In this talk, given at an area leadersâ retreat in Servant Branch, Paul DeCelles taught about how to love God with our whole heart, mind and strength. He explained the realities of the spiritual life and the stages of growth in prayer, which begin with an emotional connection and move to encountering the cross.
Transcript
This document is a direct transcript of an audio recording, and may contain transcription errors and other minor edits for the sake of clarity.
[Applause]
PAUL: Glory to God!
MANâS VOICE: Yes, amen!
PAUL: I always thought Minnie Pearl [a comedian] had the best line, butâI canât do it the way she does it, but it sure is good to be here.
AUDIENCE: [Laughter.] Yes!
PAUL: Itâs also very difficult to give a talk after there has been a really good time of prayer together. The reason for that is that all the Scriptures have been read [audience agreeing: âYes!â here and there], and prophecies have been given. And you just canât really top that. So. . . .
One time I heard a wonderful talk by a man. . . . It was just a really edifying talk, from beginning to end. And when it was over, I went up to him right after it and praised him to the skies about what a wonderful talk it was. And he said, âWell, just exactly what did you like about it?â SoâI was kind of surprised, because it sounded like âHe wants to hear more!â [Paul chuckles.] So [Paul chuckles]âthat wasnât the reason, though. So I told him one thing, and then he smiled. And Iâhe said, âWhat else?â And I told him something else, and he smiled again. And this went on for a little bit of time. And finally he said, âWell, you know, all those were Scripture passages. I just was reading Scripture!â
So I want to begin tonight reading a little Scripture to you. I figure that way I canât fail. [Paul and all laugh.]
Why donât you turn with me to Mark 12? The whole chapter is a wonderful chapter, and it would be good to go through it sometime at length, the wholeâfrom beginning to end. There is a great deal to do with spirituality in this chapter. But let me begin with verse 28.
And one of the scribes came up and heard them disputing with one another, and seeing that he answered them well, asked him (that is, Jesus), âWhich commandment is the first of all?â Jesus answered, âThe first is, âHear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one; and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.â The second is this, âYou shall love your neighbor as yourself.â There is no other commandment greater than these.â And the scribe said to him, âYou are right, Teacher; you have truly said that he is one, and there is no other but he; and to love him with all the heart, and with all the understanding, and with all the strength, and to love oneâs neighbor as oneself, is much more than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices.â And when Jesus saw that he answered wisely, he said to him, âYou are not far from the kingdom of God.â And after that no one dared to ask him any questions. [Mark 12:28â34, RSV]
Now turn with me to the book of Exodus, in chapter 20.
Our Lord had begun answering the scribe by saying, âThe first is, âHear O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one.ââ That has always been kind of a puzzle to me, why he would begin with that particular phrase. Has it ever occurred to you to wonder about that? When heâs askingâwhen the scribe is saying, âWhat is the greatest commandment?â, the Lord begins with that.
Now I used to think that that meant something like âhelloâ: it was like a greeting or a salutation that the Hebrews had. Itâs like, you know, âGood morning! Today weâre going to do this.â And I thought, well, the scribe had said something, and so the Lord said to him, âWell,â you know, âGood morning. Let me now address the issue that you raise.â But it isnât that. Itâs much deeper than that. What he says is that the Lord is one.
Now letâs look back at the book of Exodus, in chapter 20: âAnd God spoke all these words, saying, âI am the Lord your God; I am the one who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondageââ [Exodus 20: 1â2, RSV].
Now let me just apply this to us. The symbol of being brought out of Egypt, brought out of the house of bondage, is for us a âtypeâ of our salvation. Itâs an indication that Jesus has saved us from our sins, that we are redeemed by his passion, death and resurrection, that he has really effectively saved us and expiated our sins. Heâs wiped us clean. Thatâs what heâs saying there; we understand that that way.
Then he goes on to sayââDonât get it wrong!â he says. âYou shall have no other gods before me. I wonât tolerate another god in front of me or behind me, to the right of me or to the left of me. I donât want a god anyplace in the world other than me. I am God, and I am one. There is only one God, and Iâm the one. Before meâthere ainât none [sic] before me, and there arenât any others cominâ after me. Iâm him. Iâm God. Iâm the one, and Iâm the only one.â
Now why did he have to say that to us? Well, for one thing, especially the Israelites were aware of the fact that there were very many gods in all these countries that they would traipse through as they were on their way to the Promised Land. They had already seen many pagan gods in Egypt and elsewhere. And they knew that these other gods had power and were effective, you know: that people would pray to gods of fertility and the women would get fertileâthey would get pregnant. They would plantâthey would pray to gods, or idols, for the sake of having a good harvest. And sometimes theyâd have a good harvest, and sometimes they wouldnât. But when they had a good harvest, they really celebrated the god that they prayed to for that. They had gods for every occasion, and they didnât understand that there was only one God.
And in some ways, these things that they understood as being really worthwhile aspects, like the goodness of the god that they prayed to for a good harvestâokay?âthat that was in fact fulfilled in the one true God: that he really is a God of that sort, who has concern and care for us. So, in a certain senseânow, youâve gotta understand thisâthese people, these Israelites, and all the other people thatâwho had all these strange gods, were sort of on the right track.
They did have built into their very constitution[s] from the very beginning, right after Adam and Eve sinned, a hope for salvation. Because God said that he would send somebody to save them, who would crush the head of the serpent. And they were always looking to something higher than themselves, in a certain sense, that was gonna be capable of bringing them some good that they couldnât provide for themselves. They didnât understand that there was only one God, a Supreme Being, almighty and infiniteâinfinite in space, in a senseâwho occupies every part of space, and who is everywhere that is; who has always been and never has changed, and always will be the same; who is our Lord and our God, the one true God.
But you know, when you think about it a little bit, while we understand the fullness of this revelationâand maybe we look at it pretty dimly through a dark glass sometimesâwe have it preached to us; we understand it; we read it in the Scriptures and we know that itâs true; we assent to it with all of our beingânonetheless, we have our own little gods. We have a variety of things that we put ahead of God. There are a variety of things, such as our physical health, our physical well-being, our strength, our physical strength.
You know, we all get through each day on the strength of our physicsâof our physiques, that is. We all get throughâwe knowâyou know, down deepâevery now and then, at least, we reflect on the fact that we make it through on our own! Itâs very hard, and we kind of pamper ourselves at the end of the day. Well, you know, weâve put in a really hard day, and we deserve this next beer, and we deserve all the comfort that weâre gonna get, becauseâweâre gonna sit down and weâre gonna relax, because we really made it on our own. Okay?
We can look at ourselves as being the cause of the good that came to us out of the strength that God gave us. We can kind of look to our own physique as a god. And, in fact, Iâd say, today especially, we do see a lot of people who are really idolizing their bodies, who are spending a tremendous amount of time just making themselves look beautiful. I mean, given the natural state of most of us, thatâs a very difficult task! No wonder it takes so long! [Laughter.]
Nonetheless, we are spending billions of dollars on looking good! And weâre spendingâprobably, most people are spending about an hour a day getting in shape. Iâm not against that. All Iâm saying isâIâm pointing out to you that, in fact, our physical strength means a great deal to us. And sometimes we spend more time on making ourselves fit than we do praying. We spend more time looking after ourselves, putting ourselves firstâour strengthâahead of the Lord. We spend more time doing that than we do in work or service for the Lordâon some occasions, and some of us.
There are many gods before us. We know that we have talents with which we make a living. And the reason we get paid is because we work so hard. And so, again, our mental skills and our physical abilitiesâdepending on what kind of jobs weâre working with and atâwe know basically that those things are really âwhere the action isâ for us. Now, many of usâeverybody here is working so hard just trying to pastor the people that youâre concerned for. I know that youâre not, in fact, overinvesting yourself in your work. But it is the case that all of us, I think, lose sight of the fact that it is really the one Lord who provides for all of our needs.
Itâs true that he provides for us through our own efforts. That is to say, he says to you, âGo get an apple off that tree.âThat is, heâs giving the apple. Heâs pointing the way. Heâs made it grow, given the harvest. And then he asks you to go pick it. And so, we really do have to do that. But very often, we get things like our own ability to make a living to stand in the way of what it is that the Lord is giving usâin fact, to replace the Lord; to stand as a god between him and us, between the real God and us.
We can go through these other passages. In fact, let me go on with verse 4:
You shall not make for yourself a graven image or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them, or serve them, for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third generation and the fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments. [Exodus 20: 4â6, RSV]
Letâs go back now to Markâs gospel, chapter 12, and look at what else the Lord said there. He said, âYou shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and all your strength.â [Mark 12:30, RSV]
I want to dwell a little bit on the progression which the Lord has laid out there for us. I know that every single person who enters into the spiritual walk, who receives the baptism in the Spirit and begins to function with the power of the Lord, begins with some degreeâin some cases itâs very large, a very high degreeâof anointing or sensual experience which he finds extremely gratifying. He feels tremendously elated when heâs baptized in the Spirit, or when he receives some kind of grace from God which he would call, kind of, his âconversion.â or his âsecond conversion,â or whatever you want to call it.
Itâs characteristic of us that the way we areâand, I think this is probably trueâI think this is true for everybody hereâthis is, I would say, a spiritual law: that the first thing we encounter, when we encounter the Lord, is some change in our own senses. We feel very good. We feel some kind of elation. We feel that weâre no longer lost, weâre no longer doomed to be guilty forever and ever. Weâre no longer tossed about by strange gods. Weâre no longer going to be confused by everything. In fact, we experience salvation. But the salvation we experience we come across, in a very real way, as palpable, something that makes me feel really good.
I had aâI have a godson, whom I like very much, and I havenât seen for a very long time (I may have told you this story once before). When he firstâwhen he came to the Lord, he was hooked on drugs. In fact, he was saved in the street when he was prettyâwhen he was high. His hair was down to the middle of his back . . . and he came to our house for a prayer meeting, sort of stumbling in, not knowing why he was there or anything else. And we welcomed him. We were really glad to see him. He was our first real, honest-to-goodness hippie, so he was kind of a trophy; just to have him there, you see, was really . . . something! [Paul and all laugh.]
He kept coming back to the prayer meetings, and he was doing really well. And he took some instructions in the faith, and he was baptized with water and the Holy Spirit. His life was just one tremendous series of satisfactions. He had been being satisfied by drugs for a while, and then he crashed. And drugs were no longer capable of satisfying hisâgiving him the kind of delight and happiness that he had experienced at first. Then he began to experience consolation from the Lord.
And his first experience of that was exactly like the experience heâd had on drugs. It was tremendously satisfying, very gratifying. He really felt much better. He felt much better about himself. He felt happy, for instance. He felt elated. And when he was with everybody, being acceptedâin fact, he was not only accepted, he was kind of put on a pedestal. Everybody really was very, very glad he was there.
Well, after about six months of this, that kind ofâwhat Iâm referring to as, kind of, a sensualâ appreciation of God waned. And he said, âWell, I think Iâm gonna go back and convert my friends on the street.â So we said, âOh no! You shouldnât do that. (Nowâhe was baptized by now.) You shouldnât do that, Don. Please donât do that. Donât go back to Michigan City (which is about thirty miles from South Bend). Donât hang around with your old crowd. Donât think youâre gonna save them from drugs.â Well, there was no kind ofâwe couldnât convince him not to do this.
And he did go back there. And it was a very sad story, because within a very short period of time, he was back on drugs, and then he had to support his habit by stealing, and he went to prison, where he served several years.
And I see Don now, every now and then, and itâs aâhe is very different from what he was when he first was filled with the Spirit. Heâs âcontrolled.â Heâs not gonna to go back to jail, I think. And heâs making something of himself. Heâs learning a lot, and all that sort of thing. Heâs trying to get ahold of his life.
The thing that strikes me about it is that he entered into a walk with the Lord. His first experience of it was a sensual experienceâand Iâm saying that that is normal! His next experience was that it was no longer so much fun. And then he went back to his old ways. Now heâs saved from his old ways by prison, in a way . . . by fear. And now he lives his life ruled by fear, for fear heâll go back to prison. And I think he will notâat least as far as I can seeâever experience the freedom of the Spirit of God again. I canât see any way to release him from the fear that he experienced when he was in prison, because he has been burned, almost, by the spiritual life. Thatâs what I want to say a few words about.
We all start off with tremendous enthusiasm with our walk with the Lordâin our walk with the Lord. And without a doubt, we encounter very low spots. And, perhaps, all of us here are in a low spot of some sort. The things that made everything so attractive in the first placeâJesus saving the whole world, our prayer group, our community, becoming the community of the world (âpretty soon everybody will belong to the community!â)âand then realizing that, gee, itâs not happening like that. In fact, itâs not very much fun anymore! In fact, when I pray, I feel like Iâm doing my duty. That is to say, [Paul lowers his tone to a deep, dead-sounding voice:] âI feel like Iâm doing my duty.â Iâm no longer entering into some âholy communion with God,â where Iâm caught up in rapture, and I feel all these wonderful, tingly anointings on me. In fact, itâs beginning to resemble work! [A few laughs from the audience.]
Well, our Lord does want us to offer up our whole body to him, and all of these emotional things which weâre capable of. He wants to be able to be the one true God of all of those things in our lives. But he wonât settle for that only. In fact, after a while, he weans us of the experience of delight which we have in him, which is essentially in our senses.
It happens in a lot of different ways. One way it happens to us is that we become pretty conscious of the fact of how rotten we are. You know, actually, as we get a little closer to God, we feel a little farther away. And of course, thatâs really true!
As we become a little more conscious of ourselves and look at ourselves not as âlittle tin godsâ but as the human beings we really are, we begin to feel like we are very different from God. And in fact, when weâre honest with ourselves, we feel like there is no way weâre gonna be in the same room with God. Thereâs no way weâre gonna be in the same heaven with God. Thereâs no way weâre gonna please God. We feel, in fact, like all the weight of our sinfulness, and our indispositions, our inabilities to do the things that we hoped to doâthose things weigh down on us. And all of a sudden, we begin to feel really bad. Now, what happens there, is that as we draw close to God, we begin to feel really bad.
This is a different message, isnât it? But itâs true. Itâs psychologically accurate. Itâs exactly what happens to us as we draw close to God. And it is exactly the right disposition we should have in the face of the Lord. For indeed, we should fear the Lord. And thatâs the beginning of wisdom: to realize how different he is from us, how different we are from him.
So whatâre we gonna do when we get in this situation? It felt so good in the beginning. We made a lot of wonderful promises. We had a lot of expectations. It began to fade. We looked a little closer at God and realized that, in fact, not only was theâis the first flush gone off the bloomâthe first bloom off the flower, but, in fact, I mean, the flowerâs even kind of rotten, and moldy. And it really looks bad for us.
Now I think many of us may be in that situation. If weâre not in that situation right now, we might have been in that situation last week, or we might be in that situation tomorrow. And, basically, itâs about the right disposition! It is true that we are so different from God, even though he has saved us, heâs redeemed us, and heâs wiped us clean. Heâs arguing our case before the throne of the Fatherâthe very Son of God, standing there saying, âLook, Iâve got proof: see my hands, and my feet, and my side. I did it, Father! I paid the price. Theyâre free! Iâm arguing for âem, see?â The very Son of God, standing as an attorney, arguing our case, setting us free before the Father.
So we know that, by faith. But what we experience is the great gap between what we ought to be, and what we really are.
Some of us are in that situation where when we pray, what becomes really clear to us is what we are as opposed to what God is. And it becomes so unpleasant, we just simply stop praying. Going before the Lord is embarrassing. Going before the Lord becomes very painful. And so we are at that point [that] when we draw close to God, and he wants to bring us ever closer to him, we often go back to our old habits, go back to our old ways, and go âback to the streetsâ again, in a sense. And we do something to avoid the intimate glare of God looking at our nakedness.
But the Lord says that he wants us to give our whole heart, and our whole mind. Now at the point where we are no longer experiencing such delight in our emotional life, we need to turn to the Lord even more intensely with our minds. We need to die to our senses, and forget about the fact that we feel so bad about being so bad, and go to the Lord anyway, because he is our hope and our salvation. When we are with him, we need to open our minds to him, [so] that he can illuminate our minds and our hearts; that he can explain to us the things that weâre experiencing, the things that weâre feeling; that he can reveal to us his truth.
Now, to say the least, when Adam and Eve sinned, we all wound up having our minds pretty well scrambled. And we donât really understand things the way that God intends them to be. Now, itâs not that weâve lost all control; we can come to know the truth. That is to say, we can understand some things from God as he reveals them to us. We can know Jesus Christ. We can know the Ten Commandments. We can know the revelation of the Bible. There are all kinds of things that we can know.
What the Lord wants us to do when we are at that point where we have lost some of the enthusiasm for our life in Christâour sensual feeling and the warmth we once experiencedâperhaps like the passage that was read earlier, about the first love that we had having grown cold [perhaps Revelation 2:4?]âat that very point, we need to seek the Lord with all of our mind.
Now, what Iâve just tried to doâIâm a little bit o- âmaybe halfway through. Iâm about out of time, however. Iâll take a few more minutes . . . at your generosity [chuckles].
What Iâm trying to say to you is that the first experience that you haveâas it goes away, what you have to do is put your emotions on the cross with Christ. And basically, you have to die to yourself. Itâs no longer the case that youâre going to experience a lot of joy and delightâpalpable joyâwhen you go before the Lord. Now thatâs not to say youâll never experience that again, but the fact is that what you need to do is to say that that doesnât matter that much! My physical joy, my emotional well-being and sense of wholeness about all this, is not, in fact, what salvation consists of. You have to get beyond that and âpunch throughâ to the other side. You have to lay aside even the way you feel about things, in order to make progress with the Lord.
That is one of the first crosses, then, which Christians experience. Itâs not that you havenât had trouble a lot before you became a Christian; but after you become a Christian, one of your first crosses in Christ is this kind of alienation from our very own emotions themselves.
What Iâm saying to you is, be prepared therefore, as disciples of Jesus Christ, to feel bad rather than good. Be prepared to work hard . . . even when you donât feel good about it. That is a cross which the Lord will give you. And he will only give it to you if you have made some progress toward him.
At that point, you need to sharpen your minds a bit. And you need to seek the Scriptures very faithfully. And then you begin to put more and more of your will into it, believing what it is the Scripture says.
Now, something like this is going on: the emotions are hot, okay? And the will seems to be hot. But halfway between is the mind, which seems to be coolâifâdo you know that? And you move from the stage of being caught up in a lot of feelingsâfeeling very warm, feeling very coldâyou move, in the spiritual life, into an area of . . . kinda âcool.â You see, for example, things clearly, but they donât necessarily bring you delight. You understand something, but itâs sort ofâitâs like an icicle: itâs nice and clear and pointed, but cold. Itâs the âcold truth.â
And so we go in a natural progression from really hot to something like . . . cool. Itâs not a lot of fun, but itâs very illuminating.
And from there, we go into another stage, which is our will and our strength. And at this point, using all of the things that the Lord teaches usâbecause of our study of Scripture; and because of our dedication to him; and because of the grace he gives us; and because we have been constant in prayer; and weâve been willing to sacrifice our emotions to the Lord; and weâve been willing to change our minds: weâve been willing to pick up the cross of changing our point of view, of simply saying, âI was wrong. I accept the truth now, and I will act differentlyââwe go through those two phases into a phase where we want, in fact, to commit ourselves to Christ.
We say not only, â[inaudible] . . . to happen to me. I want to be united to Jesus Christ, with all my heart and mind and soul and strength. I want to become transformed, âmapped overâ into him. I want to go from glory to glory with him. I want to be like Jesus Christ in every way.â
Well, of course, one of the last real clear images we had of Jesus on earth was the cross. And so again, we encounter that saving action of God in the world, which is the passion, death, and resurrection of Jesus. Only this time, weâre in the middle of it. And we experience ourselves being slain.
If we are really good, and we take our role and our part in the body of Christ, the role that we play will be part of Christ, enduring hostilities and persecution. It will not be a lot of fun, but it will be uniting us perfectly with Jesus Christ. So we go from emotions and the way we feel, through some kind of illumination of our minds, to a unity with Jesus himself, identifying with him in all regards.
Now, Iâd like to talk a lot longer about all these things, but this I just want to say to you, and then weâll quit: Iâd like you to think tonight, andâas weâre quiet and leave here and have time to pray tonight, ofâ What are those things that have emerged as gods in your life?
Have you in fact stopped moving to the Lord because itâs no longer fun?
Have you stopped studying the word of God because itâs difficult?
Have you left the side of the Lord in prayer because youâve been fighting your wife too much? or because your boss doesnât agree with you all the time? or because your investments are not going up as fast as the stock market?
What are those gods that we put before the Lord, who is a jealous God who will not permit any other gods before him?
You know, all love consists of an exchange of goods between the two people who love each other. You know, thereâs childish love, really immature infatuation, which looks like this: âShe loves me and she gives me all these presents. Iâm wonderful. I feel so good.â Of course, that kind of love doesnât last very long. Even sheâs beginning to feel bad about it! She knows she loves you because she gave you so much, in fact, often sheâll remind you of that, perhaps. [Audience laughs.] But real love consists of an exchange of goods.
So, I ask you: if you were to think of your little gods standing between you and our Lord as made of gold, like idols of oldâI ask you to give some of those to him, that he may change them, melt them down in the furnace of his love. That he may take some of the things which you have.
So my second question for you tonight is: What will you give God? Now you have money; why donât you give him some money? You have some energy; give him some energy. You know he lives and dwells among his people; why donât you do something kind for somebody? I mean, for Godâs sake. Can you do something for God?! And what will it be? Decide it tonight.
The Lord says:
This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. (This is what God has given us:) Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends, if you do what I command you. No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing. But I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you. You did not choose me, but I chose you, and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should abide, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you. This I command you, to love one another. [John 15:12â17, RSV]
The Lord has laid down his life for us. He has given us salvation, and it has cost him dearly. He did it to make us his friends. He has chosen us. And he asks us, simply, âWhat are you going to do for me?â Unless we do something for God, we will not, in fact, enjoy the love which God offers us. For all love consists of the exchange of mutual gifts.
The Lord has told us the truth. He says, âNo longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing. But I have called you my friends because I have told you everything that the Father has told me. I have illuminated your mind. I have given you my word, and Iâve shown you my example, and Iâve given my very life for you. What will you do . . . for me? If you love one another, you love me.â
[Recording ends here.]
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