Does our love of God grow? Is it an either / or proposition as in we either love God or we don’t? Or are there predictable stages through which our love of God grows. I read an interesting summary this morning of Bernard of Clairvaux’s “four degrees of love.”[i] Bernard discusses how our love of God begins to take root and then deepens.
The First Degree of Love: Love of Self for Self’s Sake
All love comes from God, but human love is first focused on love of self. The desire to love one’s self is within all human beings. Initially every act is motivated by the benefit it brings to one’s self.
The Second Degree of Love: Love of God for Self’s Sake
At some point we suffer calamity or trouble of some sort. When we turn to God He helps us through these times. We find there is benefit in loving God because of what he is able to do for us and through us. Even though this is love of God, it is love for the sake of one’s self.
The Third Degree of Love: Love of God for God’s Sake
As we continue to go to God for the help he can be to us, his grace begins to soften our hearts. We come to love God for who he is. We are drawn “to the pure love of God more than our needs compel us to love him.” This only happens if we continually go to God with our needs and in prayer.
It is at this point that it becomes easier to fulfill God’s second greatest commandment, the love of others. Those that truly love God love what God loves. Knowing we are loved by God enables us to love others. It is this same knowledge that helps us fulfill all of God’s commands for we now understand them to truly be instructions issued out of his love for us.
The Fourth Degree of Love: Love of Self for God’s Sake
Such experiences are rare and momentary. If I understand Bernard’s correctly, these are those moments when we are so caught up in the bliss and wonder of being with God, we find the requirements of our mortal existence to be an intrusion. It is painful to return to our earthly requirements and responsibilities. It may not be possible to perfectly attain this level of love in this life, but when it does happen, “We are, for those moments, one mind and one spirit with God.” While the summary I read does not say it plainly, to return to our mortal state is to love ourselves as God created us for God’s sake.
How Does This Help Us?
I think being aware of these four degrees of love helps us evaluate where we are at any given moment in our love relationship with God. However, I think the best help it gives us as parents, small group leaders, pastors, and mentors is to understand that there is a developmental process that takes place in people as they become mature Christ followers. Knowing the degrees helps us understand ourselves and those we are mentoring in faith and life. The understanding will help us know how to coach ourselves and others.
[i] Foster, Richard, and James Smith. Devotional Classics. HarperOne, 1993. Print.
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