There's Only One Checkbox

Some of the scariest passages of scripture for me to read are found in Matthew chapter 7. Here is how the Message translation puts it:

“Knowing the correct password—saying ‘Master, Master,’ for instance—isn’t going to get you anywhere with me. What is required is serious obedience—doing what my Father wills. I can see it now—at the Final Judgment thousands strutting up to me and saying, ‘Master, we preached the Message, we bashed the demons, our super-spiritual projects had everyone talking.’ And do you know what I am going to say? ‘You missed the boat. All you did was use me to make yourselves important. You don’t impress me one bit. You’re out of here.’ -Matthew 7:21-23

Wow! Can you even imagine?

I think what makes these passages so scary for me is that I see this playing out in our world every day and in our churches every Sunday. 

I was born and raised in the south, except for one 18 month stint in Connecticut when I was three...but we don’t talk about that. In the south, church is what you do on Sundays. You get up, get dressed, and go to church with your family. You sit in church, listen to the preacher, nod your head at the appropriate times (and maybe even shout out “Amen” a few times depending on what denomination you are in), and then go home to get ready for your real life to start back on Monday morning...you know, your Monday through Saturday life. 

In the south, we make sure that people know that we are Christians by going to church on Sundays, wearing that WWJD bracelet, putting that ichthus sticker on the back of our car, or simply telling them so whenever we have the opportunity. Is that what Jesus commanded us to do? Was He sent here to provide us the checklist that we need to check off each day to punch our ticket to heaven? I think not. 

These passages from Matthew 7 remind me of social media today. We scroll through and look at all the images of our “friends” seemingly perfect lives. We ooh and ahh over their amazing vacation pictures. We see how well they are doing with their new healthy eating and exercise habits. We like and comment on their new houses and new cars. We think to ourselves, “Wow, what amazing lives they live.” Sometimes we even wish and pray for lives more like theirs. But do we really know them? Would you say that you had a relationship with each of the social media “friends” whose lives you have oohed and aahed over in the past? I know I wouldn’t.

God didn’t send Jesus to earth for us to ooh and aah over. He didn’t send His one and only Son to die a horrible death on our behalf so that we could show up to a church building on Sunday mornings, nod our heads at the right times, and then go live our real lives the rest of the week. Our faith should not look like or be treated the same way as our social media feed. We shouldn’t feel pressured to look or sound the part when we go to church on Sundays knowing that this representation of ourselves is not the authentic one. There is no “good enough.” There is not a list of boxes to check. There is one box, and that box is love. 

For those of you that have experienced real love, you know that you cannot force someone to love you. There is not a list of boxes to check off to guarantee that someone will love you. You can’t fake it til’ you make it when it comes to real love. Eventually, the real you will rise to the surface, and once the other person realizes that you have been deceiving them, it could be game over. Real love is a product of time. Time builds real relationships, and you can’t have real love without first having a real relationship. 

This is why God sent Jesus to earth, to model what real love looks like. And it started with relationships. Jesus didn’t show up, call His disciples, and then go about His merry way once they agreed to follow Him. He stayed with them and built real relationships with them. He showed them what it looks like to have a real relationship with God our Father. He lived it out in everything that He did. We were created to be a reflection of Christ, which means that we were created to be in relationship with God all the time, not just on Sunday mornings. 

Real love relationships are about more than just putting on a good show for the outside world. People that are in real love relationships are not in it strictly because of what they can get out of it. People that are in real love relationships don’t settle for being good enough for the other person. People that are in real love relationships aren’t in it to have a warm, fuzzy feeling all the time. If you have ever experienced real love, you know that it’s not always about you and what you want. When you are experiencing real love, you desire to be the best version of yourself that you can be for your significant other. If you have ever experienced real love, you know that those warm, fuzzy feelings come and go like a toddler’s tantrums...sometimes they are fleeting, and sometimes they last so long that you think that you might burst. 

We have talked about Psalm 23 a lot lately, and today, I want to challenge you to see Psalm 23 in a new light. You see, I think that this Psalm is a beautiful description of what it is like to experience real love. Read this Psalm again and consider it, not from the perspective of your relationship with God, but your relationship with your significant other instead, or your kids, best friends, or close family members...anyone that you feel you have a real loving relationship with. 

The Lord is my shepherd;

    I have all that I need.

2 

He lets me rest in green meadows;

    He leads me beside peaceful streams.

3 

    He renews my strength.

He guides me along right paths,

    bringing honor to his name.

4 

Even when I walk

    through the darkest valley,[a]

I will not be afraid,

    for you are close beside me.

Your rod and your staff

    protect and comfort me.

5 

You prepare a feast for me

    in the presence of my enemies.

You honor me by anointing my head with oil.

    My cup overflows with blessings.

6 

Surely your goodness and unfailing love will pursue me

    all the days of my life,

and I will live in the house of the Lord

    Forever.

Isn’t that beautiful? Real love provides all that we need. Our love for one another provides space for us to rest and brings peace. When we truly love each other, we strengthen each other, guide each other, and honor each other. When times get hard, real love is our courage, protection, and comfort. We exalt the ones that we really love in the face of their critics rather than joining in, which provides incredible blessing for them. When we truly love someone, we never stop pursuing them because real love is intentional and takes work. All of these things are true about our relationships with the people in our lives that we truly love, and our relationship with God as well. 

A real relationship with God takes work. We must pursue Him every day, just like He pursues us every day. We have to be intentional about building a relationship with Him. It’s not about what we can get out of it. It’s not about being good enough for it. And we definitely won’t experience that warm, fuzzy feeling all the time. There will be hard times. There will be dark times. There will be times when we don’t have the strength or desire to keep fighting for it. Those are the times when we have to trust that, like any other real love relationship, God is going to be there to pick up the slack until His love has time to renew and restore us into wholeness again. I promise you that it will.