Audio Transcript

Welcome back to a new week on this Monday. How do we overcome a lack of affection — a lack of expressed affection for God and expressed affection for others? It’s a great question, a humble question, from a young man who wrote in anonymously. “Dear Pastor John, let me jump straight to it. How would you counsel and encourage a brother in Christ who finds it difficult to express or discuss ‘deeper’ emotions like joy, despair, wonder, and fear? That’s me. I want deeper relationships with Christian brothers. But I also shy away when opportunity arises and deeper conversations make themselves present because I don’t know how to talk about those higher and deeper feelings. I just freeze. Or I’m tempted to make a joke.

“I know something is wrong inside of me. I read Augustine’s Confessions and stand in awe of his affection as he speaks so fluently to God in language like this: ‘My God, my life, my holy sweetness,’ or ‘What can anyone say when he speaks of Thee? Yet woe to those who do not speak of Thee; for, though they talk much, they say nothing.’ I’m a man who talks much about nothing. I want to grow here.”

I really have a special interest in this question, and I want to try to answer it because I think there are millions of people (it’s not rare) who share this blockage that prevents natural, genuine verbal expressions of heartfelt affections, not only for God and his glorious salvation, but for children — their own children — or spouses, or ordinary blessings of life. The whole realm of the emotional life and of spiritual affections is choked off for some reason.

Affections Unspoken

There are millions of people who never say anything like, “What a beautiful day. The sun is shining; the breeze is cool. I love days like this!” They never talk like that, ever. They never say anything like, “I love being married to you. Just sitting with you makes me happy. I’m so glad God brought us together.” They never say that to each other, ever. They never say anything like, “God is so great. He has been so good to me. I don’t deserve any of this. Lord, you are amazing. Thank you, Lord. I love you.” They don’t ever talk like that. These kinds of expressed affections for days, people, God, are just blocked. They never come out in words, and it’s a great sadness for them and for the people around them.

I don’t think there is any formula to fix this. The causes are sometimes very deep. God himself, by the Holy Spirit, is the only hope, because he is the decisive cause of all authentic expressions of true spiritual affections. A deep work of God is needed. For example, I had a deep and sinful aversion to lifting my hands in worship until I was 35 years old. Never once did I lift my hands in worship, or even come close, like turning them palm-up in my lap. I would see people do it, and I would actually feel disgust. And then one night, at about 3:00 in the morning, during an all-night prayer meeting, God lifted my hands in a moment of worship. It was, as I recall, mostly involuntary, and received no resistance. He broke my pride that night. And in a sense, my hands haven’t gone down since.

Step Toward Expression

I think there’s an analogy between that experience and the barriers that people can feel to verbal expressions of affections for God. So, even though there’s no formula, there are steps that you might be able to take, which — if you really want it, if you want this liberation — would become means by which God would set you free.

1. Recognize the problem.

First (and this young man who’s asking the question has already arrived at this point), you recognize that it really is a problem to be overcome, not just a neutral personality trait. Thousands of people excuse it as just a quirk of personality and think it has no spiritual dimensions about it. I don’t think that’s ever sufficient. It’s got truth in it, but it’s not sufficient. Jesus said, “Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks” (Matthew 12:34). Now, the least that means is that God designed words to be a means of heart expression. A disconnect between the two, heart and mouth, is not the way God designed it to be, and not the way it’s going to be in heaven.

2. Examine yourself.

We should do a serious self-examination as to whether our hearts really do love Christ (Matthew 10:37), really do delight in God (Psalm 37:4), really do rejoice in him (Philippians 3:1), really do fear him (Proverbs 28:14), really do treasure him (Matthew 13:44). These are all biblical commands that our hearts must experience before our mouths can express them. So, examine your heart. Are they there?

3. Discern sin’s hindrances.

We should also do a serious self-examination as to whether there’s sin blocking the genuineness of our expression of affection. There certainly was in me, oh my. I look back on attitudes that I had for 35 years that God, mercifully, was patient with, and I am ashamed. I’m ashamed. I can remember sitting in chapel at Bethel when I was a teacher there, and a woman or a man (I can’t remember which) next to me just rolled their hands over, palms up in their lap, and inside of me was disgust. Looking back on it, that’s just evil. That’s just plain evil. My resistance had so much pride in it.

“God is the decisive cause of all authentic expressions of true spiritual affections.”

And I’m aware it can work the other way around. I’m not naive that people who are lifting their hands might be totally arrogant people. I get it. They can be looking with scorn on the non-hand lifters, with pride. Of course that’s true. Pride is subtle — everywhere. But if we can see the sin that binds us, wherever it is, and name it and repent, we might be set free.

4. Memorize affection-laden passages.

Memorize parts of Scripture that give you the very words you need to express affections for God.

Psalm 18:1: “I love you, O Lord, my strength.”
Psalm 42:1–2: “As a deer pants for flowing streams, so pants my soul for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.”
Psalm 63:1: “O God, you are my God; earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you; my flesh faints for you, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water.”
Psalm 73:25: “Whom have I in heaven but you? And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you.”

Oh my goodness, these texts have served me so well, to loose my tongue. Memorize these, and others like them, and then say them out loud to God in private prayer, day after day — nobody listening but God. And surprisingly, you may find yourself saying them out loud in a prayer meeting, and it may be wonderfully involuntary, the way it was for me.

5. Spend time with expressive saints.

If possible, spend time with people who speak of their affections more naturally than you do. Emotional verbal freedom is contagious. I have tasted this in my life, in myself. I could name people whose freedom in mature expression of spiritual affections has been very powerful in my life.

6. Set your heart on heaven.

Realize that heaven is going to be like this: utterly free, unselfconscious overflowings of our heart’s affections. You can see this in the songs in the book of Revelation. And 1 John 3:3 says, “Everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure.” In other words, the principle is this: if we really hope to be this way in heaven someday, then let’s get a head start. Let’s get a head start now. Why would you put it off?

7. Raise your expectations.

Realize that your sincere expressions of love to Christ and joy in Christ may be the means by which someone else is saved. That’s the point of Psalm 40:2–3:

He drew me up from the pit of destruction,     out of the miry bog,and set my feet upon a rock,     making my steps secure.He put a new song in my mouth,     a song of praise to our God.Many will see and fear,     and put their trust in the Lord.

“God designed words to be a means of heart expression.”

I love that. That’s why we’re in the pit sometimes — so that he can bring us up, put us on a rock, put a song in our mouth. People see, and they get saved. I think that was true for my salvation. I think, under God, I owe my faith in Christ to the free expressions of love and joy in my mother and my father while I was growing up.

8. Pray for open lips.

Finally, pray. Pray like this: “O Lord, open my lips, and my mouth will declare your praise” (Psalm 51:15). Isn’t that an amazing request? “My lips are shut; I can’t open them. Something’s wrong with my lips, Lord.” Yes, there is, in all of us. “Lord, open my lips.” Only God can make it real, so ask him, and keep on asking until he does it.

Audio Transcript

Welcome back to the podcast on this Monday. We’re going to start the week with a doozy of a question: Do we love God only by obeying him, or do we also love him verbally by using affectional language about him and to him? A hugely important question today that gets at the very heart of what we call Christian Hedonism.

The question is from an anonymous listener. “Pastor John, hello to you! My pastor recently admitted that he does not love God, or Christ, emotionally. He said he loves God, or loves Christ, by keeping his commandments. Obedience is love, he claims, returning often to 2 John 6 — ‘This is love, that we walk according to his commandments.’ And to 1 John 5:3 — ‘For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments.’ I’ve known many other Christians in my life who seem to have no place for emotional or affectional language for God. They like to relate to him merely in similar categories of obedience. Is this healthy? How important is it to cultivate affectional language for God as God? And what would you say to those who are uneasy with such language for their relationship with God and only ever use this obedience language?”

Okay, I hear three questions.

1. Is it healthy to relate to God only in categories of obedience but not affections? Answer: no, it’s not healthy. It’s confusing at best, deadly at worst. I’ll come back to that.

2. How important is it to cultivate affectional language for God? Answer: it’s very important. However, language is not the ultimate issue. The reality of our hearts’ affections for God is the ultimate issue. The language of affections is important only because the heart reality is important.

3. What would you say to those who are uneasy with affectional language for their relationship with God and only use this obedience language? I would say, “Get over your uneasiness with affectional language, because the Bible is full of it — full of it — toward man and God.” You’re uneasy with the Bible. That’s your problem. And I would say if your heart is really emotionally dead toward God, repent and cry out for life.

Confused or Dead?

Now, we need to be careful here with our words, because it may be that this pastor is not denying that he has real and strong affections for God; he’s just denying that he should call them love, maybe. Love for God, he’s saying, is something else — namely, love is obedience. Now, if that’s what he’s saying, then he may be a good Christian and just biblically confused. In other words, his heart may be right, but he’s naming things in unbiblical ways, and probably he’s confusing his people in the process. It sounds like it from this question.

“God commands that we feel affections for God.”

On the other hand — this is more scary — it may be that he really doesn’t have any affections for God, and in that case he needs to be born again. If there is not even a mustard seed of delight in God, thankfulness to God, hope in God, satisfaction in God, desire for God — if none of those emotions is in his heart for God and Christ, he’s not a Christian. So, let me try to address both of those kinds of people at the same time.

The first kind is the Christian who is confused about the affections that he genuinely has for God and simply doesn’t know whether to call them love or not. And second is the person who thinks he’s a Christian when he has no emotions in his heart for God and Christ at all; he’s just dead emotionally toward God.

Affections in the Christian Life

Now, here’s the main thing to say about the confusion of claiming to love God with obedience but not with heart affections: that’s like affirming fruit but denying apples. I’ve said this so many times. Affirming obedience and denying affections is like affirming fruit and denying apples, because obedience means doing what God commands, and God commands affections. It’s confusing, it’s contradictory, to say, “I obey God, but I don’t have any of the affections that God commands me to have.” That’s just really confusing and contradictory.

1. God commands affections.

For example, Psalm 37:4 says, “Delight yourself in the Lord.” Now, that’s a command. So, a pastor who says he’s obedient to God’s commands would be obedient to the command to delight himself in the Lord. Now, he might not call it love — though I think he should, but he might not. (And I’ll show in a minute why I think he should.) That’s not a deadly problem. To get your language confused is not a deadly problem. Not to have any delight in the Lord is a deadly problem.

But for now, whether he calls delight in the Lord love or not, he is commanded to have delight. And it is simply confusing and contradictory to say he obeys God but does not relate to God with his emotions, because those emotions are commanded. And if he doesn’t have them, he’s disobedient to the command. We can add to Psalm 37:4 the command in Psalm 32:11: “Be glad in the Lord.” And Philippians 3:1: “Rejoice in the Lord.” And many others.

2. The godly model affections.

Not only are affections for God commanded, but that way of feeling in the heart is held out to us as an example — not just a command, but an example — of how godly people relate to God. For example, in Psalm 43:4: “I will go to the altar of God, to God my exceeding joy.” Or Psalm 84:2: “My soul longs, yes, faints for the courts of the Lord; my heart and flesh sing for joy to the living God.” Or Psalm 63: “O God, you are my God; earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you. . . . Your steadfast love is better than life. . . . My soul will be satisfied as with fat and rich food . . . when I remember you upon my bed” (Psalm 63:1, 3, 5–6).

3. We are to pray for affections.

And not only are affections for God commanded and given as examples of how godly people relate to God, but we are taught to pray for those affections. This is what we ought to do if we don’t have them. Psalm 90:14: “Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love.” This is a cry to God to give us the affections for him that we ought to have and may not at the moment have.

And on top of all that, Jesus warns against outward obedience where the heart feels nothing. Matthew 15:8–9: “This people honors me with their lips,” — so, lips are moving; that’s outward obedience — “but their heart,” he says, “is far from me; in vain do they worship me.” “In vain”: that’s a big, terrible, horrible statement. Without heart, our outward obedience is nothing.

So, I conclude that it is confusing and contradictory to say that you obey God’s commands, but that you don’t pursue the very affections for God that he has commanded.

Love Worthy of Christ

Now, one last thing. Why should we use the word love for these affections for God? Now, I’m not saying that love for God is only affections. The Bible talks about love in a very broad way. But I am saying that love for God is not less than affections for God. Now, why would I say that? And I’ll give just one reason: because of Matthew 10:37. Jesus said this: “Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.”

Now, in that sentence, love for Jesus cannot mean obedience to Jesus’s commands, because he’s comparing love for Jesus with love for our children. “Whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.” Love for our children does not mean obedience to our children. So, the point is, we must love Jesus with the kind of love we have for our most precious family members — only more so — and that is an affectional love.

So, I hope the pastor who said, “I love God by keeping his commandments, not with my affections,” will realize that God commands that we feel affections for God. And I hope that this is just a confusion of language and not a case of real deadness of heart.

Audio Transcript

We’re in our tenth year on the podcast, coming up on 1,800 episodes in the archive. And over the course of that decade, we’ve covered a lot of different topics. And that includes the topic of birth control, or, better, conception control. It’s arisen three times on the podcast, in three episodes 230, 552, and 1347. The most recent being three years ago. But today we have a follow-up question, built off something you said on the podcast seven years ago, Pastor John. Here it is, from an anonymous wife and mother.

“Hello Pastor John, and thank you for taking my question. Here’s the context. My husband and I have two wonderful boys. I believe our family is complete. He does, too. We have each independently decided that two children is enough. I’ve asked my husband to consider a vasectomy. He’s interested, and feels that he is done having children himself, so the potential for children in a re-marriage, if death were to end our present marriage, seems to not necessarily factor in here, a very important argument you made in a previous episode. But ultimately my husband is undecided because he’s not sure if God permits such an action. In your view of the Bible, is it okay for a monogamous husband and father of two, who is done having children with me, or any future wife, to get a vasectomy?”

The older I get, the more skeptical I become of the freedom I think I have from being formed by my own culture. Let me put it in another way. The older I get, the more suspicious I become that I am more a child of my historical and cultural circumstances than I once thought I was.

Now, one of the reasons I say this is to help people like this couple not take offense when I wave a yellow flag (not a red flag, but a yellow flag, a big yellow flag) warning us all that when it comes to children and sex and family and personal freedom and comforts, we are almost certainly deeply infected by a contemporary culture that for decades, through television, movies, videos, advertising, books, articles, and podcasts, has shaped our mindset about marriage and children and sex and freedom of the unencumbered self.

None of us comes to the Bible with a blank slate in these matters. We are profoundly shaped by the cultural air we breathe. And that culture (and it’s been this way for a long time) does not rejoice at the blessing of children. It does not gladly embrace the enormous cost and effort of raising children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. It does not see marriage as forming a beautiful, meaningful, lifelong, faith-building, character-forming matrix for growing the next generation.

“Our culture has virtually stripped the pleasures of sex from the place God appointed for them.”

It doesn’t put any value on the pain that inevitably comes with deep covenant commitments to spouses and children, but instead justifies every possible means of minimizing our own personal frustration and pleasure and maximizing personal freedom, whether through postponing marriage, or not having children, or avoiding any kind of commitment, or divorcing in order to get out of an uncomfortable marriage, or neglect of children, sticking them in some kind of institution while we go about our careers.

Our culture has virtually stripped the pleasures of sex from the place God appointed for them, namely woven into the covenant commitments of lifelong marriage. These and dozens of other ways, we are all infected by the spirit of our times. All of that to say, I speak with the kind of trembling that I may be more a child of my times than I wish. I try to be under the Scriptures. I want to be shaped by the Scripture. I want to be counter-cultural in a biblical way. I want to be radical for Jesus, but I know how inevitable it is that I speak from a particular cultural time, place, not to mention my own sinfulness and intellectual limits.

Are Marriage and Children Normative?

So, with that confession, let me just rehearse briefly what I have said more extensively elsewhere. I believe marriage is normative for Christians, normative. It’s normative to be married because Genesis 2:18 says it’s not good for man to be alone.

And because we are so wonderfully designed, I think physically and psychologically, by God to form covenant commitments, consummated in sexual union with the glorious wonder of making and raising babies. Nevertheless, though I believe that’s normative, I can see in the life of Jesus and in the life of the apostle Paul and their teachings, that marriage is not an absolute requirement of Christians, but that for kingdom purposes, for God-centered, Christ-exalting, mission-advancing, church-building, soul-saving, sanctifying purposes, one might choose a life of singleness.

“Children are a great blessing. They are one of the purposes and miracles of sexual union.”

By analogy, I believe having children in marriage is normative. Children are a great blessing. They are one of the purposes and miracles of sexual union. To turn away from procreation in marriage for the sake of some worldly gain rather than being motivated by God-centered, Christ-exalting, kingdom advancement is a sin.

Nevertheless, on the analogy of marriage, just as for kingdom reasons singleness may be chosen, it is possible for Christ’s sake and for holy purposes that limiting the number of children would be chosen also. The principle in both cases, getting married and having children is one of self-denying, Christ-exalting, mission-advancing motivation — what’s your motivation? — rather than simply following the course of the age in order to maximize worldly freedoms and worldly comforts.

Now that puts a huge burden on all of us to honestly know our own hearts, doesn’t it? Search me oh God and know my thoughts and see if there be any wicked way in me governing these choices. This must be our cry because we are also prone to come up with a theology and an ethics that justify our desires. So, I think you can see in these observations that I don’t regard all birth control, or better conception control, as sinful.

Using abortifacients that kill a conceived child would be sin. But choosing not to conceive may not be a sin, which means that the methods and the timing of such choices will become a matter of biblically and medically-informed wisdom.

Three Questions About the Question

So what would my advice be that might contribute to the wisdom of this couple besides what I’ve tried to say?

Let me pick one sentence from what she wrote. She says, “I’ve asked my husband to consider a vasectomy. He’s interested and feels that he is done having children. So the potential for children in a remarriage, if death were to end our present marriage seems not necessarily to factor in here.” Three questions about that sentence. First, the word feels, he feels that he is done having children.

Feelings are notoriously temporary. And even if she had said, “He thinks that he is done,” I would say the same thing. We just don’t know in such circumstances what may happen in our lives that would make an irreversible sterilization tragic.

Second question. The word “seems.” She says the potential for children in a remarriage if death were to end our present marriage “seems not to necessarily factor in here.” Seems is a pretty weak word. Death is a real possibility in a marriage, and in that case, remarriage would be both likely and I think good. How does he know what his heart would say in that new marriage? How does he know? “It seems that it may not be a factor.” Well, that’s pretty flimsy.

Third, nothing is said about the wife in that possible new marriage. Seems like he would be only taking into account his own preferences about whether he would want children in that new marriage. What about hers? And be careful about assuming that you’re too old to become a parent. Noel and I adopted when I was 50. What if a 50-year-old man marries a 35-year-old single woman who has always dreamed of giving birth to her own child?

Plead with God for Guidance

So my fallible contribution to your effort to act biblically — and I admire you for it — and to act wisely is to simply say one, search your hearts so that your decision to have no more children is a Christ-honoring decision, a mission-advancing decision.

Second, be very slow to implement that decision with a kind of sterilization that would cut off godly future possibilities which you cannot presently see.

And maybe just one other word of counsel. Sit down together and open your Bible and read the first 12 verses of Psalm 25. I say that because I don’t know any other passage of Scripture that is better for putting into word words our cry for guidance and wisdom from God.