Love is a gift given, never a reward for good behavior. If you were shown otherwise by your parents or others in life, who perhaps meant well but demonstrated love with strings attached, you already began walking along a path of striving for acceptance, approval, affection and belonging. It’s a path worn by heartbreak that leads to futility and frustration, sapping your joy with the never-enough syndrome.
The laws (commands) God gave to Moses were given to a people who had already convinced themselves God was a hard-to-please, distant deity who only loved with strings attached based on good behavior, causing them to fear the Lover of their souls. They didn’t know their tender-hearted Creator who desired for his children to encounter closeness and intimate connection with him. The Law wasn’t God’s choice, it was theirs by default because they believed a lie of distance and disapproval. Therefore, the Law became a sad reality for a long season of Israel’s existence. It was the gift of a Father who knew that once his children chose hiddenness, shame and fear, they would need some guardrails to protect them from utterly destroying their own lives through their wayward, independent choices.
Jesus came to draw us back into the awareness of our union with a safe and caring Father by including us in his death (dying to the distortion and lies of a distant Father) and in his resurrection (being brought to new life in our awareness of our union with the Trinity). This was all the Trinity’s choice and doing—their gift to bring genuine love back into the equation for all.
Jesus told us this inheritance of love, acceptance, approval and belonging was easy to receive. All we must do is be like a little child who simply runs into the awaiting arms of their Father. This, said Jesus, is what it means to enter into the Kingdom of heaven—the realm where blissful union with Father, Jesus and Holy Spirit is our continual reality.
When Jesus met an extremely rich young Jewish man who had walked along that well-worn path of striving in his well-intentioned attempts to perfectly adhere to the Law, he had deep compassion. In this man’s yearning for something more satisfying in his life, he approached Jesus, yet only knew how to ask a question familiar to the path he had been traveling on his entire life: “Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” While it may seem to us that Jesus could have simply told him to get off that path of ‘never-enough’ that was killing him, Jesus knows the depths of each heart and knew this man still had to walk that path a bit more to get to the end of his striving that had created a false independent self. Sometimes in his deep love for us, our Lord will allow us to exhaust ourselves to eventually become like a child, falling limp into his compassionate arms, done with the attempts to be good and finally allowing his precious life to flow through us.
This is why Jesus’ response to this man’s question was to sell everything he had and give it to the poor. Not because this was the magic formula allowing him to inherit eternal life, which is a gift given, but instead to bring him to the end of what he thought he could do for God to make himself right so he could enter into all that God had already included him in.
We don’t know the end of this man’s story, but this certainly wasn’t the end of God’s involvement in his life. Jesus said, “When I am lifted up (on the cross), I will draw all of humanity and every definition of judgement unto me.” (John 12:32, Mirror). This man was included in Jesus’ inexhaustible pursuit of all he included in his death and resurrection.
Jesus’ followers were convinced after this interaction with a rich, young ruler that no one could be saved (completely misunderstanding how Jesus, in his love for this man, was helping him). Jesus said, “With humans (in our own independent ways) this is impossible, but with God all things are possible!” (Matthew 19:26)
Let’s continue to enter into our inheritance of acceptance, approval and belonging, like little children who know they are loved. In this way, we get to enjoy the embrace of our tender Father with no strings attached! |
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