Father Moses
YouTube
Why You Don't Love God: Self-Love and the Misdirected Heart
14:08
What the video says
A priest discusses how love for God grows as we purify our hearts of self-love and misplaced attachments. He explains that sin is essentially misdirected love, that God bestows grace according to our willingness to receive and work with it, and that true love for Christ requires self-denial and crucifixion. He illustrates this with personal stories, desert fathers sayings, and the parable of the talents, concluding that there is no resurrection without crucifixion.
Key moments
- Christ wants to give us crucifixion so we can participate in the fullness of resurrection; each person must decide the degree to which they are willing to be crucified, and little crucifixion means little love for Christ.
- The heart's capacity to love is often misdirected toward wrong things—boots, sports teams, money—so we must be purified, and as we are, more of the heart is given over to the love of God.
- We must strive to purify our hearts of what we love, and God will incrementally fill it with His love; this is a deep spiritual reality, not a psychological one.
- A personal story: the speaker loved the compliments he received from a Nike jacket, and at the prompting of Father Turbo gave the jacket to a homeless man, recognizing that such attachments take up our heart's capacity.
- A saint compared himself to a prickly pear—no matter how thrown, it lands prickles down—because all sins and struggles distill down to one thing: the love of self.
- The gospel commands love of God and neighbor but not love of self, since we already struggle with too much self-love; even self-criticism and shame in confession ('I can't believe I did this') are actually self-obsession and pride, not humility.
- All sins are misdirected natural desires—intimacy into lust, food into gluttony, work into greed, and time given for repentance into busyness and skipping church.
- From the desert fathers: Abba Anthony, though another monk fasted and prayed more, said 'I love God more than he does,' showing that love for God is a spiritual gift given to those open to self-denial; God bestows grace according to what we are willing and able to receive and work with, as in the parable of the talents.
A priest, Father Moses, examines why love for God often feels absent in the Christian life, arguing that the Holy Fathers identify love of self as the root of every sin. The heart, he says, has a limited capacity for love, and when it is given over to things like possessions, money, compliments, and comfort, little room remains for God.
Love for God therefore grows only as the heart is purified of these misplaced attachments—a spiritual reality, not merely a psychological one. He illustrates this with a personal story: after noticing how much he enjoyed the compliments his Nike jacket attracted, he gave it away to a homeless man at the prompting of his spiritual father, recognizing how such small attachments consume the heart.
The talk also addresses the modern 'self-love' gospel: the Gospel commands love of God and neighbor but never love of self, because we already struggle with excessive self-regard. Even self-hatred, shame, and harsh self-criticism in confession are revealed as forms of pride and self-obsession rather than humility. Sin, he explains, is not the destruction of natural desires but their misdirection—intimacy becomes lust, hunger becomes gluttony, work becomes greed, and time meant for repentance becomes busyness.
Drawing on the desert fathers, he recounts Abba Anthony's bold claim to love God more than a monk who fasted and prayed more, showing that love for God is a gift given to those open to self-denial, and that God bestows grace according to what each person is willing to receive, as in the parable of the talents. The talk culminates in the claim that Christ offers each of us a crucifixion proportioned to our willingness, for there is no resurrection without crucifixion—and little crucifixion means little love for Christ.
Main points
- Every sin ultimately distills to love of self; even self-hatred and shame are forms of pride, not humility.
- The heart's love is misdirected toward possessions, compliments, and comfort; purification frees it for love of God.
- Sin is misdirected natural desire: intimacy into lust, food into gluttony, work into greed, repentance time into busyness.
- Abba Anthony's saying and the parable of the talents show God gives grace and love according to our openness and effort.
- There is no resurrection without crucifixion; each person decides how much self-denial—and thus how much love for Christ—they will accept.