Quotes about Affections

I am certain of nothing but the holiness of the heart's affections and the truth of imagination. What the imagination seizes as beauty must be truth - whether it existed before or not.

But there was a special reason for mentioning His "side" here—see John 19:34: through His pierced side a way was opened to His heart, the seat of the affections! In John we see Him as the Son of God, and God is love.

There cannot possibly be any solidly grounded hope of a genuine revival of godliness among believers and of morality among unbelievers until the Ten Commandments are again given their proper place in our affections, thoughts, and lives.

When people think about 'thinking,' they often think 'academia;' they think 'threat.' They think 'coldness.' I want to reverse all those images and say, 'No, the brain God gave you is intended to throw fuel on the fire of your affections for God. It's really good at it if you let it.'

Sin also carries on its war by entangling the affections and drawing them into an alliance against the mind. Grace may be enthroned in the mind, but if sin controls the affections, it has seized a fort from which it will continually assault the soul. Hence, as we shall see, mortification is chiefly directed to take place upon the affections.

God is pursuing with omnipotent passion a worldwide purpose of gathering joyful worshipers for Himself from every tribe and tongue and people and nation. He has an inexhaustible enthusiasm for the supremacy of His name among the nations. Therefore, let us bring our affections into line with His, and, for the sake of His name, let us renounce the quest for worldly comforts and join His global purpose.

The supremacy of God in all things is the great reward we long for in fasting. His supremacy in our own affections and in all our life-choices. His supremacy in the purity of the church. His supremacy in the salvation of the lost. His supremacy in the establishing of righteousness and justice. And his supremacy for the joy of all peoples in the evangelization of the world.

The great danger of riches is that our affections will be carried away from God to His gifts.

On the contrary, Christian Hedonists are persuaded with Edwards that the only affections that magnify God's value are those that come from true apprehensions of His glory. If the feast of worship is rare in the land, it is because there is a famine of the Word of God (Amos 8:11-12).

True worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth" (John 4:23). Truth matters. There is no real worship without it. Intense affections for God, when we do not know God, are not truly affection for God. They are affections for a distortion of God in our imagination.

Edwards was persuaded from Scripture that "gracious affections do not tend to make men bold, forward, noisy, and boisterous; but rather to speak trembling."41 The eye of divine blessing is upon the meek and trembling: "This is the one to whom I will look [says the Lord]: he who is humble and contrite in spirit and trembles at my word" (Isa. 66:2).

No true Christian can endure in battling unrighteousness unless his heart is aflame with new spiritual affections, or passions. "Mere knowledge is confessedly too weak. The affections alone remain to supply the deficiency."1