“No man is an island.” So goes the old and well known saying. Isolation is the tool of the devil to bring discouragement and that most distressing of conditions, loneliness.
Jesus made it clear that relationship was at the very centre of God’s plan for mankind. He taught that the entire law hung upon two basic principles: We are to love God with all our heart (vertical relationship) and love our neighbour as we love ourselves (horizontal relationship). True love (beyond ourselves) is impossible where two or more are not present in the experience. Love only has value when it is given away.
This truth, as wonderful as it is, carries with it a great challenge. Jesus said that we could only be considered His friends (relationship) if we obeyed His commands to us. One of those commands was to love one another as that very action would let the world know whose disciples we really are. So, if I do not keep His commandments, I cannot consider myself a friend of God.
When Jesus was teaching His disciples about prayer, He ended off by saying that forgiveness was ours only in the measure that we forgave others. In other words, if I do not forgive in word, action and attitude a brother or sister who has hurt or offended me, I cannot expect to be forgiven either. Think of that for a moment – you withhold forgiveness, the same will be withheld from you. If we do not forgive one another, God will not forgive us.
So, we are called into a love relationship with one another by Jesus Himself. He makes it clear that we can only be His friends if we maintain that relationship with the commitment and dedication that He displayed in reconciling us to the Father in the first place.
On a macro level the Church has to stop the incessant bickering and subsequent offences that occur over worship style, dress sense (or the lack of it), petty doctrinal differences and the big one, who gets to be in charge. So long as one leader is estranged from another through unforgiveness, the withholder of that forgiveness is not a friend of Jesus Christ, no matter the size of his or her congregation, how many books they have published or how well they preach.
True ‘Christ at the centre Christianity’ is about relationship. The GodLife relationship that honours the individual but does not seek self-elevation, fleshly recognition or self-glorification. Benevolence is about giving and living out while not expecting a return in kind.
Jesus at the centre of my life glues me to a relationship with the triune God. This vertical relationship is relatively easy. It is the horizontal that seems to present the problems. Jesus’ hands were nailed to the horizontal beam of the cross, but love alone would have held Him there. Therein is our challenge, will our arms remain open to one another without the nails of religion, denomination and creed making our offer of embrace conditional and therefore false?
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Do we not need to hesitate before we say that a certain Christian “is not a friend of Jesus Christ” or “[Christians] can only be His friends if....” and then impose conditions? From the moment that we were born again, there has been absolutely nothing that we can do to improve the relationship which God has with us in Christ because that breath-taking love is all about Him and His abounding, never-ending grace. To say that we must “maintain that relationship with the commitment and dedication that [Jesus] displayed in reconciling us to the Father” places a legalistic burden (cf. Matthew 11:30) on us which we can never possibly achieve and thus binds us to a life of frustration and unfulfilment. It is grace that justifies us (Romans 3:24), grace that transforms our lives (1 Corinthians 15:10), grace that supersedes ‘good works’ (Ephesians 2:8,9) and grace that brings salvation (Titus 2:11). We must surely move away from the notion that the Christian life is about doing something to please God and recognize instead that “Christ-at-the-centre Christianity” is indeed about relating to God and to others but not in obedience to a commandment, but rather by allowing Christ’s life in us its grace-filled impact.
ReplyDeleteMaybe the point is that when we experience His love, our desire will become more and more to love others!and it is such a relief that we can seek His help in this.
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