It’s Complicated
The complexities of faith. We google and search trying to find answers to our faith. We look up the Hebrew and Greek translations studying the context of the time trying to make sense of it all. We listen to the voices from the pulpit and the ones who are deemed authorities on all things Scripture related and write their words in permanent ink on our hearts. Others walk away from faith completely. It’s too hard to understand, makes absolutely no sense, or, we’ve deemed it all crazy. Whatever the case may be for you, we sure have made this whole faith thing complex.
“What made sense to me when I first heard about Jesus is how He doesn’t give us a bunch of directions intended to manipulate our behavior or control our conduct. Instead, He has beautiful hopes for us and has told us what those are, but He isn’t scowling at us when we’re not yet ready to have those same hopes for ourselves. He won’t love us more or less based on how we act, and He’s not stuck telling us what to do, when to do it, or what we want either. Far better, He continues to tell us through our successes and our mistakes who we are, and here’s what He wants us to know-we are His.” Bob Goff
I got a text from a friend the other day. It was the anniversary of a loved one’s death. She was trying to reconcile this person’s faith. He said he believed in God but his faith really stopped there. She was asking us to help her make peace with whether or not he was in Heaven. Since I am not in Heaven myself and cannot give her absolute certainty, here is what I told her. It’s a matter of his heart. We are going to more surprised by who is not in Heaven than who makes it there. The outward actions of our faith carry far less weight than the truths of our hearts.
We get so concerned with and wrapped up in our actions; what people can see that we lose sight of Jesus. The rules matter more than the relationship. Being right according to our faith carries more authority than loving our neighborhood. We exhaust ourselves from trying to do it right all the time when Jesus is asking us to let Him carry the weight of our burdens. Our hearts are what matter; are what’s on the line. Yet, instead of exercising our hearts, we are facilitating our rightness.
Jesus isn’t complicated and that scares us. He doesn’t keep a record of wrongs. He doesn’t roll out His list of rules we must follow. He loves. That’s it. And it’s that love that propels others to change.
Reckless love like that of Jesus scares the heck out of us. When people choose to follow Jesus this way, their faith is questioned.
How can you just love? It’s our job to keep people on the right track.
No, no it isn’t.
How can you love that person? Your job is to hold them accountable.
No, no it isn’t.
How can you love that person? Their lifestyle completely opposes the church.
I can love because of Jesus. We forget that Jesus was there when we were created; when life first began. He knows our ins, outs, and in-betweens. He knows we need time to come to terms with what He sees in us. I know this because I can look at every single person in the Bible and see how each of them needed time to fully accept and step into the person God was calling them to be.
God called Moses to leadership but Moses told God he wasn’t a leader.
God called Sarah into motherhood and she told God she was too old.
God called David to be king but he was the scrawny kid.
God called Mary to be the mother of the Savior yet she was a unwed teen.
God called Peter to be the rock on which the church would be built but he would betray Jesus.
God called Saul to bring the saving message of the Gospels to the Gentiles, yet he killed Christians.
I can go on and on listing others who were not what God called them to be. They could not see this person in themselves. Yet, there was something in Jesus, that extravagant love, that led them to those callings. That same love resides in you and me and those people you shun.
We like rules. We like structure. It makes us feel safe. It gives us a script when everything is so unknown. It makes us feel like we are in control. What I am finding, however, is that the rules are like chains on my soul. They are too complex and I end up living in fear instead of freedom. Fear that I will fail at the next turn because there is absolutely no way I can live out all these regulations. I was never meant to live this way that’s why it feels like a prison.
Jesus’ love scared the Pharisees of His time and it scares us today. Because there are no limits to His love, we steer away from it and head towards our rules. They feel safer than His limitless love.
God’s love is reckless and risky and so very freeing. It allows space for mess-ups and mistakes. His love gives rise to what we are to become and in that becoming, He desires for us to know Him in the deepest parts of our souls. God’s love is simple in a world that is so complex. You no longer behave because you are terrified of breaking one of the rules. You start to live righteously because of Love. You make good and pure choices because of Love. You serve others out of Love not obligation. You are free because of Love.
Love isn’t a bunch of rules. Love is Jesus wholly and purely present in your life. Go break the rules today and love.
“Let me give you a new command: Love one another. In the same way I loved you, you love one another. This is how everyone will recognize that you are my disciples—when they see the love you have for each other.” John 13:35
Love & Blessings,
Meg