Backing Off

Therefore when the Lord knew that the Pharisees had heard that Jesus was making and baptizing more ..., He left... and went away.... (John 4:1-3)

One of the most liberating and yet frightening things about God that I have learned in the past few years is the fact that God never, ever uses force or compulsion to get people to come to Him. God is not interested at all in others having a relationship with Him based on any force or coercion because that eliminates the ability to have a love relationship in the heart. God only wants love to be the basis of all relationships and without that the relationship will be based on something less than faith that works by love; and whatever is not of faith is sin. (Romans 14:23 WEB)

As evidenced in the above verse, Jesus did not stay and impose Himself onto the Pharisees to get them to change their minds about Him and His motives. When it became clear that they might make a big deal out of Jesus' rising popularity in comparison that of John the Baptist, instead of trying to explain His actions or even reason with them, Jesus simply withdrew from the growing tension and went to the far end of the country. God always led Jesus around by His Spirit and there were plenty of other things for Him to do and people to minister to that were far more effective at that time than to waste His efforts with religious people stuck in their own stubborn, righteous pride.

However, this does not imply in the slightest that Jesus loved the Pharisees less than others. The most amazing thing about Jesus is His constant and never-wavering love for everyone no matter how they feel about Him. And while He had to relate to different people in different ways because of their attitudes and perceptions, everything He did and said was calculated to induce the greatest possible attraction to Himself and toward His Father. Whether they chose to respond to that attraction positively or to put up greater resistance to His revelation of love was a choice completely up to them. But for Jesus' part He never had one thought of resentment or bitterness for the way He was misrepresented or maligned. He simply went straight forward loving every single individual as much as was possible.

Sometimes this meant that He had to withdraw from their presence so that His love would not create undue discomfort because of their stubborn resistance to truth. Instead of using confrontation He chose to give them their space. And what was the truth that created so much resentment in some hearts? It was the truth about how God treats sinners and relates to them. This truth about God was the most volatile revelation in the life of Jesus that in turn produced the most hostility and anger in religious people more than anything else. And it still has the very same effect today whenever it becomes evident.

This is one reason why it is so easy to misunderstand God's love. God has a real dilemma on His hands. His heart yearns to bond with us in love, and yet God has to protect us from Himself in order to continue to attract us to Him without overwhelming or frightening us away. For real love is so powerful, so intense and so easily misunderstood that if one believes lies about the motives of the lover, the result can often be just the opposite of the desires of the one who is so loving. So in order for a deceived person to be allowed the time and space to possibly change their perceptions and perspective about the one who desires to love them it is necessary to veil most of the love and only allow them to see a little bit until they begin to warm up to the real truth about the heart of the one seeking their affections.

Continued resistance to love means that the one who is trying to love has to keep withdrawn, has to keep at a great distance and if this goes on too long the heart that is resisting becomes so entrenched in lies about the other person that it eventually becomes impossible to change its opinions at all. This is the end condition of all who will be lost. It is not some arbitrary decision on God's part whether we are saved or lost based on our performance or our righteousness, it is simply a natural outworking of the decisions that we make each day as to how we are going to relate to the revealed love and invitations of the greatest Lover of all seeking to change our minds and heart about Him.

And this brings me back to the frightening part of this whole thing. It is so easy to take advantage of that kind of love, to rely on unconditional forgiveness so much that I indulge in sin which causes deeper damage to my own ability to respond to love. Sometimes I actually wish God would use force to draw me into His love, but the reality is that force and love are completely incompatible; to use one is to exterminate the other.

Thus, in my own experience and pursuit of knowing God I find it too easy to exploit His love and to take it for granted. Not that He will ever withdraw it from me, that part needs to be taken much more for granted. But just because His love is never-changing and His forgiveness is unconditional does not mean that it will continue to have the same saving potential to transform me if I resist its softening influence deep inside of me. If I choose over and over to disobey the principles of reality and love as revealed to me by the Creator of love Himself, then I end up destroying my own ability bit by bit to be transformed by that love and will cause Him to have to withdraw from me just as Jesus did at times with those who resisted His love when He was here on earth.

Growing up in a religious atmosphere where force and intimidation were simply assumed to be part of religion, it is still very difficult for me to assimilate or appreciate the ways of God in this area yet today. My mental wiring is so accustomed to resorting to force whenever I believe it is necessary that I find it downright baffling whenever I observe others using quite different methods to deal with tense situations. Even in trying to change my own attitudes and behaviors I am accustomed to resorting to force, insults and even intimidation of my own heart based on fear to get myself to change. But I am learning that whether coercion comes from others or from myself it is still never part of God's ways of dealing with the heart. These are reflective of old misconceptions about God that still lurk all over my internal emotional makeup. But God never changes and God's ways are always the ways of love.

He will however, use warnings and appeals and anything possible within the realm of truth and awareness of consequences to get my attention to the dangers of resisting real love. But He simply cannot utilize the common methods of mingling force with attractions like we so often take for granted in our ways of dealing with each other. God's ways are not our ways and love has far more than enough power and resources inherently to overcome in the long run without changing its fundamental essence and practices.

The real problem is always our perceptions about God, never His attitudes and feelings about us. It is never God's mind or heart that needs to be changed in the slightest when there is tension between us, it is always the subtle and deeply ingrained lies still resident in our hearts that need to be exposed and exchanged for the real truth about Him. When we come to more completely appreciate His ways and His heart, it will become easier for us to respond to His love with hearts eager to obey even when it doesn't make sense to our heads. It is God's plan to win us heart-first for it is with the heart that we must believe if we are to enter into a vital relationship with the Source of our salvation.

Father, I find it all too easy to take advantage of You. You are so polite it frightens me at times. You respect my choices to take advantage of You and to push away Your circle of protection to some extent. You let me plunge into indulging my sinful desires without forcing me to stop and You are always ready to accept me back in a moment. But what happens during those escapades is that my heart is reignited with old lies about You that make me believe You reduce Your love for me when that happens. The condemnation I feel seems to come from You even though Your word says otherwise. Then my internal picture of how You feel about me is once again seriously distorted and I have to re-travel the path back into the truth about You that I have been over repeatedly.

It is far too easy to do this again and again. Sometimes I wish You would stop me from going down that road again, but then I realize that Your respect for my freedom to choose is crucial to my long-term trust in You if we are to bond properly and effectively. The more I see how You relate to me with respect and freedom the more in awe I am of Your love. But I still have far too little appreciation or understanding of this.

Please open my eyes and my heart to see myself as You see me. I know I am terribly blind to my own condition even if others around me can see some of it much easier. Send Your Spirit to soften me, to alert me, to warn me and to win my heart and affections to Your heart. Thank-you so much for Your patience and long-suffering with me. Keep showing me more of Your heart and Your ways and Your face.