“I love you!” he said.

“And I love you . . . my heart aches to be with you. Let’s find a way to be together!”

Question: was this brief exchange—let’s say it’s from a movie—something good or bad?

One reader might respond, “It depends on the context: who were the speakers and what was their status?”

Another might say, “Yes, as long as it’s true love, let’s celebrate it!”

Yet another might respond, “Sounds like a chick-flick! I prefer something more cerebral myself—or even a good adventure—not another syrupy love story!”

Let me offer some reflections on all three responses, starting with the last. I’ll label him—it’s typically a guy’s comment—a Stoic: someone who prefers the place of the mind and will over the emotions.

Who are the Stoics? The watchdogs of adult society. They promote the great disciplines of life: the stuff that only the iron-willed can achieve. Triathletes, marathoners, skinny dieters, sleep deprivation specialists, massive memorizers—whatever!—are feted as supremely human because of their iron willpower. In fact any discipline seems to be fine, as long as it’s a real hair-on-your-chest challenge! The point seems to be, “Look, I can control the sort of appetites and emotions that rule your life, so I’m one up on you!”

Yet I’m convinced that even our Stoic friends are driven by their emotions. We all are! If, for instance, some iron-willed friends come and report on their latest remarkable feat, I know it’s my cue to offer praise, “Wonderful! You’re the greatest!” Is it because I know they love my cheering? I think it is, and that it unveils their deepest motive: the love of praise.

So here’s the point: emotions have taken a bad rap. But, before defending them, let me say that “I get it” when discipline-devotees tell stories about the evils of emotional living. Why? Because we have all seen how a level-headed person can go crazy, making terrible choices, because of some off-the-wall emotion. And I agree: it is their emotions that made them go stupid.

Let’s go back to the second commenter’s point, above, who celebrates love as an end in itself. Our critique of emotions is proper if our movie lines represented an adulterous tryst with another person’s spouse. Yet the question of right and wrong has everything to do with the object of love, not the nature of love itself. And once the affair collapses the love-fool often becomes his or her own best critic: “What was I thinking?! I was taken in by my emotions . . . I should have known better!” Yes, but by what measure? Ultimately, the measure will be who we love above all other loves—and if God is that loved one, the gift of loving others flows out of his love as a basis for proper affections and true emotions.

Even in talking about sin and salvation as offered in the broad setting of salvation history, a proper love for God was replaced in Eden by self-love. Adam embraced the serpent’s invitation to be like God—a call to a new love. Jesus, in John 3:19, captured that as the overall problem of human sin. He came to offer life and light, yet the “people loved the darkness rather than the light because their deeds were evil.” The salvation promise of God in Christ was offered as an antidote in John 3:16—“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son . . .”

So God’s restoration is a symmetrical calling, to “love God” with all our being. We are made to be lovers, and God alone is lovely enough to capture and hold hearts forever.

I hope the point is clear: why defend our emotions? Because to live is to be emotional—we were designed as lovers, in God’s image. God is love, and God created us from and for love. Our emotions—our desires, our loves, our longings—are the motors and rudders of life. What we love most will always steer the course of our lives, and the power of that love is the drive behind any of our pursuits. It was God’s love that moved him to send the Son to die on our behalf, and to use that as the means to bring us into an eternal love relationship as the collective “bride of Christ.”

If the lines of our movie dialogue were applied here, the “I love you!” are the launching words of an eternal marriage.

Paul, the apostle, had his world turned upside-down when he first met Jesus. Concrete points of certainty were instantly turned into sand. His wonderful heritage; his training under Gamaliel; his rising status among the Pharisees; and his zealous antagonism against the budding sect of Jesus-followers—all this collapsed in the blinding light of a new vision. Everything Paul once “knew” as true was exposed: he had been wrong!

What did not change was Paul’s devotion to the Scriptures. And one text in particular stands out as the platform for Paul’s new insights in Christ: Jeremiah 9:23-24.

Thus says the LORD: “Let not the wise man boast in his wisdom, let not the mighty man boast in his might, let not the rich man boast in his riches, but let him who boasts boast in this, that he understands and knows me, that I am the LORD who practices steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in the earth. For in these things I delight, declares the LORD.” [ESV]

Paul cites or alludes to this text at a number of points, especially in writing to the Corinthians (as in 1 Corinthians 1:31). Why? Because in Jeremiah Paul’s key question—how does the soul operate?—was answered. How? By revealing that a psychological center exists in each soul. It is the center for that person on which everything else in life pivots. In current language it is Descartes’ “cogito”, Freud’s “ego”, and modern marketing’s “vision of your potential”.   I refer to it as a “personal identity”. Or, more simply: “what or who we love most.”

Paul, relying on Jeremiah, reduced all such notions to one term: “boasting”. Boasting is what someone tells us when we ask, “what do you do?” or “what do you enjoy?” In a friendly conversation we always hear a person’s greatest boast within a few minutes of meeting him or her. It’s who they are, what they value the most, and what they offer to others.

So, after Paul’s world was turned upside down on the road to Damascus, Jeremiah made sense of the new view of life for him: my only proper boast is that “I have God at the center of my life!” That is what it means for God to be my God. So Paul no longer boasted about anything except that he—to use Jeremiah’s terms—“understands and knows” God!

If we take this insight one step further and add to it Paul’s language of enslavement to sin (as in Romans 6) we find just how upside-down life can become. If we adapt to the jargon of modern psychology, Paul’s “slavery” can be translated as “addictions”. That, in turn, exposes three deeply debilitating addictions: having our identity anchored in personal wisdom, might, or wealth.

The unique danger of these addictions is that no one fears or despises them. Rather, they are premier signs of success! What God “delights” in, instead, are relational commitments: love, justice, and righteousness. Each is other-centered! Each expresses God’s own goodness, displaying the spreading goodness that cascades out of God’s eternal triune communion.

Let’s consider, again, the key term for both Jeremiah and Paul: “boast”. It speaks of the self-centered soul who uses wisdom, might, or wealth—each viewed as a self-owned capacity—to make an impression on others. Or perhaps to control others. Each capacity—when recalling the promise the serpent used with Eve—makes us a bit more god-like.

Alternatively, to the person who boasts in God and who delights in what God finds delightful, the gifts of wisdom, might, or wealth, can become gifts from God that support love, justice, and righteousness.

Thankfully in the “right-side-up” world of eternity no one will ask us about our grades or our academic degrees, our sports trophies or our elected offices, or our financial bottom line. Instead everything will pivot on one statement: “Well done, my good and faithful servant! Come and enjoy my glory!” The doorway to that moment comes only through the cross of Christ. For all those who love the Christ who died for us, there is our true boast.

Humility is more than an opposite to pride . . . or an antidote to arrogance.  It is the glue of deep love; the scent of nobility in friendships; and a sweet fragrance in society.  Humility is powerful, even more so than pride.  Yet both pride and humility are shaped by ambition.

All of us have met ambitious people—those who became strong and controlling.  They use others, deceive others, and walk over others on their way to success.  Yet their success is, at best, fleeting.  Humility, on the other hand, has a vastly greater reach than the proud and ambitious climber can ever achieve.  How so?  By the impact the humble person has on others.

Always remember this: both the proud and the truly humble are ambitious—the presence of an ambition is not where the difference is found.  Instead, the key question of life is this: what is our greatest ambition and the aim of that ambition?  Is it selfish or selfless?  The ambition of the selfless soul touches eternity, but the selfish soul dies as a wisp of empty vanity that fades to nothing. 

Think about these things for a moment.  Moses was humble.  Paul was humble.  Yet both were more powerful than figures like Alexander the Great, or any of the Caesars of Rome.  Indeed, God, in Christ, offers us the epitome of humility.

A selfless ambition is to care for another’s success with an energy and devotion that surprises the recipient.  Selfless ambition wants others to smile . . . to find joy . . . to succeed and to celebrate life.  The selfless look for ways to feed the hungry, heal the sick, guard the widows.  The selfish man, by contrast, wants others to celebrate his own ambition . . . to cater . . . to worship.  The claim of Eden that “you can be like God” was a lie.  The “god” of selfishness is a black hole, like its first originator who travels the earth to devour others.  The true God seeks to build up others, and to draw others to discover that there is greater blessing in giving than in receiving.  The true God has a spreading goodness.

The proud soul can shape its world only as far as his powers can rule, but the soul who lives with a Godly humility has no boundaries.  No one is afraid to join the ambitions of a humble leader—“Come,” he says, “give all you have to the poor and then join me in caring for others!”  So, too, pride has no place in heaven, but the selfless person brings heaven to earth.  A selfish ambition ends with the final breath of life.  The selfless man or woman looks well beyond their final breath to be with the One whose breath is eternal life.

What differs, then, is the object of one’s ambition.  God is both ambitious and humble.  His ambition is to share his love with the world, and to do that he sent his beloved Son so that all who believe in him can participate in God’s eternal shared glory.  Jesus, as the God on two legs, humbled himself to take on humanity—not grasping after his divine prerogatives.  He humbled himself by taking on human sin for all who believe—by becoming sin.  This was the ultimate humility and he did it for us.  Even the Father was humble—by forsaking the Son for our sake—so that we can come into the union with Christ, and through him, into union with the Father. 

Ambition and humility are united in God.  Ambition without humility is death—the realm of Satan.  The greatest ambition of all is God’s resolve to share his heart with us, forever, and that only comes through the humility of crucifixion.  That is a true love and a worthy ambition to pursue!