This is a little 240 second (240s) reflection I did on the Four Degrees Of Love by Bernard Of Clairvaux. While his life is quite a mix of goodness and strangeness, this piece has always been one of the richest pieces of spiritual formation literature I’ve come across.
I believe that leaders in the emerging world have much to learn from the basic idea contained in the fourth degree of love.
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Great words Dan! I love the way you mine for those treasures found in the past!
My main question
How we are objectively able to discern between level one and four, especially when it comes to practical decision making?
I find myself struggling with how to think about this. (maybe it’s because I’m still sick, day 15 of this stupid sinus infection)
On the one hand, I agree completely about leaders needing to hear about taking care of themselves and not burning out.
On the other hand, I think of how that 4th degree works if you are Jesus in the garden, praying “Not my will, but Thine”
I guess in the end, it comes down to discernment and guidance from the Holy Spirit.
Do you see the difficulty though?
jason
Human beings fully alive worshipping God by loving ourselves not for what we get out of it but rather for what he gets out of it…….very challenging. Thanks Dan!
Very insightful. Love of self for God’s sake makes more sense than love of self for self’s sake. God created us in His image. He created us “good.” So to not love your self is to say, “God, you didn’t do a very good job with me.” Or, “God, You really messed up with me.”
This subject brings to mind Rob Bell’s book “Velvet Elvis.” In it he talks about how we need to stop doing and start being. God created us to “be.”
Dan,
The 4th Degree..Wow! Love of self for God’s sake…Still chewing on that and loving the taste!! Thanks Dan for bringing this to light. I had never heard this or thought of this type of love before. I love the idea of enjoying God’s good Creation and I’m pretty sure that this type of love (4th Degree) results in new Creational living to the max. and exploring love in the complexities of the eschaton.
Keep bringing it Dan,
Phil Dok
Good input guys. Jason, yes, one must never lose oneself in some veiled form of self-fulfillment (the second degree of love) in the name of the fourth. The Garden leads us to this sacrificial posture.
Good thoughts, Jim, and love the statement.
Yes Roger, there is a sense of idealism and unattainability in the whole piece, and Therese’s voice keeps us rooted in reality.
I think part of God’s desire for us is to be content with who we are, loving ourselves. We do a disservice to Him when we think we are less than what we are. I think when we play on our insecurities it’s like insulting Him.
He gave us this gift of life and blessed us all with gifts and amazingly unique personalities. If I gave a gift to my husband, say I give him a guitar, and he spends his time thanking me for it but not playing it because he is not good enough in his own eyes, I would be supremely disappointed! I would want him to know I gave him a gift because I love him and he is good enough. (I know my husband well enough to know what he is good at!)
Does that make sense?
At the same time, I wouldn’t want him to play it 18 hours a day because he felt it would make me proud of him – this is where burnout comes in. I am already proud of him.
What I would desire for him is that he enjoyed the gift.
That is how I see the life God gives us. We should be enjoying who we are, not living like we are not good enough or living like we have to prove ourselves. He already loves us!
Dan,
This is as striking now as it was when I first heard it from you and your SSU cohorts back in 2006. Like many others, I suppose there is a fear-based reticence to fully embrace such a concept. A fear that says that somehow what Bernard is articulating is a “loophole” to actually care about ourselves based on the crazy (if not unbelievable) notion that God loves us more than we love ourselves. Part of this is so hard for me to get my head around, its hard to explain. I think the foundational problem with me (maybe others) is that we don’t know what real love’s definition is until we met Him who Is Love. In those times of personal encounter, my definition of love changes. Then I agree (for a fleeting moment as it can last) with you and Bernard here.
But beyond just our poor knowledge of real love, there is a question I have that comes from Christ’s definitive on love- We have just 2 degrees of love in his words “Love the Lord your God…” and “love your neighbor as yourself”. I am not trying to quib on a mis-placed point here, but why would any summary of love included just the two players of me and God. Are others to be hedged out of the eternal equation here, or am I being childish in this consideration?
Kim
Love the Lord your God – our progression through the first degrees of less mature love to an unadulterated (as much as can be) love of God for God’s sake.
And then… “and love your neighbor” (the other), “as yourself.”
Is this an invitation to love ourselves, and let our care for ourselves spill over into other lives – to be as rich toward them as we could be toward ourselves?
I’m not really sure what your question is in the last sentence Kim, but I do believe there are riches to be found in this simple commandment – that may endorse a loving of ourselves that is infused with the light of God as the air on a sunny day, or is as integrated with the love of God as a drop of water that disappears into the wine.
Dan,
All I was asking in the last question was whether Bernard’s 4 degree’s should include loving others as part of it. I think you answered it in your 2nd/3rd sentence.
Kim
Hi all,
That’s a timely message that rings true in me. My leaders keep telling me to take days off, stop doing so much and make sure i rest: I’m a bit of a work-a-holic and i think it stems from a mix of a passionate love of God for God’s sake and warped understanding of unconditional love (I don’t know if i’ll ever understand love this side of Heaven). This notion of a love beyond my current experience beckons me to explore deeper.
Could it be that when we fully embrace the third degree of love, when we become passionate lovers of God in response to who He is and all that He has done, that He then points us beyond to a love of ourselves that reflects Him even brighter still. I hold to the view that if we love God passionately, and allow ourselves to be abandoned in worship that we will shine brightly with Christ, but how much brighter can we shine when we love ourselves also and reflect the health that a love for God and Self holds.
Kim – thanks for chucking the ‘others’ point in there. Perhaps “Love your neighbor as yourself” is hard to do when we don’t love self properly, and hence a love for self is necessary. I have always read this with a bit of a view that the text spoke to my ‘me first’ nature, and that loving our neighbors was meant to trump those feelings. Maybe to love one’s neighbor as ones self, is tied into this fourth degree of love, “love of self for God’s sake.” What better than to love others with a healthy God given love (a love for self for God’s sake), rather than an attempt to love in order to squash the ‘me first’ desire?
hope that makes some sense!
Donald
The 4th degree of love ties in so well with a theological view I have. It is that instead of going through life and viewing ourselves every day as dirty, rotten sinners who are barely hanging on to salvation by the skin of our teeth (and thereby ending up acting like dirty, rotten sinners most of the time because that is what we expect of ourselves and what we think we are), we should view ourselves as the redeemed of God, saints, righteous, new creations, blameless, forgiven, and free to live as God intended. Instead of “I am a dirty, rotten sinner”, why not see ourselves as “saints who sometimes sin”? It is hard for me to understand why we would want to live in the other old realm, acting as if God has really done nothing in us when He saves us, thereby letting the flesh have free reign because “that’s just who I am”. It is also hard for me to fathom why we would belittle the truth of redemption for some bit of selfish false humility. (Mind you, I am not implying here that any of this new creation has anything to do with our own effort; it is all God’s doing! I am also not implying here a denial of the struggles with the power of sin and the unredeemed flesh as Paul talks about in the book of Romans. I am talking about the fact of the death of the old man and the raising to new life as new creations in Christ.)
Now, I will attempt to tie it in with the fourth degree of Bernard Of Clairvaux. In order to self love fully for God’s sake, I believe we must see ourselves as God sees us, which is what I listed before: the redeemed of God, saints, righteous, new creations, blameless, forgiven – the list goes much farther. When we finally see this, we leave the self-loathing realm and enter into a much healthier view of who we are post-redemption. We can see ourselves as loved by God so much that He has done all possible to draw us to Himself, Who puts so much worth and stock in His children that He desires that they enter into His realm and do ministry through His power and leading. We can then love ourselves not for the benefit we get out of it (which would be Bernard’s 1st degree of love), but for God’s sake and benefit, to be able to more fully and completely have positive impact on His kingdom and bring glory and honor to Him! I think Bernard of Clairvaux hit the nail on the head with the fourth degree of love; that to fully and completely love, the love has to be directed outward for the benefit of others, even for the Creator Himself.
Good stuff, Bernie!
“Love the Lord your God…”
“Love your neighbor as yourself…”
From there I can’t help but think of:
” I give to you a new commandment: Love one another, just as I have loved you…” (Jn 13:34)
“This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for [one another].” (1 Jn 3:16)
I see this progression that Jesus gives us beyond the Old Testament expressions a nice progression into the fourth degree.
Bernard says, “This perfect love of God with our heart, soul, mind, and strength will not happen until we are no longer compelled to think about ourselves and attend to the body’s immediate needs. Only then can our soul attend to God completely.” (1)
The “perfect love” (or ‘mature’ love) of 1 Jn 4:18 has no fear because it is willing to “no longer [be] compelled to think about ourselves.” It is willing to lay down our life for another just as Christ laid down His life. This is what “love of self for God’s sake” looks like. It looks like a love that is willing to look beyond our fleshly (in a Pauline sense) self and look to Christ in us to sacrifice for both others and God (again, a 1 Jn vertical / horizontal love concept). Embracing Christ-nature and Christ identity is a true and holy love of self for God’s sake. It is for God’s sake because we are embracing the precious gift that he gave us, his image and likeness.
(1) Bernard of Clairvaux, Devotional Classics, edited by Foster and Smith, (San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1989), P. 43-44
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