Some of the people I love and care for most dearly in this world do not know Jesus. They know things vicariously ABOUT him; but they have never met him, and they do not know the joy and the love and the hope and the LIFE that is found IN him.
There comes a point in any discussion about the things of spirituality that the two parties no longer see eye to eye. It's a fundamental dislocation in the way each sees the world, perceives reality.
Sometimes this tension explodes into antagonism; other times it just simmers as mutual frustration. The frustration is often most acutely felt in a friendship of mutual affection.
I was talking with a dear friend tonight.
He concluded that at the end of it, his decision about Jesus came down to not only the evidence, but his gut instinct. And his gut told him, 'No. This is not true'.
I felt something inside me shift, almost violently. Something reacting against what he had just said, much like the feeling you get when you smell the odour or see the traces or imprints of something. Something bad that has been meddling in the place that you are observing.
And it reminded me of something I was reading last night. About how the fundamental disconnect, or hostility, between those who know Jesus and those who don't, is more than a matter of mere morality; the real cause lies deeper.
'There are two spirits abroad in the earth: the spirit that works in the children of disobedience and the Spirit of God. These two can never be reconciled in time or in eternity. The spirit that dwells in the once-born is forever opposed to the Spirit that inhabits the heart of the twice-born.'
(Tozer, A.W. 'Man: The Dwelling Place of God', p. 14)
When my dear, dear friend's gut told him that the promises of Jesus were not true, I felt in my spirit the resounding recognition that he had been lied to by the deceiver. I've always been really wary of over-spiritualising things, but more and more these days, I think God has been answering my prayers to 'Open my eyes to the things unseen'. Increasingly, things like this make sense of my everyday interactions with people:
As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature objects of wrath.
(Ephesians 2.1-3)
This breaks my heart.
There is no other way to say it.
My friend asked, indignantly, how one could suggest that otherwise good people who don't subscribe to a particular understanding of deity are evil and condemned. And after a discussion about what constituted 'goodness', and where the line dividing good and evil lay, I said that it IS unfair. It is SCANDALOUS that ANYONE should escape the condemnation of God's just wrath. And that is what is so scandalous about grace; none of us deserve redemption. But God, rich in mercy, and abounding in love, chooses to lavish it on some.
I do not enjoy the reality that some people that I think are beautiful will not abide in Jesus for eternity. I hate it. I tears my heart in two. I write this with tears. People who have been saved by Jesus do not, or ought not, to consider themselves superior to those who do not know Jesus yet. The whole point is that it isn't ABOUT them and what they have done in this life. They can't work their way to God's Kingdom. The only path to safety is via the bloodied planks on which the Prince of Glory died.
A friend messaged me at 2 in the morning today, agonised. She desperately wants Jesus to just come and reconcile all things to Himself now. But she also desperately wants him to continue to be patient and merciful in holding out salvation to those who are yet to seek Him. And her heart was torn, her chest aching, and her head swimming and unable to sleep, from holding both in tension with one another.
Oh Lord Jesus. Please reclaim the hearts of this generation.
Show yourself to them as real, and the most worthy of their adoration.
No comments:
Post a Comment