Sterling Terrell

smart ideas from books (mostly)

Our Mercenary Heart

Our Mercenary Heart

I have been pondering this bit about the “mercenary heart” all afternoon.

The crux of it being that love itself is a uniquely self-less action.

I do not believe this is the same as “instincts,” which are natural.

Love is natural too.

But love is also profoundly human, and therefore theological.

A love enjoying their lover is no bribe, is it?

We are afraid that Heaven is a bribe, and that if we make it our goal we shall no longer be disinterested. It is not so. Heaven offers nothing that a mercenary soul can desire. It is safe to tell the pure in heart that they shall see God, for only the pure in heart want to. There are rewards that do not sully motives. A man’s love for a woman is not mercenary because he wants to marry her, nor his love for poetry mercenary because he wants to read it, nor his love of exercise less disinterested because he wants to run and leap and walk. Love, by definition, seeks to enjoy its object.

-C.S. Lewis, The Problem Of Pain (Amazon)

Ravi Zacharias

Ravi Zacharias

Ravi Zacharias passed away this morning.

He was one of my favorite writers and thinkers (just search the archives here).

His daughter, Sarah Davis, shared this post on the RZIM website this morning.

The post included a poem by Richard Baxter (1615-1691).

I thought it was fitting to repost it here.

Lord, It Belongs Not to My Care

Lord, it belongs not to my care
Whether I die or live;
To love and serve Thee is my share,
And this Thy grace must give.
If life be long, I will be glad,
That I may long obey;
If short, yet why should I be sad
To welcome endless day?

Christ leads me through no darker rooms
Than He went through before;
He that unto God’s kingdom comes
Must enter by this door.
Come Lord, when grace hath made me meet
Thy blessed face to see;
For if Thy work on earth be sweet
What will thy glory be!

Then I shall end my sad complaints
And weary sinful days,
And join with the triumphant saints
That sing my Savior’s praise.
My knowledge of that life is small,
The eye of faith is dim;
But ‘tis enough that Christ knows all,
And I shall be with Him.

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