I think that if we could see now all those to whom these words will be said, we would be shocked. Of even greater import however, is the fact that many who read these words are just those to whom they are spoken. Obviously, it is those who will come thus pleading to Jesus to be let into the kingdom of heaven — on the grounds of their good works — who will have no place in it. Let us take the Christ’s warning to heart. And what is this warning?
“You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me, yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life.”
Following the rules really is not hard, it’s all too easy. Too easy to check off items on a list, to meet expectations that we set for ourselves. And somehow we’ve imparted this way of thinking to our relationship with God. Do we do the same with our human relationships? How long does it take us to see that that could never be real — two persons who exist in one another’s lives merely to do tasks on a list; not to love each other, to lift one another up in kindness unasked for, to give mercy undeserved, to show grace where it is most needed: in the darkest and most hostile parts of the heart, where nothing good is, where no good is deserved. For that is grace, and to give it is to love; to have a relationship, to be together, unified. To be fully known, and fully loved, is the heart’s greatest desire. The gospel — the good news — is the news that the God of all the world, the God whom we have rejected time and time again through our choosing lesser things and smaller graces, this very God offers to fulfill this desire, fully and wholly as no imperfect being could do. As indeed no one ever would choose to do; I have not the strength to love you as Jesus has loved you; I am weak, and broken, and I am in need of the same love which does not fail or whither with age or the burden of loving one such as myself, one who makes such great and so frequent mistakes, one who does not love in return as he is loved. Only Jesus could love like that. And this Jesus, this tortured, rejected, beaten and ridiculed Jesus, He already has loved us in this way, He has proved it with His body broken and blood poured out. This is God; this is Love. And He wants to know you.
“For you will not delight in sacrifice, or I would give it; you will not be pleased with a burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.”
“If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.”
It has taken me years to even begin to understand this truth. That I could follow all the rules, and check all the boxes, and give every tenth, and pray every day, and read every day, and go to church twice a week, and listen to preachers and teachers from all over the country, and learn all that I could be taught and absorb into my brain. I could do it all, and still not know the one I thought I served. And if that’s the case, then all of it would do no good; if I never met Jesus, all the religion in the world would gain me nothing. I would be empty.
“For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world, and yet forfeit his soul?”
I cannot speak with great clarity to the condition of all humanity, but I know that for myself — and from what I can see from history the same has always been true, of all people — it is so much easier to live according to a rule; if I have direction, orders to follow, requirements to meet, I can meet the demand. But all too easily it becomes pedantic, not an act of love, not something that is done with joy, for the sake of someone else. It becomes something I do in order to prove myself, to earn my place and show that I am valuable. It becomes about me. And that is not the message of the gospel. God, who deserves everything, gave up everything for the sake of those who shunned Him, so that through His sacrifice, we all might know the riches of His glorious love. It was always about Him.
“We love because He first loved us.”
This was always true, and I’m finally coming to understand it. It isn’t easy, but it is the very best that could ever happen to me. I have struggled more in the last year than I ever have before. I’ve traveled, and felt terribly alone. I’ve found a home, and yet felt still more alone, in spite of the family that God had brought me to. I’ve fought again and again with my own mind, struggled to comprehend why I am the way that I am, and shed many tears over it. I feel imbalanced so much of the time. I’ve fought so hard against myself, to the point of believing that I have a disorder, because I simply don’t function the way that I ought. It has been extremely difficult for me. Yet through it all, through the tears, and the yelling at God, and asking Him why He made me as I am, I’ve begun to give up on meeting the expectation. Because never has it been so clear that doing so is utterly impossible. Somehow, knowing this, fighting through this, has brought me to know Jesus as I never did before. Maybe it’s very simple; maybe, since He suffered, I can only really understand Him if I suffer too. I don’t desire to — finally, I have stopped wishing harm on myself — and yet I accept it, and I grow from it. There is so much wrong with me, but that’s okay, because knowing that draws me to the one who is perfect, the one who knows no flaw, no weakness, no sin.
“But He said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.”
There’s a part of me that just wants to be told what to do. A large part of me, honestly. It’s taking some hard lessons for me to unlearn that, to understand that there is so much more to it, yet so much less. From the very beginning, God made humans to be like Him, to live in harmony with Him and all that He had made, to cultivate the land, to love one another, to govern in truth and joy, to enjoy every part of our existence, and to be thankful to Him for it all. We were made, simply, to live with God, and to love Him. He is worthy of it all, no one else is. It’s all too easy to look at the world around us and witness the catastrophe that happens when people are elevated to the status of God. It doesn’t work, because it was never intended to be that way. God is Lord, and we are only truly happy and healthy when we let Him have that place. When we simply love God above everything else, then everything else becomes better. Yet it isn’t about the rules. I live to please God because I love Him, but if I don’t love Him, I can never please Him.
I wanted to write about this because I think most of us have it wrong. I think most of us pursue proper performance, rather than seeking to know Jesus. The problem with that is that without knowing Him, we can’t perform well. But if we get to know Him first, we naturally begin doing what He wants of us — because He wants our hearts. And there is no greater gift we can give Him. Jesus just wants your heart.
I hope you pick up a Bible today, and I hope you read it with eyes open and heart searching for the story that it really tells: the story of Jesus, our Lord, who loves us. Get to know Him in those pages, and I promise you that your whole life will change. Because there is nothing, absolutely nothing, like knowing God.
— Joel