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The book of James was probably the first book written in the New Testament, and it’s fascinating to see how the earliest Christian community also struggled to understand God’s Love Ethic. Even more fascinating is the close association between spiritual immaturity and immature love:If, however, you are fulfilling the royal law according to the Scripture, “YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF,” you are doing well. But if you show partiality, you are committing sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors. - James 2:8–9

The distinction between maturity and immaturity is clear, and it’s still true today. “If you show partiality,” you just don’t get it, James said. To “show partiality” is a key factor in immaturity, and it explains why so many relationships fail.

Indifference

But a more foundational problem lay festering beneath the immaturity in that young Christian church, and it was their spiritual immaturity. They were Jewish Christians steeped in harmful religious traditions, and James had to expose their false assumptions before they could understand mature love. Their spiritual background was so dead Jesus called it “Full of dead men’s bones!” He told the teachers of contemporary Judaism, “You neither know the scriptures nor the power of God!”

American Christians are different, but not very much. Such terrible misunderstandings creep in and plague Christian lives! Our own cultural Christianity is likewise seeded with traditions that smother the simple joy of victorious love which previous Christian generations knew, and a vacancy of love is emptying churches.

Spiritual immaturity is so fatal to relationships! It’s astounding how Christians with glaring spiritual problems plunge headlong into emotional turmoil, then repeat it. Immature love springs from immature spirituality because love itself is rooted in our spirits. It’s so typically modern to think, “I want it, so I deserve it, and it must work!” without considering, “Do I even know what it is?” We live in an era of great cluelessness which only increases as Postmodern rejection of truth continues.

It should be obvious that love springs from our spiritual nature, but we’re so spiritually dense and apathetic we disregard the obvious. If humans were only biological machines, love would be a biological function and little more. We know, however, that love reaches beyond simple biology. Human sexuality combined with love is the apex of fulfillment, but sexuality without love is the pit of depression. Love paints human life in rich color, and without that color life is stark and unlivable. Death is such a dark tragedy because love exists and love places value on lost lives. Our thirst for love never diminishes over time like other biological functions. It springs from the core of our human nature “made in the image of God.”

Do you realize it’s possible to love without having any body, but not without a spirit? It’s true: the human spirit is capable of loving and being loved with another spirit, and that occurs first and foremost with God’s Holy Spirit.

Our spirit carries a phenomenal drive to love and be loved, but it’s also a dark and fallen spirit, barely able to love anymore. People give up trying to love because they quickly reach the extent of their damaged ability to love, and still the thirst for love remains unquenched. Resignation or unquenched thirst typify the love lives of most, and the rest are quickly headed there. This alone proves we don’t understand how love works! Where is the sobriety of the naive Christian who flings into the arms of another romance?

Thankfully, God provides a marvelous remedy to heal our broken persons, as Paul describes it:

Christ will make his home in your hearts as you trust in him. Your roots will grow down into God’s love and keep you strong. And may you have the power to understand, as all God’s people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep his love is. May you experience the love of Christ, though it is too great to understand fully. Then you will be made complete with all the fullness of life and power that comes from God. - Ephesians 3:17–19

The presence of God awakens a capacity in our broken spirits we always longed for: to know love that wont’ betray and break us further. This is a new experience and it fills us with deep inner strength that echoes throughout our lives. Younger Christians experience it, but older Christians might not. The difference is one of spiritual health. Unhealthy Christians greatly hinder God’s love and delay His healing work inside our damaged spirits.

James was so wise, we must follow his lead. A drowning man has to stop thrashing before a lifeguard can bring him back to safety, and Christians likewise have to quit thrashing in exhausting and useless spiritual activity before God’s Word can break into the busy, driven lifestyle of spiritual immaturity.

Anti-Spiritual Life

Christians struggle with issues far removed from the ”Royal Law” James talks about. Secular concerns and minor spiritual concerns which shouldn’t be concerns, or concerns guaranteed to increase concerns get all the attention. In the end, after years of exhausting activity, Christians degenerate into self-focused, socially withdrawn and alienated worlds. It is possible, in fact, that __Christians can become more loveless than non-Christians__ and then, “They are worse off than before,” as 2 Peter 2:20 says. Is this possible if Christianity is the real deal? “Yes!” Peter says:

“It would be better if they had never known the way to righteousness than to know it and then ”reject the command they were given” to live a holy life.” 2 Peter 2:21

The self-focused Christian by necessity must “reject the command they were given” to “love one another just as I have loved you,” What Christ called “A New Commandment I give unto you” is what Peter calls “the commandment they were given to live a holy life.” Christians who “reject the command they were given” are those who live in isolated, irrelevant worlds. This kind of Christian becomes the scorn of the Kosmos: “Do they not blaspheme the fair name by which you have been called?” (James 2:7) Spiritual rebellion causes the impotency of Christianity today. ”How destructive it is to ignore the Royal Law!”

By far the most pervasive and also the most poisonous lifestyle is Christian materialism with its many worries. Those first century Christian Jews struggled with similar misguided concerns. Their culture’s religion was hopelessly entangled in material wealth, and their traditions taught riches were God’s reward for righteous living. Unlike America, however, few were wealthy, but the religious elite certainly were, and this doctrine fortified their power and prestige.

Jesus collided with the health-and-wealth doctrine of His day:

Jesus said to His disciples, “Truly I say to you, it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven!” When the disciples heard this, they were very astonished and said, “Then who can be saved?” - Matthew 19:23,25

This mistaken allegiance to wealth is precisely what James raised with his audience:

“If a man comes into your assembly with a gold ring and dressed in fine clothes, and there also comes in a poor man in dirty clothes, and you pay special attention to the one who is wearing the fine clothes, and say, “You sit here in a good place,” and you say to the poor man, “You stand over there, or sit down by my footstool,” have you not made distinctions among yourselves, and become judges with evil motives?” - James 2:2–4

They extolled material success and praised the wealthy, but James renounced their traditions:

Listen, my beloved brethren: did not God choose the poor of this world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom which He promised to those who love Him? - James 2:5

Just in case they didn’t get the picture, he later says:

Come now, you rich, weep and howl for your miseries which are coming upon you. Your riches have rotted and your garments have become moth-eaten. - James 5:1–2

James was no diplomat! Yet he is so right to shout like this: materialism triggers a whirlwind of activity that keeps its victims distracted long enough to ignore the realities of life.

Here’s the point: to be engrossed in the American Dream and its phenomenal allure is to get trapped in a world far removed from spiritual maturity. The American Christian landscape is overgrown with the weeds and thorns of prosperity:

“The one on whom seed was sown among the thorns, this is the man who hears the word, and the worry of the world and the deceitfulness of wealth choke the word, and it becomes unfruitful.” - Matthew 13:22

“It becomes unfruitful” is true indeed. The life choked by the “worry of the world” is especially unfruitful relationally, as we’ll see next.

meet the work substitute love defect

The weeds of American prosperity not only stunt spiritual growth, they also breed a defective, immature approach to love.

Here’s the fruit of the American Dream: the preoccupation with career, work, money and everything it buys exerts phenomenal pressures that sap our strength and emotional reserves, leaving little for relationships and spiritual life. It’s a dirty bargain to exchange our love and spiritual life for cheap manufactured goods, or even worse, for reward from sterile institutions like American business and finance. Commerce and trade and economic development fuel the wars and barbaric plunder of weaker peoples throughout history, and the American economy still pillages individuals and families in American culture. The lifestyle of affluence is actually a lifestyle of broken and decaying relationships, from God’s viewpoint.

Nobody can walk away from the pursuit of the American Dream all day long and naturally snap into a fresh capacity to relate with others. Men are especially vulnerable, and they develop a syndrome we call the Work Substitute Love Defect which is an extremely immature and mean-spirited way of loving their wives and kids. It’s immature because the Work Sub offers little emotional warmth or concern, but he demands emotional love from those who owe it whenever he gets emotionally starved himself. Quite often it’s the sex he demands from his wife, and he feels little obligation to provide any emotional love for it. He’s already given enough, now it’s her turn. His calculations are based on the raw manpower he’s already exerted providing for the family. In effect, emotional giving is unnecessary, because, “I already gave at the office!”

People in the Work Sub’s life feel unloved and mistreated, because the so-called love he gives is so cold and functional, and it never touches anyone deeply. It’s an inexpensive love he dispenses, because truthfully he enjoys his job and is absorbed with his accomplishments even though they deplete his emotional energy. Running on empty fumes, he can only offer his family the fruit of his labors, which is usually money. Even while he justifies it, he also knows money can never substitute for real human warmth, and he craves it from everyone else, so he steals it through teasing or just plain meanness. Any emotional reaction is better than no reaction, and angry reactions are better than the emotional emptiness that pervades his life.

Homer Simpson is the prototypic Work Sub. This functional, work-oriented love is a shallow interaction with real humans, and as Work Subs become more functional and less emotionally sacrificial, part of their humanity slowly erodes from sheer neglect. It’s a dehumanizing way to live by restricting our love to simple, functional deeds.

Advancing

The American Dream is rife with the defective love of Work Subs. We will return to this subject later, but realize this much: there is a symbiotic relationship between our spiritual and emotional immaturities. Clearly when someone rejects spiritual truth, there’s no basis to understand the spiritual realm, and since our ability to love is spiritually-rooted, the ignorance results in confused love relationships. But the converse is true: a Christian can be convinced about God’s truths, but unless he starts to exercise mature love, he remains spiritually weak because he’s not living the Royal Law.

Here’s the $1,000,000 question: what should a Work Sub do? How do you help someone like this?

The next installment is all ready to go, and we return to the earlier issue of what it looks like to live as a Christian without a Love Ethic.

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