truth. Relationship with the people He created in His image is number two. Reaching out to them with as if we are the hands and feet of Jesus keeps those relationships in perspective. When we focus our primary delight on God and our secondary delight on people, we will find ourselves protected from being in bondage to the delight of evil. We will be safeguarded from the shriveling, minimizing effects of placing our delight in lesser things and becoming like them—nothing more than windblown dust.

The stakes are high. We can ride the wave of any delight that rolls our way and discover that love escapes us in the end, or we can delight in God Himself and in His magnificent love for us. One deceives and the other is truth. One destroys, while the other recreates ever-expanding truly human beings. One is loneliness and one is true community. Come and delight in the God who is love.

(Photo Credit: Retrieved from https://www.google.ca/search?safe=strict&biw=1920&bih=868&tbm=isch&sa=1&ei=PNU_WvT6F-Oe0wLDv4mgDw&q=apple+trees&oq=apple+trees&gs_l=psy-ab.1.0.0i67k1j0l2j0i67k1j0l6.3443.4452.0.6727.5.5.0.0.0.0.73.324.5.5.0….0…1c.1.64.psy-ab..0.5.322…0i7i30k1j0i13k1.0.HDgX1M7A0OU#imgrc=Ld7j-xZD1ckMrM:)

Opening the Door to Psalm 119; Part 6

‘Daleth.’

“I am laid low in the dust,” begins the psalmist in ‘Daleth’, the fourth segment of Psalm 119. What a start. There’s nothing proud or glorious here. There’s no false gaiety or bravado insulating how he feels. There is no glossy cover hiding the despair and disappointment. But remember, he’s not speaking to us here; he’s pouring out his heart to God.

“I am laid low in the dust; preserve my life according to your word.” The psalmist has bottomed out. It’s not just his feet that are dusty—he is flat out ‘laid low in the dust.’ He’s prostrate in it. The arid silt is gritty between his teeth, it’s stinging his eyes, it’s caked in his ears and it’s filling his nostrils. He’s not denying it. It’s threatening to swallow him into obscurity.

Perhaps he’s remembering the Genesis narrative in which the serpent was relegated to “eat dust” after tempting first-woman and first-man to rebel against God. Then first-man and his progeny were abandoned to return “to dust,” an incredible aftermath for creatures made in God’s image who had until then been feeding on the tree of life! For centuries the psalmist’s people had expressed their deepest sorrows with dust, covering their heads with its colourless, lifeless litter, remembering the curse.

But the psalmist doesn’t stop at the dust. He remembers something deeper and truer than his failings. He remembers God’s WORD. God, who “formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life” with a word (Genesis 2:7), who created the heavens and the earth with a word, “…and it was so.” To this the psalmist appeals.

In other words, ‘God, Your word is the only thing that can save me now. Speak it over me.’ And like a springtime downpour, God’s life-giving word rains down upon the thirsty souls not only of the psalmist but also of all who call on Him, souls willing to hear the word, take it to heart, and let it transform them from the inside out.

“I recounted my ways and you answered me; teach me your decrees./ Let me understand the teaching of your precepts; then I will meditate on your wonders./ My soul is weary with sorrow; strengthen me according to your word./ Keep me from deceitful ways; be gracious to me through your law./ I have chosen the way of truth; I have set my heart on your laws./ I hold fast to your statutes, O LORD; do not let me be put to shame./ I run in the path of your commands, for you have set my heart free.”

The psalmist’s prayer is an agreement with God that he cannot sustain his own life, only God can. And the life that God gives him is the source of understanding and wonder, of strength and truth, of determination and faithfulness—virtues by which the psalmist recognizes God’s life takes hold of human life.

And as the psalmist grasps at the last straw it turns into a living proclamation by which the blight against his life is reversed and through whom the bondage of rebellion is undone. The proclamation is Jesus, anointed “to preach good news to the poor…to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners…to comfort all who mourn…to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes” (portions of Isaiah 61:1-3). Beauty instead of ashes. Rich soil instead of dust. A heart set free.

God’s Word—Jesus—is unparalleled in effectiveness.

“As the rain and the snow come down from heaven,” declares the LORD, “and do not return to it without watering the earth and making it bud and flourish, so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater, so is my word that goes out from my mouth: It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it”(Isaiah 55:10,11).

As we hold fast to Jesus, God’s Word in the flesh and our hope for life, we begin a race where running is not wearisome, where dust is kicked off at every leaping stride, and where our hearts are finally free to climb up on high places to rejoice in our God.

(Photo Credit: MeghanBustardPhotography)