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* I can’t seem to dismiss these thoughts or prevent them from ricocheting around in my heart… ♥ Jesus was always loving all the wrong people for all the right reasons! ♥ Although the kingdom (the advantaged life according to God) would be available to all, it would be embraced by relatively few. * Jesus understood that only love makes transformation possible. Not love as we have reduced it to some sloppy sentiment (Hallmark card) or fickle connection; but love as a stubborn commitment to what’s “best” for another. Imagine God… Sensing the sheer delight of having the one who is the object of his affection trust in the goodness of his intentions and observe as they progressively realize the preferred future that it offers (the ‘blessed life’). Imagine God… Experiencing the anguish of love rejected, dismissed or ignored and anxiously, even helplessly, watching as his beloved meets with the inevitable, painful consequences of the self-directed life. Matthew 7:13-27 (read) * The language Jesus uses seems to contrast the radical inclusion (welcome) of the kingdom with the limitations of choice (‘only’… ‘broad and narrow’… ‘life and destruction’… ‘many and few’… ‘wide and difficult’… ‘good fruit, bad fruit’). * Every one of us is presented with essentially (2) paths for life -one of which you are currently pursuing. Either: 1) You’ve decided that you know what you want and you’ve formulated a plan to achieve it. 2) You’ve realized that you’re not even sure what you want, but you know you don’t have what you need! * The first path is what we will call the “self-directed” life. ► We gladly acknowledge that there is a God (though we often use impersonal terms to describe him; i.e. higher power, supreme being, the ‘force’, etc.), but only to the extent to which he is able to assist us in achieving your goals. ► When he, or it, fails to come through for us, we either become resentful or we look for ways to adjust our behavior in order to secure the blessing we feel we deserve. ► Such a life gives the illusion that we are “in control”; of our own life, and even God! * I’ve discovered that this life is “tiring”; it never allows you to relax, because your sense of fulfillment is dependent upon your ability to ‘make it happen’. EXTERNALLY, YOU APPEAR TO HAVE IT ALL TOGETHER, BUT INTERNALLY, THERE’S TURMOIL; SOMETHING’S MISSING… SOMETHING’S WRONG. * The other path is the new way of following God, not just the rules (thinking, thinking again, trusting, accepting, following God). The life identified by ‘repentance’. ► In this way of life, you desire only the gift of God himself. We want something more than ‘blessings’ because they don’t prove to be enough. ► In fact, we begin to discover that blessings (the blessed life we desire) are the result of “life according to God”, not the objective or the reward for a life well-lived. ► In “life according to God”, we consent to the fact that life doesn’t always work out the way that we thought it should, but we are also becoming more comfortable with the idea that it doesn’t have to! * We can learn to engage difficult life-circumstances not as punishment for wrong behavior, but part of life in a fallen world (which, only makes us long for something better… the kingdom come!) In this approach to life, we become willing to exchange predictability for faith (trust). * I’ve discovered that this kind of life allows us to “rest”. We learn to trust the one who has so often demonstrated such ridiculous acceptance and love. We enter the mystery of “trust”. * Trust is the capacity to embrace not only his presence, but his seeming absence (i.e. when the tumor grows, the marriage fails, the job is eliminated, despite our best prayer efforts!). * Trust is all you have left when your assumptions about God have proven deficient. The conundrum/crisis? What we so desperately need and desire cannot be secured apart from God (on our own). * So, Jesus says things like… Luke 9:23-25 "If any of you wants to be my follower, you must put aside your selfish ambition, shoulder your cross daily, and follow me. If you try to keep your life for yourself, you will lose it. But if you give up your life for me, you will find true life. And how do you benefit if you gain the whole world but lose or forfeit your own soul in the process?” * It becomes apparent here that Jesus is challenging our definition of life and the self-defeating means we often use to pursue it. It is also obvious that “life”, here, is more than ‘breath’. * He is using the idea of loss, not to emphasize what will be taken from us, but what will be gained. What’s being addressed here is the possibility that, given our stubborn commitment to ‘self’, we might actually forfeit our highest purpose (man in vital relationship with God) for temporary pleasures. * To deny yourself must mean, at least in part, to admit that the resources for the life that I long for are not resident within me apart from God; it’s to no longer see myself as the ‘reference point’ for all of life. The paradox? The one who learns to give the most (of themselves to God and others), will have the fullest experience of love. * In being willing to give all, we find that we lack nothing; therefore, love is made complete! “All or nothing”… * Admittedly, so much of what Jesus said was so appealing; so poetic and practical in nature. But, some of the things he said make me really nervous! I think it’s this ‘all or nothing’ attitude that the story of the Bible seems to portray that makes me the most uncomfortable; it’s the greatest source of inner-turmoil. “all your heart, all your mind…” * To love with “all” means that we become totally vulnerable, nothing withheld; because God is the only one that can be fully trusted. * God is the only one that never puts our love at risk because he knows us fully and loves us unconditionally. Reflections… ►“Could it be that nothing has satisfied us because we have not been willing to give ourselves totally to anything or anyone?” * Herein lies the issue with me: I know that I have never experienced giving myself fully to anything or anyone. But, I do know what it means to love half-heartedly and to hold something back so that I won’t be totally disappointed. It’s the passionless life (without heart). * I know that I get glimpses of fulfillment and hints of what love, in its purest form can produce when I can somehow vulnerably give myself to another without forethought for how my needs will be met in the exchange. ►When it comes to God, the investment of our life cannot be ‘diversified’. We have to put all of our “eggs in one basket”! * The more we give ourselves away (to God and others), the more whole we become. The more completely we love (without forethought of ‘self’), the more love is made complete in us. To give all is to be whole (nothing broken; nothing missing). ►It’s not really love if we are holding out. Love knows nothing of partial commitments or reservation; and, it’s not fulfilling if it’s anything less!
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