Jan 16th | The Relational Web
Part of our role and purpose of followers of Jesus is to live in community with one another as, astonishingly , the embodiment…um…corporate personification…um…earthly living organism of God’s love. Jesus followers are to resonate the profound love of God. That is to say, we are not called to the paltry purpose of being real nice people.
When you read 1 John 4:7-17…particularly if you read it without pausing to process what it’s saying…you might well come away confused. But if you back away from it and take a wider view, you mint find an (almost humorous) depiction of the cyclic, all-encompassing, permeating love of God among himself and his children. The picture John paints (at least for me) is an indefinable web, a jumbled tapestry, of the interconnected, crossing, overlapping love of God, man, Jesus, his church, and Holy Spirit …when it’s flowing right.
If we, at some critical junction of our life, should decide to live a life of deeper spirituality, or with God “at the center,” or toward a higher purpose…we might, with the right guidance…rightly boil that new life down to a life of more love. A life, at least, less self-oriented, centered instead or concerned instead about others over and above our selves. But if we suspect that we can shake off our natural human tendencies to protect and promote ourselves in order to pull off the new life for more than a few weeks….well…just try it. And if you can keep from lying to yourself, you will find, disappointingly, that even the genuine and earnest intention and attempts at a selfless life still didn’t bring about what you had hoped for YOURSELF. Oops. How did it come back around to “me” again!?
God says, that sort of life reversal…that sort of central change to the human nature cannot….does not begin with even the most sincere human initiative. God says, that to enjoy a piece of heaven on earth….the expansion of his Jesus-centered Kingdom…the God immersed life of sacrificial life-giving love…it will not begin with the created, but it will begin with the Creator. God says, the kind of interconnected love we were originally built to express and experience begins with Him.
Only after soul-level change in our humanity can we begin to participate in the God-dream embodied in Jesus. And only Jesus can do that sort of central re-work. Its not within you or me to give up everything in our life for the benefit of someone who won’t even thank us for it. Until you and I grip Jesus hand in faith and he irreversibly grips ours and yanks us into an eternal life that dwarfs this one can he overwhelm our humanity by his Spirit.
But then, when we are empowered to live without regard for our own well-being, everything changes – dramatically, radically. Love, Gods inexplicable unstoppable love pours in, and then…
When, when some forces one from you, you give two;
When an someone “beneath” you asks too much, you give it;
When it costs you too much of what you worked hard for to bring peace, you spend it;
When it’s going to make them happy and you suspect it will make you miserable, you do it;
When your sin (which is adequately covered in mercy) embarrasses you, tell the truth.
Why? Because it’s the right thing to do? No, rather, because you are so caught up in the bigger picture…even eternal picture…of the assurance of Jesus promise to you, and of His inescapable acceptance and affirmation of you…of the knowledge of the rest of eternity for God to make all things right…and maybe most specifically you see the “threatening,” “bad,” and/or self-absorbed person in the same way God viewed you apart from Jesus. You see, then, instead, a person so lost so beaten down so damaged so ensured by Satan that his eternal destiny may be sealed unless they experience unconditional, selfless, mercy and compassion…from you.
…and then people will know Jesus loves you…by your unexplainable love.
And here’s one of the catches…maybe a disclaimer of sorts…these sorts of love-actions motivated from an eternal perspective, aren’t going to necessarily make front page news. In fact what could make front page news is your foolishness. From a temporal perspective much of true love makes little to sense.
making this up completely, I would suggest that somewhere in the neighborhood of 95% of the truly selfless Christian acts of love go unnoticed, unappreciated, or misunderstood.
What do you think prayer is?
Can you think of anything that you have done for God’s eyes only?
Does it seem to you that you life has value for others that exceeds your capability? Why? Why not?
How can you / do you cooperate with what is an eternal context for our lives in Jesus?
Do you need Jesus mercy and grace in your life?
