HOW TO RUIN A FRIENDSHIP
Those of you who try to be put right with God by obeying the Law have cut yourselves off from Christ. You are outside God's grace. Gal. 5:4, T.E.V.
You have received a personal request from a famous head of state that you share a meal with him. But he wants to come to your house. Your excitement turns quickly to dread as you think about your humble dress, your untrained manners, your small vocabulary, and narrow scope of conversational interests. You doubt that you would be a very satisfying dinner companion. Thinking that your host would be more satisfied with your presence if you could persuade him of your fitness, you request a postponement and begin a crash program of self-improvement.
Months stretch into year while, as on a treadmill, you doubt that you have sufficiently merited accepting the invitation. Your attention shifts entirely toward your performance until you lose track of the anticipated fellowship your host wanted to enjoy with you. Having become convinced that the friendship can happen only when you become fit for it, you ruin the friendship that itself would make you a fit companion.
The Bible speaks very sparingly about what it takes to commit "spiritual divorce." Jesus has courted our affection with such diligence, and offered us such security in union with Himself, that He sees little merit in giving large attention to how the relationship might die. We might stumble in our Christian walk, but His response is that He will forgive us "seventy times seven"--to start with! But He will not file for divorce on us.
In his Galatians letter, Paul spells it out: If you approach your friendship with Christ on the basis of your own merits, the relationship is ruined, not because Jesus will turn against you but because you will never open the door to His presence. Thinking that Jesus is one who requires merit rather than one who makes people whole through love, we have no common ground with Him. We remain perpetually cowering behind the door, fearing His searching, judgmental arrival.
But Jesus stands outside the door, gently knocking. If we listen with our hearts, we can hear Him telling us that He desires fellowship, not merit. He longs for union of the soul, not our credit list. Rather than our trying to prepare ourselves for His presence, He wants to prepare us by His presence. Who could close the door to such an appealing invitation?
Those of you who try to be put right with God by obeying the Law have cut yourselves off from Christ. You are outside God's grace. Gal. 5:4, T.E.V.
You have received a personal request from a famous head of state that you share a meal with him. But he wants to come to your house. Your excitement turns quickly to dread as you think about your humble dress, your untrained manners, your small vocabulary, and narrow scope of conversational interests. You doubt that you would be a very satisfying dinner companion. Thinking that your host would be more satisfied with your presence if you could persuade him of your fitness, you request a postponement and begin a crash program of self-improvement.
Months stretch into year while, as on a treadmill, you doubt that you have sufficiently merited accepting the invitation. Your attention shifts entirely toward your performance until you lose track of the anticipated fellowship your host wanted to enjoy with you. Having become convinced that the friendship can happen only when you become fit for it, you ruin the friendship that itself would make you a fit companion.
The Bible speaks very sparingly about what it takes to commit "spiritual divorce." Jesus has courted our affection with such diligence, and offered us such security in union with Himself, that He sees little merit in giving large attention to how the relationship might die. We might stumble in our Christian walk, but His response is that He will forgive us "seventy times seven"--to start with! But He will not file for divorce on us.
In his Galatians letter, Paul spells it out: If you approach your friendship with Christ on the basis of your own merits, the relationship is ruined, not because Jesus will turn against you but because you will never open the door to His presence. Thinking that Jesus is one who requires merit rather than one who makes people whole through love, we have no common ground with Him. We remain perpetually cowering behind the door, fearing His searching, judgmental arrival.
But Jesus stands outside the door, gently knocking. If we listen with our hearts, we can hear Him telling us that He desires fellowship, not merit. He longs for union of the soul, not our credit list. Rather than our trying to prepare ourselves for His presence, He wants to prepare us by His presence. Who could close the door to such an appealing invitation?
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