Relationship, Not Rules or Rewards

Yesterday I ran across an interesting set of verses in Jeremiah 44:15-18 NIV:

[15] "Then all the men who knew that their wives were burning incense to other gods, along with all the women who were present---a large assembly---and all the people living in Lower and Upper Egypt, said to Jeremiah, [16] “We will not listen to the message you have spoken to us in the name of the Lord! [17] We will certainly do everything we said we would: We will burn incense to the Queen of Heaven and will pour out drink offerings to her just as we and our ancestors, our kings and our officials did in the towns of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem. At that time we had plenty of food and were well off and suffered no harm. [18] But ever since we stopped burning incense to the Queen of Heaven and pouring out drink offerings to her, we have had nothing and have been perishing by sword and famine."

When I read these verses I immediately thought of the somewhat popular prosperity Gospel, for this is the same logic, applied in the negative.  We are so tempted to want to think about our faith in lines of what we get, rather than as relationship, and I know the enemy works overtime to keep us thinking this way.  

In this case, the people had tried following God's ways by stopping their worship of other gods, specifically the queen of heaven, and because bad things happened afterwards they decided that it didn't pay to follow God.  How many of us have been tempted to think this exact way?  How many of us have walked away from our faith, or known someone who walked away from their faith because of bad things that happened, to them or to loved ones?  This story represents that mindset.

While many of us wouldn't say we ascribe to the prosperity gospel, this mindset is often practiced and alive in our lives even though we don't know it.  For example, it can show up when we question the faith or righteousness of ourselves or others when they have a bad experience or get really sick.  When my wife was diagnosed with cancer, there were many that couldn't figure out why, as she hadn't any obvious sin in her life!  I know in my life when things aren't going my way, I tend to start thinking about what I might have done to earn this punishment.  This is exactly the same thinking.  Quite simply, we think good behavior ought to earn us good things.  Bad behavior (sin) ought to earn us punishment.  

This type of thinking comes from the old testament,  and represents God's revelation at that time, follow God's ways and He will bless you, sin and he will punish you.  While this was a clear teaching, God continued to bring further revelation, that of Christ Jesus.  Much of the previous revelation was essentially setting the stage for the Messiah.  Man is incapable of perfect righteousness, no matter how many times we are warned or repent, we always seem to fall back into sin.  The whole of the history of Scripture from Exodus through Malachi is basically a record of God calling the people to follow His ways, calling them back to repentance, and the people failing.  

The Good News is that Jesus accomplished for us what we were incapable of doing on our own, righteousness. He came not just to pay for our sins, and bring forgiveness, but also to allow us to be restored to relationship with the Father!  Jesus took away the requirement to do stuff (follow the law) to achieve righteousness, and instead invited us into relationship, so now our salvation comes from knowing Him and accepting His offered salvation.  What is required is surrender into Him, nothing else.  We struggle with this thinking, with this idea, with this reality, because we think somehow it isn't fair and it doesn't make sense to those of us that keep score.  Deep down we feel like we must earn God's love, and being given it freely, just doesn't make sense.  The Good News is that it really is True!, regardless of whether it makes sense or not.

In fact, what we are invited to is pretty significantly different than the prosperity gospel.  Jesus doesn't promise good stuff, in fact its pretty much the opposite.  He says to be His follows we must take up our cross and follow Him (Matt 10:38), we must love others as He loved us (John 13:34).   He invites us to enter into a deeply unselfish, loving relationship with Him and others.  We are invited to eternal life with Him, and in doing so we join ourselves to what He is doing on the earth.  While some of it is grand and glorious (healings, miracles, signs and wonders), some of it is sacrificial, in laying down our lives for others.  Just as in any healthy marriage relationship, we aren't in them to get things, we are in them because we love the other, and sometimes that love requires us to sacrifice our own agendas, needs, and wants for the sake of the other.

Jesus calls us to relationship, and too often we want to keep things impersonal and just keep score, as we like the mode instituted by the Law.  This plays out in many of our lives and our churches where we put in our time on Sunday, and think that we have done our Christian "duty"!  Once free of that task, we go on to live out the rest of the week as if God doesn't exist.  We think that somehow our going to church will count, or being nice will be sufficient.  We think that if we do enough good things, that we will somehow make it to heaven, and this just isn't the Gospel of Christ at all!  God is not after our actions or attendance, He is after our hearts!

My encouragement today is to review my life and root out and repent of anything that looks like this old way of thinking.  I am encouraged to look at my life, to see where I am keeping score, whether with God or with others, for healthy relationships are not about tasks, or check marks, they are about growing in love, and intimacy. I am encouraged to look at my life and see if any of the mindset expressed in the verses in Jeremiah exists in me, where I just think that following God's ways isn't worth it!  

Lord, thank You for the wonderful gift of salvation, freely given, even though I don't deserve it and could never earn it!  Thank You for loving me while I was still a sinner, and still loving me in spite of my sinfulness.  Thank You for the invitation to relationship!  Thank You for meeting me daily, and blessing me with relational intimacy! You are who and what I desire! 

Amen and Amen!