Affections

Passages on this topic

From Nave’s Topical Bible (1896), a historical reference index. The groupings are Nave’s; the verses are shown in the text used across this site.

Should be supremely set upon God

• Deuteronomy 6:5 And you shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.
• Mark 12:30 Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’

Should be set upon the commandments of God

• Psalm 19:8–10 The precepts of the LORD are right, bringing joy to the heart; the commandments of the LORD are radiant, giving light to the eyes. The fear of the LORD is pure, enduring forever; the judgments of the LORD are true, being altogether righteous. They are more precious than gold, than much pure gold; t…
• Psalm 119:20 My soul is consumed with longing for Your judgments at all times.
• Psalm 119:97 Oh, how I love Your law! All day long it is my meditation.
• Psalm 119:103 How sweet are Your words to my taste— sweeter than honey in my mouth!
• Psalm 119:167 I obey Your testimonies and love them greatly.

Should be set upon the house and worship of God

• 1 Chronicles 29:3 Moreover, because of my delight in the house of my God, I now give for it my personal treasures of gold and silver, over and above all that I have provided for this holy temple:
• Psalm 26:8 O LORD, I love the house where You dwell, the place where Your glory resides.
• Psalm 27:4 One thing I have asked of the LORD; this is what I desire: to dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to gaze on the beauty of the LORD and seek Him in His temple.
• Psalm 84:1–2 For the choirmaster. According to Gittith. A Psalm of the sons of Korah. How lovely is Your dwelling place, O LORD of Hosts! My soul longs, even faints, for the courts of the LORD; my heart and my flesh cry out for the living God.

Should be set upon the people of God

• Psalm 16:3 As for the saints in the land, they are the excellence in whom all my delight resides.
• Romans 12:10 Be devoted to one another in brotherly love. Outdo yourselves in honoring one another.
• 2 Corinthians 7:13–16 On account of this, we are encouraged. In addition to our own encouragement, we were even more delighted by the joy of Titus. For his spirit has been refreshed by all of you. Indeed, I was not embarrassed by anything I had boasted to him about you. But just as everything we said to you was true, so…
• 1 Thessalonians 2:8 We cared so deeply that we were delighted to share with you not only the gospel of God, but our own lives as well. That is how beloved you have become to us.

Should be set upon heavenly things

• Colossians 3:1–2 Therefore, since you have been raised with Christ, strive for the things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things.

Should be zealously engaged for God

• Psalm 69:9 because zeal for Your house has consumed me, and the insults of those who insult You have fallen on me.
• Psalm 119:139 My zeal has consumed me because my foes forget Your words.
• Galatians 4:18 Nevertheless, it is good to be zealous if it serves a noble purpose — at any time, and not only when I am with you.

Christ claims the first place in

• Matthew 10:37 Anyone who loves his father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me; anyone who loves his son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me;
• Luke 14:26 “If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters — yes, even his own life — he cannot be My disciple.

Enkindled by communion with Christ

• Luke 24:32 They asked each other, “Were not our hearts burning within us as He spoke with us on the road and opened the Scriptures to us?”

Blessedness of making God the object of

• Psalm 91:14 “Because he loves Me, I will deliver him; because he knows My name, I will protect him.

Should not grow cold

• Psalm 106:12–13 Then they believed His promises and sang His praise. Yet they soon forgot His works and failed to wait for His counsel.
• Matthew 24:12 Because of the multiplication of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold.
• Galatians 4:15 What then has become of your blessing? For I can testify that, if it were possible, you would have torn out your eyes and given them to me.
• Revelation 2:4 But I have this against you: You have abandoned your first love.

Of saints, supremely set on God

• Psalm 42:1 For the choirmaster. A Maskil of the sons of Korah. As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul longs after You, O God.
• Psalm 73:25 Whom have I in heaven but You? And on earth I desire no one besides You.
• Psalm 119:10 With all my heart I have sought You; do not let me stray from Your commandments.

Of the wicked, not sincerely set on God

• Isaiah 58:1–2 “Cry aloud, do not hold back! Raise your voice like a ram’s horn. Declare to My people their transgression and to the house of Jacob their sins. For day after day they seek Me and delight to know My ways, like a nation that does what is right and does not forsake the justice of their God. They ask…
• Ezekiel 33:31–32 So My people come to you as usual, sit before you, and hear your words; but they do not put them into practice. Although they express love with their mouths, their hearts pursue dishonest gain. Indeed, you are to them like a singer of love songs with a beautiful voice, who skillfully plays an instr…
• Luke 8:13 The seeds on rocky ground are those who hear the word and receive it with joy, but they have no root. They believe for a season, but in the time of testing, they fall away.

Carnal, should be mortified

• Romans 8:13 For if you live according to the flesh, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.
• Romans 13:14 Instead, clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the desires of the flesh.
• 1 Corinthians 9:27 No, I discipline my body and make it my slave, so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified.
• Colossians 3:5 Put to death, therefore, the components of your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires, and greed, which is idolatry.
• 1 Thessalonians 4:5 not in lustful passion like the Gentiles who do not know God;

Carnal affections crucified in saints

• Romans 6:6 We know that our old self was crucified with Him so that the body of sin might be rendered powerless, that we should no longer be slaves to sin.
• Galatians 5:24 Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.

False teachers seek to captivate

• Galatians 1:10 Am I now seeking the approval of men, or of God? Or am I striving to please men? If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a servant of Christ.
• Galatians 4:17 Those people are zealous for you, but not in a good way. Instead, they want to isolate you from us, so that you may be zealous for them.
• 2 Timothy 3:6 They are the kind who worm their way into households and captivate vulnerable women who are weighed down with sins and led astray by various passions,
• 2 Peter 2:3 In their greed, these false teachers will exploit you with deceptive words. The longstanding verdict against them remains in force, and their destruction does not sleep.
• 2 Peter 2:18 With lofty but empty words, they appeal to the sensual passions of the flesh and entice those who are just escaping from others who live in error.
• Revelation 2:14 But I have a few things against you, because some of you hold to the teaching of Balaam, who taught Balak to place a stumbling block before the Israelites so they would eat food sacrificed to idols and commit sexual immorality.
• Revelation 2:20 But I have this against you: You tolerate that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess. By her teaching she misleads My servants to be sexually immoral and to eat food sacrificed to idols.

Of the wicked, are unnatural and perverted

• Romans 1:31 They are senseless, faithless, heartless, merciless.
• 2 Timothy 3:3 unloving, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, without love of good,
• 2 Peter 2:10 Such punishment is specially reserved for those who indulge the corrupt desires of the flesh and despise authority. Bold and self-willed, they are unafraid to slander glorious beings.