Thursday, February 7, 2008

Loving the Lord

What does it mean to love the Lord? It doesn't mean just feeling love towards the Lord. In John 14:15 the Lord says,
If you love Me, keep my commandments.
Arcana Coelestia 10645:2, 4 explains in an interesting way why loving the Lord has to involve keeping His commandments.
[S]omething must here be said in regard to the worship of the Lord from faith and from love. Many suppose that they worship the Lord by faith when they believe the things of the doctrine of the church, and that they worship the Lord by love when they love Him. Yet the Lord is not worshiped by merely believing, and by merely loving, but by living according to His commandments, because these persons alone believe in the Lord and love Him. The others say that they believe in Him, and yet they do not believe; and they say that they love Him, and yet they do not love Him. The reason why those alone believe in the Lord and love Him who live according to His commandments is that the Lord is not in the understanding of truth without the willing of it; but is in the understanding of truth together with the willing of it. For truth does not enter into a man and become his, until the man wills it and from willing does it, because the will is the man himself, whereas the understanding is only so far the man as it partakes of the will. ...

[T]o believe in the Lord is to imbue one's understanding with the truths of faith; and... to love the Lord is to imbue one's will with the goods of love; and... this cannot be done except by learning truths from the Lord, by willing them, and by doing them.

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