Thomas Chalmers: New affection and better hope

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Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, love for the Father is not in them. 1 John 2:15

“The love of God and the love of the world, are two affections, not merely in a state of rivalship, but in a state of enmity – and that so irreconcilable, that they cannot dwell together in the same bosom. We have already affirmed how impossible it were for the heart, by any innate elasticity of its own, to cast the world away from it; and thus reduce itself to a wilderness.

The heart is not so constituted; and the only way to dispossess it of an old affection, is by the expulsive power of a new one. Nothing can exceed the magnitude of the required change in a man’s character – when bidden as he is in the New Testament, to love not the world; no, nor any of the things that are in the world for this so comprehends all that is dear to him in existence, as to be equivalent to a command of self-annihilation.

But the same revelation which dictates so mighty an obedience, places within our reach as mighty an instrument of obedience. It brings for admittance to the very door of our heart, an affection which once seated upon its throne, will either subordinate every previous inmate, or bid it away. Beside the world, it places before the eye of the mind Him who made the world and with this peculiarity, which is all its own – that in the Gospel do we so behold God, as that we may love God.

It is there, and there only, where God stands revealed as an object of confidence to sinners and where our desire after Him is not chilled into apathy, by that barrier of human guilt which intercepts every approach that is not made to Him through the appointed Mediator. It is the bringing in of this better hope, whereby we draw nigh unto God – and to live without hope, is to live without God; and if the heart be without God, then world will then have all the ascendancy. It is God apprehended by the believer as God in Christ, who alone can dispost it from this ascendancy.”

Thomas Chalmers (1780-1847), Scottish minister, economist, and theologian in The Expulsive Power of a New Affection. This a great treatise worth reading.

Only when love for the world is rightly displaced by love for God in Christ in our hearts do we have a new affection and a better hope that surpasses all other affections and hopes.

What does this have to do with generosity?

If we love the world, or anything in the world, we are giving our affection and setting our hope in the wrong place. We can’t be generous because we are torn within. We think we need that which Christ calls us to let go of so we ignore Him and hold on to money and things thinking we know better!

We know this because we lived this way for years.

We have learned that Jesus is not trying to rob us, but rather trying to help us. He’s the new affection and better hope that frees us to enjoy life and things without being enslaved by them, and because we have everything we need in Him, we can enjoy and share all things freely.