The Heart of the Matter

There’s really no cute way to start this, no interesting way to capture your attention. This is just it. This is what I’ve been steamrolled with for the past four months. I can’t escape it, I can’t avoid it, I can’t live without it. God is real and He loves me.

Christianity isn’t a religion, it’s a relationship. Go ahead, pull out the t-shrt. We’ve all heard it before, we’ve probably said it numerous times, but it’s so profoundly true. To follow Jesus isn’t about submitting yourself to a religion, it’s about entering into a relationship. We say this though as if it were something that makes it easier to follow Jesus. Almost as if all we have to do is say that and “poof” we have a relationship with God and nothing has to change. It’s our answer for everything. “Why do you Christians do this, or don’t do that?” “Well it’s because it’s not a religion, it’s a relationship.” Booyah. Now who can I high five on my team? It seems that we’re so comfortable saying this, but do we really know what it means? Has it impacted the way our lives are lived?

There’s this rich young guy that has an encounter with Jesus. I can’t help but picture him as a Tom Brady-like character. You know, the kind of guy who seems to have everything and all you want to do is mess his really cool hair up and make some crack about his shoes. Maybe that’s just me. But in Mark chapter 10 this guy whom we all would assume has it all together runs up and…falls at the feet of Jesus. He doesn’t tug Jesus’ shirt and ask if he has a few minutes to spare, he doesn’t send him an e-mail, or say, “So, I have this friend who has this problem.” This man runs up to Jesus and he falls at his feet and he asks, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” Do you see what I see here? This is a guy that’s tired, worn out, broken, defeated. Whatever he’s been doing isn’t enough. We learn later that supposedly he’s been keeping the rules like a good Jewish rock star should his whole life, but its not working. In the words of Bono, “he still hasn’t found what he’s looking for.”

After asking him about his obedience to the rules, it says that Jesus looked at him and loved him and then told him to go sell everything he had, give it to the poor, and then to come follow him. This was basically Jesus telling this guy to put the commandments into practice. The two greatest commandments were to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself. This would have been demonstrated by giving what he had to the poor and then to go follow Jesus. Normally I would read this and be like, “Woah Jesus, settle down, can’t you tell that this guy is broken. Aren’t you being a little harsh?” That’s before I read Jesus’ command through what he says in verse 21. “Jesus looked at him and loved him.” What Jesus was doing was in no way harsh. He was offering him a way out. He was attempting to rescue him from religion.

He was trying to earn eternal life. Not live in it. Jesus would later say that eternal life is to know the Father. This was the most compassionate thing Jesus could do. Stop trying to earn it. Quit subscribing to a list of do’s and don’t’s, quit trying to present yourself as ok, quit following a set of rules, and…follow me.

The commandments that God gave to His people Israel were never meant to be just a set of rules that they were supposed to follow because God wanted them to. It was how they would actually be able to know God, how they would enter into a relationship with him. Read Deuteronomy 6:4-9, “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.”

These commandments should find there home in our hearts, not our minds. They are a way of life, a way of communication. Rob Bell points out that what is really going on here is God is entering into a marriage contract with His people. This is what is expected of you, and this is what you can expect of me.

His commandments are not meant to restrict or suffocate us. They are meant to guide us into life, the way it was meant to be. God says in Deuteronomy 30, “See, I set before you today life and prosperity, death and destruction.” He says later in the chapter, “Now choose life, so that you and your children may live and that you may love the Lord your God, listen to his voice, and hold fast to him. For the Lord is your life…” It almost seems as if God is pleading is chapter 5 of Deuteronomy, “Oh, that their hearts would be inclined to fear me and keep all my commands always, so that it might go well with them and their children forever.” God desires us to obey so that we can experience life abundantly, as Christ would put it, the way life was meant to be. Life filled with love, joy, peace, compassion, forgiveness, grace, and truth. God is real, and He loves me.

This is where obedience is born. What I do and what I don’t do is not just about me following the rules, but it’s about me communicating to God that I love Him, and that His way is right. My disobedience is betrayal. Let that word sink in. It’s not necessarily God’s rules that are broken, but it’s His heart.

Think about it. We find the resurrected Jesus standing with Peter on a beach only a few days after Peter has denied Jesus three times. What is the question Jesus asks Peter? It’s not, “Are you sorry?”, or “How are you going to fix this, make this right?” He asks, “Do you love me?” And that’s always the question we are presented with. Do we love God?

Why do I say all of this? I think its because we miss out on so much, everything really, when our faith is nothing more than a bunch of stuff we know. 1 Corinthians 8:1-3 says, “We know that we all possess knowledge. Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up. The man who thinks he knows something does not yet know as he ought to know. But the man who loves God is known by God.” What we… know? What can we know about a God that has no limits? You finish right where you started with Him, infinitely behind. But we can love Him. We can be in a relationship with Him.

So right now. Stop. Be devastated by the fact that there is a God and that He loves you. Right now He fills up the space in the room you are sitting in. He is there. He is in the air you just breathed. He holds you together. Be quiet. Listen. He’s there. Right now. Acts 17 says that in Him we live and move and have our being. God is real, and He loves you.