THE WILL TO LOVE - Vital Christianity

92The Bible states, “As He (Jesus) approached Jerusalem and saw the city, He wept overit” (Lk 19:41). As the following verses show, Jesus wept because of the suffering that His peoplewould have to go through because of their rebellious, hard hearts. Matthew tells us, “When Jesuslanded and saw a large crowd, He had compassion on them and healed their sick” (Mt 14:14).Jesus’ knowledge of the suffering of the people stirred His tender heart to compassion which inturn moved Him to heal them. It is truth (fact) that moves Jesus to moral action.A. W. Tozer gives us insight into the breakdown of the sequence of truth-feeling–action.He writes:“Because of sin the simple sequence of truth-feeling-action may break down in anyof its three parts. The mind which is created to receive truth is often turned over tofalsehood, and the feelings thus aroused may incite the will to evil action. Thecontemplation of any wrong or forbidden thing cannot but inflame the feelings ofsympathy with evil.A regrettable example of this was David’s long gaze at the beautiful Bathshebain the act of bathing. The king was moved by what he saw and acted accordingly,and the bitter and tragic consequences dogged him to the end of his days. He saw,felt, he acted, precisely as his Lord did centuries later when He healed the sick.The difference in the moral quality of the acts of the two men resulted from thedifference in their feelings, and these were the result of the objects that arousedthe feelings. David saw a beautiful woman; Christ saw a suffering multitude. Onegaze led to sin, the other to an act of mercy; but both followed the simple law oftheir inner structure.Another breakdown in the truth-feeling-fact sequence comes when the heart forselfish reasons deliberately hardens itself against the Word of God. This is the stateof all who love darkness rather than light and for that reason either withdraw fromthe light altogether or when exposed to it stubbornly refuse to obey it. The covetousman looks on human need and sternly refuses to be moved by it. To yield to theimpulse of generosity naturally aroused by the sight of poverty would require himto give up some of his cherished hoard, and this he will not do. So the fountain ofgenerosity is frozen at its source . . .But to be sure that human feelings can never be completely stifled. If they areforbidden their normal course, like a river they will cut another channel throughthe life and flow out to curse and ruin and destroy.The Christian who gazes too long on the carnal pleasures of this world cannotescape a certain feeling of sympathy with them, and that feeling will inevitablylead to behavior that is worldly. And to expose our hearts to truth and consistentlyrefuse or neglect to obey the impulses it arouses is to stymie the motions of lifewithin us and, if persisted in, to grieve the Holy spirit into silence.” 3