He knows you will do what it takes.
In some ways, it sounds like what Jesus expects from His followers is a lot. Some of the things He says, sound extreme. For example,
If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell. (Matthew 5:29-30)
When some hear this they are quick to say Jesus wasn’t being literal. There is speed to stop people maiming themselves because of their reading of this. There is, however, a very good reason why we already know that Jesus is not talking about spending the rest of your life with one eye and arm. We know because for Jesus it’s always been a Matter of the Heart.
At the start of His teaching He pronounced in line with the scripture of old that only those who are pure in heart see God. His whole encouragement about salt and light was about your identity at heart. His exposition on what people have heard is to bring it back to the heart of the situation. He knows full well that the heart of the Father was to have the hearts of the people returning to Him wholeheartedly.
He reasonably expected full devotion and commitment and wrote it into the fabric of creation especially in the design for relationships. We were designed to be at our best in the context of faithful relationships. A marker of devotion and faithfulness is that clinical capacity to do what it takes for the best in that relationship.
This is something many of us are familiar with anyway. Without committing ourselves to God, we are very familiar with doing what it takes to get what we desire in our hearts. People will call in sick to work to make it to an occasion they desperately want to attend. People will get heavily into debt to pursue their ambitions. People will steal, gamble, cry, abuse and all sorts to gain what they desire. All of these things started in the heart. That drive to do what it takes started right there.
The same is applied to relationships. Couples can attest to a stage in the development of the relationship when they would do anything for the other person and suffered from heartache and loss without the other. It was as though their whole world revolved around the other. It was more than a feeling, it was a deep matter of the heart. They would do anything for love. As long as that intent was evident, the relationship appeared stable.
The sinful condition of man, however, has also provoked a desire greater than the love another and that is the love for self. So at times, anything that appeals to that desire for self-gratification is entertained. The culture says there’s nothing wrong with it. There’s nothing wrong with whatever it is that you entertain in your mind and then dwell on, as long as you don’t act on it.
Yet this is pure mischief making, for it is clear once you have entertained that notion sufficiently in your mind the foundation is established. Even if you never get to act it out, that first love for the other that you had has been tainted. It is no longer a pure love.
The thing about impure love is that it leaves both parties in that state. There’s no stability, there’s little trust, things are tested almost moment by moment to see ‘how nice’ the other is feeling. From a fruitful, blossoming, wholesome and enriching experience of the ultimate in relationships, many have settled for something far less, which in itself is a tragedy. All because each part of the relationship did not do what it took to cultivate that faithfulness.
The wreckage is evident all around society. Flimsy, hollow and broken marriages because a wondering eye and more than casual touch brought to reality what had been long entertained in the mind. Jesus knew that His followers could be examples of something far better.
Jesus knew that His disciples could hear the call to be pure in heart. He knew they could hear that call after acknowledging their poverty in spirit, their mourning in the light of that, their willingness to be subject to the leading of the loving Father and a new appetite to be and do the things the pleased Him. Jesus knew that once this identity was embedded in those following Him that rather than being angry, they would be merciful.
He also knew that in the light of this life the pursuit of faithfulness to God would express itself in being pleasing to Him by being faithful in other relationships especially to the one they would vow to be faithful to above all others. No matter how things had gone horribly wrong in the past and whatever shards of broken relationships had been left in the time before, in Christ there is still today.
In Christ there is still today to recognise that it all happens through belonging to the father. In Christ there is still today to acknowledge the ability to see His faithfulness and commitment to us. In Christ there is still today to see the manner of love the Father has given us to be called the children of God and with that reality purify ourselves even as He is pure.
That purification process is a matter of the heart. That purification will do what it takes not out of a sense of obligation, or under duress, or because it is a legal requirement. That purification will do what it takes out of a supernatural delight to be faithful.
(Photo by Shelby Deeter on Unsplash)
For His Name’s Sake
Shalom
C. L. J. Dryden
Life With CD 