Matt's Muzings
Relationship is Condtional
To help you think, ponder and reflect on the human side of leadership
January, 2007 Volume 9, Issue 73
Would you trust a person’s description of the Mona Lisa who is blind in one eye and has a severe cataract in the other? I wouldn’t. They just can’t see clear enough. In the same way I can’t trust my own view of God as I am, for all practical purposes blind and at best can only distinguish light from dark.
Let me give you an example as we look at a couple of scriptures:
John 15: 14 "You are My friends, if you do what I command you.
Psalm 103:11-13 For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love for those who fear him; as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us. As a father has compassion on his children, so the Lord has compassion on those who fear him;
I do not know how many times I have read these scriptures, but when I did they always looked like conditional love on God’s part. He only loved certain people. The ‘if’ part or the ‘for those’ part stood out to me. There was a subtle undercurrent that seemed to undermine my foundations of a good God who loved everyone.
In this last couple of years I understand them in a whole new way.
The essence of what God is saying is simple this:
“God’s love is unconditional - Relationship is conditional”
God’s love for everyone is impartial and unconditional. That is without question. He loves everyone with a complete and full love. But the outworking of that in an intimate relationship is conditional.
Let me explain. Let’s say you wanted to have a relationship with me but wanted to treat me like a woman. At the risk of stating the obvious, I am not a woman and the relationship would not work because you are not treating me as I am. I am a 49 year old man. Unless you are willing to relate to me based on who I am, the relationship will never work. The condition of the relationship is that we related to each other out of the reality of who we are.
So it is with God. Unless we relate to Him as he is, God. i.e. - having all authority, (with our complete submission to him). He is strong (we are weak). He knows more than us… etc. If we want to treat him like someone who only cares about a few Sunday things, isn’t concerned with holiness or is not interested in the material world and the nations, then our relationship will be weak or nonexistent because that is not who He is.
Leaders deal with the very nature of reality. They don’t run from the facts and they work hard to embrace life as it is in it’s very nature. And at its core it begins that way with God. We discover who He says he is (not who we want him to be) and relate to him based on that as a starting point.
Family Matters:
Matt: I am looking forward to being with friends in Switzerland for a couple of weeks. Teaching, fires and cold weather. Oh, the joy of it all. Things are picking up here in Singapore so I am encouraged with that. It will be a good year. Thank you for your prayers.
Celia: I trust you have a wonderful start of 2007. We leave for Burtigny this Friday. Matt will teach in the APC and I will be in meetings for Children at Risk and Connexity2008. We appreciate your prayers for both of our purposes for this time to be effective and glorifying to the Lord.
Josh: His truck is acting up so he needs prayers to keep it running. It needs some brake work as well as the starter. Otherwise, he is doing well.
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