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Jesus enters with us into a kind of marriage relationship, and our earthly marriages are comparable to this spiritual union with Christ. This is why it's so essential for believers to try to salvage and work through problems in our marriages. We usually enter into matrimony wide-eyed, dreamy and full of hopes for the future. We gaze at each other and see mirrored in each other's eyes mutual wonder and admiration, but sooner or later we are faced with a dilemma – the faults and foibles that we have hidden so well inevitably become visible to our mate. Nobody likes to see what we like to keep hidden reflected in the eyes of a loved one, especially when s/he keeps bringing it up, exposing it to the light of scrutiny. Whatever happened to that gaga, blissful, you-can-do-no-wrong ideal of the honeymoon? In the harsh light of marriage, we are laid bare in the Petri dish of life, and our self-centered attitudes and childishness become evident. How do we behave in the nasty now-and-now of daily matrimonial humdrum, such as when we have to take out the garbage, clean up someone else's mess, take care of kids when we'd rather be doing something else, etc. etc. Many people these days want to walk away from their marriage when things just get too tough or irksome. Yet these are the very floodlights the Father chooses to expose the sin in our soul.
And, similar to a marriage relationship is our first encounter with the living Christ. We look into each other's eyes, as it were, and see reflected passionate, adoring love. As time goes on, however, we become aware that Jesus can see the perversion of our hearts, and we don't like that! We try to hide or even run away from his all-seeing gaze. We may become so uncomfortable with our soul's perversions being made bare and brought to the surface that we 'divorce' Him, rather than acknowledge that by Jesus exposing our hearts is the only way He can heal us. Remember He is revealing to heal us!
And the Lord is relentless in bringing our sin to the surface (please remember anything that is not of faith is sin). It's like a band-aid covering a wound. When it's time to remove the band-aid, Jesus doesn't pamper us by gently lifting the edge, asking permission to continue: "Oh, is that too uncomfortable? Okay – we'll try again another day". Instead, he rips that band-aid off, regardless of our howls of protest! Marriage is not supposed to be for hurting, but for healing…but first we have to learn to work through the hurting before we can access the healing. If both partners are willing, a marriage relationship is the perfect crucible for the Father of our spirit to be able to demolish, tear down, pluck up and uproot all that is contrary to Whose we are.
Rich
You can read the first part over here.
If you doubt that the world sees Christians primarily as users, just take a poll among non-Christians about what they find unattractive about Christian churches. The most often stated dislike I have found is along the lines of, “All they want is your money,” or, “They just want you to work for them.” Our inability to relate in healthy, caring ways has produced a powerfully negative testimony for our Lord before the world. We may fool ourselves about what we are about in relationships, but the truth is quite clear to the world.
Our user mentality is not much different from the world’s approach to relations. This is probably why our motivations are so transparent to the world. This mentality does not arise from our wickedness, but from the baggage we bring with us from the world into Christianity. We first learned how to relate in the flesh. The flesh is hopelessly self-centered, so it is natural that we start out with a user mentality in relationship. Once we are born-again, we must be retaught by our Father about how to have healthy, loving, and giving relationships. God desires to teach us, but if the lesson is to be effective, we must be willing to receive the teaching.
Without a proper understanding of our true relationship with God, we cannot maintain healthy motivation. We are doing for ourselves when we attempt to do works for God that are not motivated by obedience. It is self-centered to do anything that is motivated by our desire to work our way into God’s favor. When we become consumed in this way to accomplish a particular task, we use each other.
We need to do such an examination to get rid of our misconceptions about the relationships we have and what relationships we should have. By our physical nature, we are limited as to the number of deep relationships we can have at any given time. We need to stop feeling we are relational failures if we are not deeply involved with every person passing through our life. It is important to see that relationship is another surrender issue. We can only have healthy relationship with the people with whom God would have us have relationship. This surrender must include every aspect of our relationships. This includes not only who, but also the kind of relationship, the duration the Father wants, and the depth that God wants.
The issue of relationship is important not only for the deepening of our ability to love each other, but for the deepening of our relationship with God, our Father. It is with God that our schooling about relationship really begins. If we attempt to get our primary relational understanding from men, we will only learn to relate like men do. We must first have a relationship with God before we have any hope of having relationships with one another. As we grow throughout our lives, our relationships with each other grow as our relationship with God grows. It is only from God, the original giver that we can have receive the resource by which we can have giving relationships.
After all, the only love that can flow unrestricted and unconditionally from us must first flow into us in this same way from God.
Rich
One of the expressions of His spirit that continues to chaff, rub me is found in the heart cry of one of our brother’s, Paul, his imploring our Father to open the eyes of our hearts, to SEE!
I want to share a glimpse of what my heavenly Papa is doing, this is a email from my precious daughter who was back home with us for a brief time before starting back into her University schedule.
“What a joy it was to be home, what a sad day to return to reality!
This time was special. It seems as though you two have cleared acres and acres of mental and spiritual space in yourselves and it permeates the space of your house, and it is wonderful to be in. So wonderful, a long-held childhood wish come true. Things aren't supposed to work out so wonderfully.
Money means nothing to me (well, a little bit) but family means EVERYTHING.
With all my heart,
your daughter.”
Out of my death, dying to all that would try to keep me a prisoner to my past failures, that which is in my now moments of focusing on what I think I am seeing, He bids me to come, but come where?
In sharing with my wife this morning as she was getting ready for work, we were discussing recent events with our children, and I was doing what I do best, thinking out loud. As I was unfolding what came to me, I sensed Papa interrupting my line of thinking, the nerve eh?
It was as if he was saying, “You think that is a wild imagination you have regarding your children, well get ready to be blown out of the Water, you haven’t seen anything yet, you are being taught to live in and on the wild side of things, and that is where I live.”
In sharing this morning with my wonderful friend and Brother Dave, these thoughts came to me as I was sharing them with him, realizing he in fact, Papa might just be saying this to Rich.
“I am beginning to believe it is in the spirit realm where our true identity abides in Him through our spirit union, He brings us to see the Truth verses what we think is real about Him, us and those around us, and I also believe in this realm of living that Papa is wanting us to accept this as the norm, this is where we will be instructed of His will, purposes etc. for our lives as well as those he wants to reveal Himself to.
I know this sounds way out there and it is to our soulish thinking, but He has invited us into His world, and as the eyes of our heart are opened more and more, what he has prepared for us is no longer seen as wild thinking, but knowing what He says IS fully possible.”
Rich
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