a new affectional nature

August 30, 2011

Two, we are not only given a new intellectual nature, we are also given a new affectional nature. We get new tastes instead of old tastes, new loves instead of old loves. Instead of loving any longer the things that displease God, we now love the things that please God. The things we once hated we now love, and the things we once loved we now hate. How clearly that was illustrated in my own experience. As I look back upon my life before I was born again, I can hardly believe what I know to be true about my own affections and about my likes and my dislikes, before I was born again.

In those days I hated the Bible. I read it every day, but to me it was about the most stupid book I could read. I would rather have read last year's almanac any day than to read the Bible. But when I was born again my heart was filled with love for the Bible, and today I would read the Bible than any other book or all books put together. I so love it that sometimes I think I will not read any other book but the Bible. In those former days before I was born again, I loved the card table, the theater, the dance, the horse race, the champagne supper; and I hated the prayer meeting and the Sunday services. Today I hate the dance and the card table and the theater and the horserace, and I love the gathering together of God's people and the services of God's house on the Lord's day. It is just as Paul puts it in 2 Corinthians 5:17, "If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new." (The Holy Spirit - Who He Is and What He Does, RA Torrey)

I do believe that the things we loved before we were born again can in no way be the same or stay when we are born again. How could our desires/likes/affections been pleasing to God when our desires/likes/affections were very much based in self satisfaction, self enjoyment, and self interest before being born again? Before we were born again, our god was ourselves. After we are born again, GOD is our God. There is no way we'd not have an entire transformation and change in the things we love to do.

I saw this in myself as well. But a mere 5 years ago, the Bible was just another book to me. Yeah, I read it daily (occasionally), but it wasn't something I'd jump to do. Today, I can honestly say I absolutely love reading the Bible. I can spend hours just reading it throughout the day, awed at the wisdom of God, and enraptured by the love, grace, and mercy that pours forth from those pages. The idea of reading the Bible excites me. In the past, I liked movies, Chinese dramas, popular songs, and hanging out with friends. I use to pride myself on knowing a lot of Chinese entertainment news, who was who, and what were they doing. I use to pride myself on how many popular songs I knew and how many songs I had in my iTunes. I use to value friends so much I'd compete with myself to see how many people I can be chatting at once to make myself feel popular, how long my chat list was, or how many people I could meet up with to show myself I had a lot of friends. But today, I can honestly say, those really don't matter to me. Besides the necessary occasional dinners/lunches/etc. to maintain friendships, most hang outs to me seem quite superfluous and unnecessary. Many people may find that mean, harsh, or just plain anti-social. But it's honestly not that I've just become a hermit or I don't like people anymore, but that I honestly believe I've found and tasted something much better and much more appealing. I'd so much rather sit at home and read my Bible, listen to a sermon, read a book, or pray than go hang out. I'd so much rather go to a good Bible study, church worship, and a spirit filled prayer meeting than the movie theater. And this is but the beginning of my transformation! I am just beginning to be enraptured and totally captivated by my God - this is just the tip of the iceberg.

I challenge us all who proclaim to be Christians to seriously ask ourselves if the things we find great excitement in or enjoy are the same as any other nonchristian. If the excitement we feel at a certain movie, or activity, or book is even comparable to the excitement we should be feeling at dwelling (physically dwelling) in the presence of so great a God and so loving a Savior. I challenge us to take this verse by Paul seriously:

More than that, I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish so that I may gain Christ, (Phil 3:8)

Do we count all things rubbish? All unnecessary and at-the-end-of-the-day-meaningless hangouts with friends, all movies, all games, all our huge amounts of time spent on the internet doing, frankly, nothing as loss? As rubbish? Or, to be even more literal in translation of the original text, dung? Because if we did, why do we hang around and cling to dung so much? And if we didn't, why do we not in the face of the greatest value and meaning our lives will ever take on - knowing the almighty God personally?