A heart loved is a mind and will freed

We cannot see clearly or choose wisely until we trust we are ¹fully loved. To the degree we trust we are, is the degree to which we will see clearly and choose wisely.

In order to best get on in life we usually think what we need most is right understanding, facts, knowledge, and right choices. That knowledge and choice are the most important things. However, these can not occur until things are first addressed at a much more fundamental level; the level of our heart-spirit.

We are primarily relational beings, not just rational and willful. By that I mean we are designed to be in relationship first and foremost. We are designed in the image of our Creator to receive love via relationship in the same way our Creator does. Thinking and choosing only work correctly when the core defining aspect of who we are is intact. 

To illustrate, think of

those times you went to the grocery store when you were starving versus when you were full. Did this affect what was most appealing to you and the choices you made while shopping? Wasn't it easier to rationalize buying more processed food that could be consumed quickly versus something more healthy that took time to prepare; something that required delayed gratification? 

Just like with physical hunger, our reasoning and choices are affected and driven by our emotional and spiritual state as well. When we are spiritually and emotionally starved we make poor choices vs when we are spiritually and emotionally full. 

And what kind of relationship do we need? - for not just any relationship works i.e. gives us what we most need spiritually-emotionally. Because we were created for infinite love from it's Source, inconsistent love from others, including self-love alone, doesn't work because it doesn't fully give us what we are designed for and therefore must have. 

Why is this? Because we were designed to be in a relationship with a ²being that is infinite, constant, never failing, and never-ending love. In short, we were designed for a relationship with the God of infinite love. Therefore only a relationship with this God will do i.e. it fits who we are. 

Right knowledge and right choices are certainly important but occur only when we are in an unobstructed relationship with someone who can give us infinite love i.e. we can not make right choices and obtain true understanding without being freely loved first. As long as we are not loved fully, our knowledge, choices, desires, etc are skewed towards that which we think (believe) works best at satisfying our need to feel worthwhile, important, significant... in a word, loved.

This raises the question of why we do not always feel fully loved if we are a child of God. Well, in fact, we are fully loved. Love has been fully displayed and extended to us in Christ, but if we do not receive but reject this love (Jn 3:17-18) by not believing in it, we will not partake of it. Why? We are in such deep (and hidden) pain we will not entrust ourselves to the love of another but prefer to take care of ourselves, "thank you very much." To fully engage in this infinite love, we have to give up our attempts at "self-love" and must entrust ourselves to another instead. But not just anyone but to our all-wise all-powerful and all-loving Creator. For now that occurs by faith i.e. we see God through a glass dimly.

And that other person is not someone we can control. Which is our challenge. Control is the opposite of trust. 

Christ himself told us that His Father so loved us that he sent me (Christ) to this broken world of pain and suffering to bring you (and any who trusts him) everlasting life. You're not believing this (trusting what Christ said and did) in itself proves you refuse to entrust yourself to (and actually reject) the source of all love and life?

If you, by faith, do not accept the proof of his love, you will not experience this love that is offered and demonstrated by Christ in what he did on your behalf.

And what he did was remove the barrier our (your) rejection of God put between us (you) and Him so that he might restore you back to a right standing and you might experience his infinite love again. Until then, everything is skewed; all knowledge, all choices, all desires, all perceptions (remember the grocery store analogy) etc. 

For a discussion on what enables us to deny ourselves, click here. 

For a discussion on being transformed by God's glory, click here. 

For a discussion on the necessity of judgment click here.

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¹Even though we are fully loved in and by Christ objectively, our trust in that love (i.e. our subjective involvement/ participation) does not equal and match the strength of that love (i.e. the objective reality of it), so we might experience it fully.

²God doesn't just love this way, He is this way by virtue of his being a relational being within the Father, Son, and Spirit. This is why both God and Christ described themselves as "I AM" i.e. infinite, self-existent, and self-sustaining. And we are made in God's image, i.e. designed for that infinite love/ relationship.