Thinking--->emotions-->willing

Is there a connection between our affections and our wills?

Yes. We choose (will) what affects us most (creates affection/desire) ; what most draws or allures us. What moves us to action (will) is what moves us emotionally (affectionately) first i.e. we are moved into action by our emotions.

Break down the word and consider its meaning. It consists of two parts. Emotion = e and motion.

Willing ourselves to act contrary to our desires wears us out and does not last long term.

What creates e-motions?

When we behold something beautiful and attractive, we are excited and drawn to it. We are moved (affected) to act/action. Likewise, when we see something unattractive, we are repelled. This too is movement to action but away from and not towards something.

What about our minds?

But isn't our mind involved also? Yes, what we think (believe) to be most valuable is most desirable and what we choose (will) to pursue.

However, what is truly desirable (objectively) and what we think is desirable (subjectively) are not necessarily one and the same.

What we think is desirable is only what we can see as desirable. If we are blind how can we see that which is truly most desirable?

Because we are spiritually dead we are also spiritually blind. Our problem is the greatest beauty lies beyond the physical and is found in the spiritual. A spiritually dead person can see nothing of the Spirit. God, who is Spirit, must reveal himself. 

How do we know God is beautiful? Do we have any indications?

Just look around you. There is great ugliness and pain in the world but there is also great beauty. Everything beautiful about creation comes from the Creator and reveals something of him. Likewise, everything destructive that disfigures creation comes from our rebellion to the Creator. The creation is in bondage due to that rebellion. 

How do we behold God clearly who is beautiful?

When we see him face-to-face. But that is not possible in our present state so now we behold him by faith or "through a glass darkly." We believe he is who he claims and promises to be.

How do we know God's promises are true?

He proved them to be true by his actions.

And what action did God take to prove he's truthful and most trustworthy?

Even after we rejected God, he chose to pursue us and disrupted his world of bliss, by stepping into our world of pain as a man,

to pursue and embrace us in our brokenness and self-inflicted pain out of his infinite love,

allowing this to kill him so that he might deliver us and our world out of pain;

not because he needed to but simply because he is love and loves us that much.

The more clearly we see him (mind/belief), the more we value him and greater we desire him (affection/emotion) and choose (will) to passionately pursue him. 

Is God still providing even when things get hard?

Providence is God's provide-ence: The nature and status of what God has provided or is currently providing in and through the circumstances, you and I find ourselves in.

We don't normally view hard and difficult circumstances as God's provision. But in fact, everything we go through, as his children, whether good or bad (as we define it) is for our good. God is providing a good end even, and sometimes especially, through bad means.

Would you consider Joseph being sold by his brothers into slavery God's provision and a good thing? Or his being falsely accused and thrown in jail for years a good thing? Yet these and other circumstances ultimately lead to Joseph being promoted to second in command over all of Egypt and in the position to deliver his family from famine. Gen 37:3 - 50:20

What if the outcome of hard circumstances does not result in such dramatic provision, is God still providing? Yes, he is but what he's providing is of a spiritual and eternal nature which is far more significant than any present material provision. God's provision can be but is not necessarily or always physical or material.

The prosperity gospel folks have it right in that God always wants our good and is doing good for us. Where they go wrong is they assume it's always of a physical or material nature and always here and now. 

These little troubles are getting us ready for an eternal glory that will make all our troubles seem like nothing (a drop in the bucket of eternal existence). Things that are seen don't last forever, but things that are not seen are eternal. That's why we are to set our minds on the in things above (Col 3:1-2) that cannot be seen. 2Co 4:17-18 (CEV)  

These hard times are small potatoes compared to the coming good times, the lavish celebration prepared for us. There's far more here than meets the eye. The things we see now are here today, gone tomorrow. But the things we can't see now will last forever. 2Co 4:17-18 (MSG)  

For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal. 2Co 4:17-18 (ESV)

The gain of self-denial

We are called to deny ourselves, (e.g. fast) to help make us more aware of our dependence on God - who is true life - instead of the pleasures of creation.

When we least want to deny ourselves may likely be when we most need to.

If we regularly choose to act in ways that require us to focus on our dependence on God instead of the pleasures of this life we are deliberately humbling ourselves. 

We are not only called to humble ourselves but this also leads to our ultimate joy and gain. 

Denying ourselves the pleasures of this life (*for a season) leads us to find greater pleasures in God; feasting on God himself leading to increased gratitude for his good gifts. But not only pleasures in God now but in the next life as well. In fact the greater our pleasure in him in this life the greater our capacity to enjoy him in the next life. 

"Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you." - James an apostle of Jesus. Jas 4:10  

And he said to all, "If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it. For what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses or forfeits himself?" - Jesus. Luk 9:23-25

"Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but yours, be done." - Jesus right before his betrayal. Luk 22:42 

"...but (Jesus) emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, - Paul and apostle of Jesus Php 2:7-9

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*Denying ourselves legitimate pleasures long-term that we find in creation is not God's design or intent. Creation is good but it is not our God. It is a means to an end, not the end itself. It is given to show us God - His beauty, power, creativity, and love and should be seen and approached as such.

Loving ourselves?

Most everyone who has studied this closely agrees that knowing we have value is vital to becoming whole and functioning well. The question then becomes, how is that best accomplished?

We hear a lot today about how and why loving ourselves is necessary and the best way (maybe the only way) to feel good about ourselves. Why? Because others will fail us, but we can always choose to love ourselves. 

But what if there is someone who knows you with all your flaws and cares about you and loves you regardless and better than you ever could? Do you think/believe that's even possible? 

The best "self-care" is not caring for yourself but letting somebody care for you who knows you and loves you better than you know and can love yourself and can meet your need for love better than you or anyone else.

Someone who has infinite knowledge, infinite ability, infinite love, infinite resources, and an infinite desire to care for you could do that better than you can.

That would not be you. A finite being - you or I - cannot meet an infinite need. We were never designed to meet our infinite need for love. Believing we could is when all our troubles began.

Our only challenge is believing God knows and loves us better than we do and entrusting ourselves to his care, that whatever He gives or withholds is best for us. This is the exact opposite of what Adam and Eve concluded when they chose to eat from the tree of good and evil.

Is there anything that helps us to believe he loves us in this way?  

John 15:13  "The greatest love you can have for your friends is to give your life for them." - Jesus

1Jn 4:9  "And God showed his love for us by sending his only Son into the world, so that we might have life through him. 10  This is what love is: it is not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the means by which our sins are forgiven." 

Christ said you can know the truth and the truth will set you free. He also said "I am the way the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father but by me..." Do you believe this?

For further comments on loving ourselves, click here and here

Moved to action

If God wants something accomplished it will not happen unless He brings it about. 

However He brings things about through our faithfulness i.e. actions full of faith or grounded in and by faithful dependence on God's love/Spirit. Faithfulness that is driven by the strength and power we experience when his infinite love seeps deeply into our heart and soul. 

The greater our faithfulness (actions that come by or out of faith), the more fruitful the outcome.

"...For this I toil, struggling with all his energy that he powerfully works within me..." - Paul an apostle of Jesus. Col 1:29

"...Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure..." - Paul an apostle of Jesus. Php 2:12-13

These verses paint a picture of how God works in and through humanity. It is not simply God that works directly on the world but God works in and through us to accomplish what he seeks to do.

For our part in this joint effort or partnership, the question isn't whether hard work pays off but rather what is driving (or should drive) our hard work. 

For a follower of Jesus, being driven out of a desire to honor God and put him on display, in all his glory, is our ultimate motive. 

But what creates this desire? 

We can't and won't live for the glory of God unless we have personally experienced him in all his glory. This is not something we make ourselves do, it is who we become as we behold, participate and experience him in all his infinite beauty (II Cor 3:17-18). And that beauty is displayed most fully in the incarnation and work of Christ on our behalf.

1Jn 4:19  We love because he first loved us.

Believing God loves us with an infinite and eternal love no matter what, causes us to fall more and more in love with him and creates in us the desire to want to show him off. We want others to see this God who loves in this way. The more we see his love for us the more we desire to put him on display (glorify him) and desire others to see him in all his love.

On the flip side however, a major means by which we experience the love of God is our faithfulness/obedience. For more on this click here. 

Our worth… based on what?

What makes us valuable and of tremendous worth to God is not the abilities we have been given and all we can do with them but who we are. Who he has made us to be and to what end we were made (to say it another way, if for some reason we lose some or all of those abilities are we now worthless? Not in God's economy!).

And who are we exactly? 

We are like God, in his image. And because we are we can participate in the very life of God in the same way God participates in his own life, a way no other creature can. (for more on this click here)

Because God is the greatest and most valuable being of all, our ability to participate in his life has a direct bearing on our value. It is the only basis for our true worth. Our doing doesn't cause God to value us, our being does i.e. who we are, who he has made us to be.

This is not to say our doing has no value at all. But it only has value to the extent our doing brings honor (points others) to God, the most valuable of all beings.

For a more in-depth discussion click here and here.

Operating in the Spirit…mystical or practical?

We tend to think of operating in the Spirit as an exclusively mystical experience when in fact it is very practical but with supernatural manifestations and by supernatural means.

Operating in the Spirit is simply operating under the influence and freedom of God's love extended to us by grace in and through Christ i.e. The good news that we have complete righteousness given to us as a gift resulting in total access to God and are now unconditional recipients of his nonstop love, if we are in Christ.

A part of this good news is that God is now committed to us, always working in and through us for our good and his glory, no matter what. This is good news not just regarding entry into the kingdom but good news regarding our ongoing daily operation in the kingdom and his working within and on behalf of us, his children. For more click here. 

When we grasp the full extent of God's love revealed to us by his Spirit, it
"lights us up" with energy/life that flows out through us to others.

God's love by his Spirit gives to us what has been missing ever since Adam and Eve disconnected from God through their rebellious unbelief. Outside of or without the Spirits influencing and moving us, we carry on in that same rebellion, brokenness, and blindness.

Before God took up residency and his abode in us by his Spirit - Love - we were like a fully decorated but unlit Christmas tree sitting alone in the dark. His love revealed to us in Christ and infused in us by his Spirit turned the lights back on. 

As long as we remain plugged into the energy source (abide in his love) we will bear much fruit, bringing glory to him (give off light/energy/

action that puts him on display). If we are not plugged in there will be no action, energy or light for Him or by Him.

If we ever forget and began to think this light and energy comes from us it's like pulling away from the source (unplugging from the light socket) causing us to go dark.

The difference now is nothing blocks the socket; we always have access to the plug.

For more on living by grace; according to the gospel; empowered by the Spirit click here.