Scripture makes this plain in the great commandment: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and your neighbor as yourself.” The moment a person begins to love, holiness begins. But holiness is complete only when love has fully overcome selfishness — when a person loves with the whole heart.
Faith, without question, comes before love. Whether we look at this biblically or psychologically, faith is the foundation and the necessary starting point. But even so, Scripture gives love the highest honor, calling it “the fulfillment of the law.” So the most important question we can ask — whether we truly belong to God and are genuinely holy — ultimately comes down to this: Are we perfected in love?
At this point, however, we need to recognize that love itself is not all the same. Love differs not only in degree — from weak to perfect — but also in kind. We might love someone simply because of the benefits they give us. Or we might love them for who they are in themselves. Only the second kind deserves the name pure or unselfish love. And the claim of the Scripture is clear: it is not enough to love God intensely; we must love God with this kind of love.
1. What Human Nature Teaches Us About True Love
If my neighbor says he loves me, I receive that gladly. But if I later discover that he only loves me because of what I’ve given him, I can honestly say he is mistaken. He does not love me — he loves himself. Real love always rests in the object loved, not in the one doing the loving. True love is not self‑centered. It does not constantly circle back to its own advantage.
Instead, pure love is generous, outward‑moving, and self‑forgetting. It leaves its own center and finds its home in another. It lives for someone else, not from someone else. And it is with this kind of love — free from selfish calculation — that we are called to love God.
2. Unselfish Love Has Been Honored Throughout History
That is why history celebrates stories like that of Damon and Pythias, who were willing to die for one another under the tyranny of Dionysius. Each was ready to erase himself so the other could live. This, people instinctively recognize, is real love.
Such love always commands respect. Even fallen human nature senses that it carries something divine — that it is morally beautiful in itself. People talk about it, write poems about it, and praise it across generations. Meanwhile, love rooted in self‑interest is quietly despised. And if human beings instinctively reject selfish love, how could such love ever be acceptable to God?
3. God’s Character Demands Pure Love
If people recoil from selfish love, how much more must God, whose claims are infinitely higher? Words fail here. Even angels could not fully describe divine excellence. God deserves love simply because God is who He is — and always will be.
Someone might object and ask: Shouldn’t God’s kindness toward us influence our love for God? Of course it should. We are called to love God as God truly is, which means taking into account all God's actions — including God's goodness to us.
Still, we cannot love God with pure love only because He has been good to us. That would limit love to self‑interest. Pure love rests on a broader foundation. We love God because God's entire character — mercy, justice, truth, holiness — is perfect and harmonious. God's kindness to us is part of that whole, not the sole reason for our love. It is God's character and works together that rightly claim our deepest affection.
4. Scripture Clearly Calls Us to Unselfish Love
Christ’s words make this unmistakable. Christ says that no one can be His disciple who does not love Him more than family, possessions, or even life itself. He commands us to love enemies and to do good without expecting return. He asks plainly: If you love only those who love you, what credit is that? Even sinners do the same.
The apostle John presses the point further: “If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.” True love, Scripture tells us, “seeks not its own.” We are told not to look only to our own interests, but also to the interests of others. All of this strikes directly at love that is rooted in self‑interest.
Someone might object by quoting, “We love God because He first loved us.” But the meaning is straightforward. We would never have loved God at all unless His love had first acted toward us. God planned salvation, sent His Son, and gave His Spirit to open our eyes. God's love made it possible for us to see His glory.
And once our eyes are opened, we love Him not merely because He loved us first, but because we now see Him as He truly is. His prior love prepared the way for our pure love.
5. The Human Heart Needs a True Center
If we attach our love to anything outside ourselves but short of God — and exclude God — we eventually discover a weakness in this, too. The heart senses that it has not yet found its true center.
Those who have grown deepest in holiness testify to this. They tried to rest in outward forms, church structures, respected leaders, or Christian friendships. For a time, these things seemed sufficient. But eventually the foundation shook, and their hearts remained uneasy. Only when they let go of everything else and rested fully in God did they find lasting peace.
True love also naturally grows. It is never satisfied with its current measure; it always longs to expand. For that reason, it can only rest in an object infinite enough to sustain it. God alone meets that need. God's loveliness is inexhaustible. Love may grow forever and still find itself fulfilled in God.
In God, love finds its home — secure, unchanging, and complete. There is no fear of disappointment, no desire for change. The soul rejoices with ever‑deepening joy in the presence of the Infinite. This is the soul’s true rest, its eternal center.
Practical Reflections
Christ’s words, “Shall I not drink the cup the Father has given me?” reveal the heart of true holiness. When selfishness is gone, we accept whatever God sends — joy or sorrow — with a willing heart. Not because we are chasing happiness, but because God’s will is being fulfilled in us.
Second, pure love provides the only real foundation for Christian unity. Without a shared center, believers will always divide. Selfish interests create factions. Love for God unites.
If all Christians were drawn fully to this center, what harmony would exist! Loving God purely for God's own sake makes hearts one. All drink from the same source and are nourished by the same life. God becomes the living bond that unites all.
This same principle explains the moral harmony of the universe. The universe has a center — and that center is God. When all hearts are drawn to God by pure love, discord disappears and lasting joy takes its place.
Finally, the opposite principle — selfishness — explains the misery of hell. Hell is not an accident. Its misery flows naturally from love turned inward. Supreme selfishness isolates the soul, separating it from God and from all others.
A being centered on self cannot be happy. Such a soul becomes increasingly compressed within its own narrow existence, at war with everything else. This inward collapse is the true fire of hell — a condition as unavoidable as it is terrible.
"OH LOVE! I languish at thy stay!
I pine for thee with lingering smart!
Weary and faint through long delay;
When wilt thou come into my heart!
From sin and sorrow set me free,
And swallow up my soul in thee!
"Come, Oh my comfort and delight!
My strength and health, my shield and sun,
My boast, and confidence, and might,
My joy, my glory, and my crown;
My Gospel hope, my calling's prize;
My tree of life, my paradise."
This is a revision of Part 1, Chapter 12 of Thomas C. Upham's book The Interior or Hidden Life (2nd edition 1844), written with the assistance of Microslop CoPilot. The original chapter can be found here: Of disinterested or pure Love in distinction from interested Love.
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