Bottom line up front: We are what we love.

Introduction: A book I read last year has remained in my thoughts. It’s been like a kernel in the mind, something that remains and calls for attention. The book was J.K.A. Smith’s You Are What You Love. One of the gems in Smith’s book follows: “ . . . . since our hearts are made to find their end in God, we will experience a besetting anxiety and restlessness when we try to love substitutes. To be human is to have a heart. You can’t not love. So the question isn’t whether you will love something as ultimate; the question is what you will love as ultimate. And you are what you love” (Smith, 10).

Connection to Our Everyday Lives: In designing teaching curriculum on moral leadership and ethical decision making for soldiers, many of the scenarios I’m posing soldiers revolve around the issue of the standard by which they make decisions. Is that standard permanent? Is it subjective or objective? If you say it’s objective, why does it change to reflect culture? What sources undergird that standard? In sum, ethics cannot be reduced to mental gymnastics about what came first, the chicken or the egg. We must think maturely about moral leadership and the foundation for ethical decision making.

Scripture: Psalm 115 puts it so clearly:

Not to us, O Lord, not to us, but to your name give glory,
for the sake of your steadfast love and your faithfulness!

2 Why should the nations say,
“Where is their God?”
3 Our God is in the heavens;
he does all that he pleases.

4 Their idols are silver and gold,
the work of human hands.
5 They have mouths, but do not speak;
eyes, but do not see.
6 They have ears, but do not hear;
noses, but do not smell.
7 They have hands, but do not feel;
feet, but do not walk;
and they do not make a sound in their throat.
8 Those who make them become like them;
so do all who trust in them. (Psalm 115:1-8, ESV)

Verse 8 is such important theology: We become like what we love/worship. That was Smith’s thesis in his book. That’s the issue here in this psalm. Will we love truth, or will we love idols? That’s the always-fundamental issue, is it not?

Encouragement: May we love the truth rather than the idols. May we recognize that truth is revealed in Scripture, and that the Word became flesh and dwelled among us (John 1). There is a holy standard—fixed, unchanging, and altogether holy. May we love what we ought to love.