Responsibility in mutual relations
08.10.2009
Maria Semirenko, the regional pastor of New Life church
All know, that any mutual relations demand responsibility and certain investments in them. Certainly, you can be and superficial, not so qualitative in mutual relations. You can be not so devoted friend. But usually such relations do not last long.
Jesus bore sins all of us. He has been crucified on a cross. He has died for all of us. Jesus has made the impossible. If in the Old testament only few people could have relationships with God (there were the people separated By God for service to Him) Jesus has opened a veil by his death for mutual relations of God and the person.
Exodus 26:33:
“… also hang up a veil on hooks and bring there for a veil a revelation ark; and the veil will separate you a sanctuary from Sacred-sacred”.
During the Old Testament in tabernacle there was a veil for which the usual person could not come. He could not enter Sacred Sacred, could not have dialogue with God. The veil separated Sacred Sacred. In it there was an ark of Testimony.
Numbers 18:7:
“… and you and your sons with you observe your priesthood in all that belongs to an altar and that inside the curtain, and serve; you are given By Me priesthood service as a gift, and the stranger who has started, will be betrayed to death”.
Old Testament decisions limited relations of people with God because certain people have been separated by the Lord to serve Him and to come in Sacred the sacred. The God has given gift of service of priesthood to Aaron. Strangers could not be in this place because they would die. Dialogue with God belonged to individuals. To be in His presence could only the people separated for this purpose. The veil separated the person from God. The one who has not been intended for service to Him in Sacred sacred and came behind a veil, – died.
Mathew 27:51:
“And here, the veil in a temple was torn apart in two, from top to bottom; and the earth was shaken …”
When Jesus has died on a cross, in a temple of Jerusalem there was an earth and basis shock. The veil has been broken off, which separated Sacred sacred. If to tell more precisely – it is destroyed. It symbolised the new beginning in relations of God and the person. Through Jesus Christ blood which was the perfect victim, each person on belief could have now mutual relations with God. Jesus has opened to us dialogue possibility with God.
In the Old Testament the God tried to lead people to this dialogue. Once, in days of Moses, God has urged the Jewish people to be consecrated and come for Him on mountain Horiv for dialogue. Jews were consecrated, but, having approached to a mountain sole, were frightened. Atmosphere which reigned there has seemed to them too terrible: a thunder, lightnings, curled clouds, the earth was shaken. People have told Moses: “You speak to God, and then you will tell us about what He spoke to you. And we here will wait for you. We do not wish to die” (the Exodus 20:18-19).
The people not only were frightened of the physical death. People have understood that they will need to bear responsibility in these mutual relations. They were frightened of that they should bear responsibility for their mutual relations with God. They should come to God, they should listen to His Word, and they should bear responsibility for executing this Word.
Any mutual relations demand responsibility. To live in superficial contact with someone much easier. Such dialogue to what you do not oblige. This world does not want deep relations. People in the world are afraid of deep relations because it demands responsibility. That is why the civil marriage is so popular today: in these mutual relations there is no responsibility. Today you live with this woman, tomorrow with another, the day after tomorrow – with the third. As soon as something has strained you or there was a threat of infringement of your will – time, and has come off.
Jews told Moses: «… not to die». Certainly, they were afraid of physical death. But if to consider the Old Testament as a spiritual prophetical word we do a conclusion: they, really, did not wish to die and pay the price for mutual relations. Did not wish to die for them as any mutual relations demand certain death of the “I”. Jews said: «Moses, we put forward you. You will communicate with God, to all of us will transfer from Him; will bear responsibility not only for, but also for us». And Moses was as if between two fires, constantly received blows – that from the Lord from the people. Fortunately, Moses was the meekest person on the earth.
Presently both in the world and among Christians in church EGOISM prospers. All is directed to me: to “me”, “mine”, “I will not be”, “I do not want”, “make it the first”, “and the Word Divine says, that you should arrive so…”. Everyone waits for humility from another, but he does not wish to show it. Nobody wishes to yield first.
Jesus wishes relations with us. He wishes the deep, sincere, devoted and true relations with us. Because he is such one– true, sincere, devoted, betrayed one. Jesus has redeemed us from death. But also He has opened for any person possibility of mutual relations with the God-father.
Jesus promises: “… coming to Me I will not expel” (the Gospel from John 6:37).
It is promise for us. In what we now stayed, coming to Him Jesus does not expel. Jesus is always ready to listen to us. But also God demands from us certain responsibility in our relations with Him.
Mathew 10:38-39:
“… and who does not take the cross and follows Me, that is not worthy Me. Saved up his soul will lose it; and lost his soul for the sake of Me will save up it”.
Jews did not wish to pay the price in mutual relations with God!
Often and we do not wish to pay today the price to have and support mutual relations with God, Jesus and Holy Spirit. Sometimes we allow the soul to be lazy, nothing putting in mutual relations. It concerns not only relations with God. It concerns also relations with the husband or the wife. But for some reason always we wish to shake much from these relations. You know, that the God can’t be scolded. That the person sows, he will reap. If we put nothing in mutual relations with God, we cannot demand from Him the big investments during our life: “Give, the Lord, direct, bless!“ Put. In many respects responsibility for mutual relations with God lays on us. If we do not wish to strain the soul, the “I” in construction of mutual relations – we will lose these mutual relations!
In mutual relations is a lot of making on which we should work, but we will consider three main things.
1. To support love. Any mutual relations (if they apply on present and sincere) demand participation in them of heart.
It is not pleasant to Jesus, when our heart does not participate in mutual relations with Him.
Mathew 15:8:
“… these people honor me with the lips, but their hearts are far from Me”.
We always identify a word “heart” with love. Jesus said in this verse, that people worship Him, honor His certain ceremonies, give tithe, observe Saturday, serve Him etc. But their heart thus is far from Jesus.
It is possible to do much for the God and church, but to be far from Him. It is possible to visit meetings, prayers, but all the same to be far from Him. We should check, where our heart. We should check, whether it loves Lord how it loved yesterday.
Sometimes you look someone's album with photos and understand, that in this family there is a love to each other. As such tenderness blows from these photos: children who nestle on parents; the husband who gently embraces the wife. Usually it is obvious, isn't that so? But there are married couples which live by inertia, executing a conjugal duty: the husband earns money, the wife cooks food, contains the house, children go to school. In their life you do not see love, heat and the care, any trembling under the relation the friend to the friend. They are together, but they live far from each other. They live nearby, but do not belong each other. They are connected by a habitual way of life. The passion has left.
People are inclined to make such diagnosis more often: the love has passed, there was a force of a habit. But in our mutual relations with God, in our families so should not be.
And why has the love left? Because someone has ceased to support it, to heat. To support love is responsibility in mutual relations.
Revelation 2:3-4:
“… you transferred much and have patience, and for My name worked and were not exhausted. But I have against you that you have left your first love”.
Jesus estimates Efessky church: “You are the good fellow, you have much made, but you have left the first love”. And further the Lord speaks: “If you do not repent, I shift your fixture”.
That it will be more valuable to you: the person by whom something does for you because of love, – or the one who does something for you from a debt, in the line of duty?
People who sincerely love, – disinterested persons. They make feats, they make nonsenses because of love, not demanding anything in exchange. Recollect yourself as you loved Lord Jesus Christ. For the sake of this feeling which was in your heart, you were ready to go to village to work there as the pastor, or to Africa to go as the missionary. And now we turn to “elder son” from a parable about the prodigal son. The elder son did for the father much, but could not understand fatherly heart in relation to the younger brother who has chiseled a manor and has come back home. The elder son worked because of a debt, expecting the award. And when he has not received – murmured and has condemned. That is why Christians can live in condemnation someone, than in the petition for this person. The love has left – there was a religion.
The God loves us, but He also wants that we loved Him. I believe that a victim, pleasant for Him, is by which we do because of love to Him. Not because so it is necessary, not because so say, that is why, that we have mutual relations with Him – mutual relations of love. And for the sake of these mutual relations we are ready on all.
Why the God says, that obedience is better, rather than a victim? Because obedience because of love does the person capable to make a victim, thus not thinking about consequences and costs.
Check up your heart. Whether you love Jesus? Whether you worry trembling of what you are filled with pleasure, gratitude to Him? You serve the God owing to a habit or because love Him? When you lift to Him hands on glorification – that you worry? If your heart is silent – it’s time to take responsibility that heats love, to give new signal to start.
It's not responsibility of God. He said: ”…with an eternal love I have loved you and consequently have drawn you with loving kindness” (Jer.31:3). This love does not cease and does not come to an end. It is unconditional. It should not be earned. It should be accepted and believed.
But we, people, extremely are not constant. Our feelings can fluctuate from different conditions and circumstances. The God knows it. He knows that we cannot accumulate this love without Him. Therefore He speaks: “Coming to Me I will not expel”. If you have lost love to the God – relations with Him will stop sooner or later: the prayer, Bible reading, service will be burden, the sight at things becomes too critical, there will be a grumble, then revolt, then recreancy from belief. The second consequence of loss of love is a religion: a Christian life on a habit. Neither that, nor another does not suit Jesus. He has died to have mutual relations with you.
Force of a habit can operate the year, three, five, ten years. But sooner or later such married couples disperse.
To Romans 11:36:
“For all from Him, by Him and to Him”.
The God is love. The Holy Spirit can light it again in your heart. But for this purpose you need to start to do something.
Many of you read the book “Five languages of love”. There it says about marriage in which already there is no love. The author of the book writes that it is necessary to fill a vessel of love of each partner. At the husband, for example, love language – time which with it is spent by the wife, at the wife, for example, – gifts. My language of love are gifts. And if my husband does not give me gifts, I will have an impression, that he does not love me. My vessel of love will be empty, and I cannot give him love in the answer. In relation to it I too should fill a love vessel, doing any things. These are investments.
How you think, what language of love at the God? I think that it is words. If your heart became cold in relation to the Lord start to worship Him and to speak gratitude words. Recollect the brightest and smallest details in your life when the God has helped you, has consoled you, has filled need. The vessel of the God will be filled to answer you With the Love and to give vent to it through a touch of Holy Spirit. And your heart will revive. It will start to feel the God, to worry warmth and trembling in relation to Him. Never leave the heart in a cold condition. To the God such relations are not pleasing. They never will last long.
The love to Jesus needs to be supported in our hearts. It is the basic cementing structure of any mutual relations.
2. To support sincerity.
Antonym of a word sincerity – hypocrisy. The God hates hypocrisy.
What you will feel, if the person approaches to you and will praise highly you, but you know, that the third day he spoke about you mucks and lay about you. It also is hypocrisy. Jesus worries the same feelings when the person in relations with Him is not sincere and is not fair.
Psalm 17:25-27:
“To me the Lord under my truth, on my cleanliness before His eyes also has rendered. With merciful You arrive graciously, with the husband sincere – sincerely, with pure – is pure, and with crafty – on his slyness”.
Hypocrisy – the enemy of any mutual relations. It will kill them.
Hypocrisy is insincerity, duplicity, pretence, slyness, falsity.
Do not hide from the God anything because to hide from Him something it is simply impossible. How you will hide the thoughts if He knew you in a womb of mother from the God? How it is possible to hide the thoughts from the God if He sees our heart? How it is possible to hide the sin from the God if He knows even what you only are going to say? We – the open book for Him. How it is possible to hide something from the God if He is ubiquitous, all-knowing? It is not necessary to hide anything from the God because when you try to hide from Him something, the God perceives it as insincerity. It will wound. You will wound, when the loved one is not sincere with you? You will wound, when the person who lives with you ten years, suddenly starts to say lies to you? Certainly, you worry a pain and isolation. Jesus worries the same. When we give Him the promise behind promise to serve and we do not do it when we say, that we love, and actually it only words, or we say in a secret room, that He is our God, and in conversation with people at all we do not mention Him, we come to church, as sacred, and at home we behave, as lawbreakers, – the Lord feels rejected by us. Because this is hypocrisy.
Do not speak: “the God loves me. He understands me”. The God loves, but also He waits for responsibility in ours with Him relations. He expects, that we will grow in these mutual relations, to change.
Study to say to the God everything, that you feel and worry. If it is anger – means, anger. Hatred – means, hatred. If it is disappointment – means, disappointment. If the insult – means, insult. And it is unimportant, on whom – even if you have taken offence at the God! To feel all it – not a sin. The sin with it not to understand and live with it. If you are sincere with Him He will arrive with you as with the sincere person: will help to understand a situation, will cure soul, and will give guidance as you to arrive.
Last year I had such situation in my mutual relations with the Lord. At me these warm mutual relations with Him as with the Daddy, as with the Friend have left. I did not understand, why it has occurred. My mutual relations with God became businesslike: the God has said – I have done, the God has not said – I did nothing. As I spoke, if you have once gone through warmth of mutual relations with God, you will be never satisfied by that you have if this warmth leaves your life. I did not understand, why it occurs in my life, but I precisely knew, that a problem not in the God. I have come to the God and have said: “The Lord, everything, that I can have, are business relations with You. My heart is hardened and closed for You. It is closed to accept from You love or to give You love, but I can do for You everything, that You will tell me, doing simply because it is necessary”. I have asked Holy Spirit about the help because if It does not move – will change nothing. I asked to result Him my heart in norm, in those relations which at me were with God. I prayed thus two or three months. I asked, that the Holy Spirit has shown, in what a problem why my heart is hardened. And once after service one brother has approached to me and told only one phrase: “The Holy Spirit starts to move in your life”. This movement also has begun. It was imperceptible. There was no neither a thunder, nor a lightning, falling from force of the Holy Spirit. The God began to open to me why my heart is hardened and why at me with Him only business relations. I repented, have confessed before Him. But I continued to remain sincere with God. And I said: “Even now I am not capable to restore these relations which we had. If You help me, the Lord that love which I had to You, will return to my heart”. And God has started to restore and cure that has occurred to me. These relations of the Daddy and a daughter, the relation of friends were restored.
If you are in such condition if your life was left by warmth in relations – be sincere with God. Come to Him and say: “Here I, here my heart, and today I am in such condition. Make something”. Ask that the Holy Spirit moved in your heart and made work necessary for your heart that you have changed.
God is sincere with us: He has pledged us the Word which says to us fairly that expects us if we do something defined or to live definitely. He has hidden from us some things, but I think that only for the blessing to us that our brains “have not begun to boil”.
The God has opened to us Himself in completeness in the Bible, and we cannot say that we do not know our Lord. He is sincere with us therefore we should heat sincere relations with Him.
He wants that we also were sincere and are fair with Him. He will appreciate these mutual relations even more. His trust to you will increase. Crafty in the thoughts it is impossible to rely on the person and it is impossible to trust.
The God has told to Abraham: “… go before Me and be pure”. The innocent life here means, but also a word “is pure” designates “is fair”. And further the God says, that will conclude with Him a covenant and rather will multiply Him. Sincerity has the person to you. It also will arrange to you of the God. Honesty in mutual relations with God will bring to you His good position.
The gospel from Luke 18:10-14:
“Two persons have entered into a temple to pray: one Pharisee, and another tax collector. The Pharisee, stood up, prayed in himself so: My God! I thank You, that I am not that, as other people, robbers, offenders, fornicators, or as this tax collector: I fast two times a week, I give the tenth part from everything, that I get. Tax collector, standing in the distance, is not dared even to lift eyes on the sky; but, striking himself in a breast, spoke: My God! Be mercy to me to the sinner! I affect to you, that this has gone justified home, rather than that: for any, ennobling himself, he will be humiliated, and humiliating will tower”.
Watch that at you in heart. If there there is no former warmth – you need to do investments in relations with God that they were fair, opened, deep. Such with what they, maybe, once were.
3. The third aspect in mutual relations is a fidelity.
Marrying, people devote themselves and their lives to each other. They promise to keep fidelity to each other, and to do it at various times: both in good, and in the difficult. They conclude a marriage covenant.
Once we have told God: “Yes”. And He has concluded with us a covenant. Each of us confessed Jesus His Savior and the Lord and also promised to serve Him as kind of conscience. The God expects from us fidelity to these words. Fidelity that He for us remains for all life the God, the Founder, the Lord, the Friend, the Instructor, the loving Father.
James 4:5:
“… Or you think, that in vain speaks the Writing:« to jealousy loves the spirit living in us”.
Who from you would want, that your wife or the husband have appeared to be infidel to you? Nobody. Anybody from you will not want to divide the husband or the wife with someone else. Infidelity brings a pain and a torture in hearts of people. Infidelity gives rise to isolation and destroys the unions.
The God loves us to jealousy for one simple reason: He has redeemed us with His blood, we belong to Him.
Fidelity is reliability, a constancy, fidelity, adherence to each other. In the Bible it is told, that the God is true. It is not told anywhere that the God today is such, and tomorrow is another. And if you look at the life will see His fidelity which He repeatedly proved you. The God put fidelity in these mutual relations. When you asked Him about something, He was true to fill it. When you prayed about something, He was true to answer you. In the same way and we should support fidelity in mutual relations with the Lord. You are constant, betrayed to the God? Or we are betrayed to Him only when all in a life well when the God fills our needs and answers our questions? And if there is an unforeseen?
In the world there are a lot of wives who are true to the husbands only when those have enough money. Or husbands are true to the wives only when the wife is young and beautiful. But when the wife grows stout, when she has wrinkles, and around runs three children – fidelity of husbands sometimes comes to an end. Really our fidelity to the spouse depends on certain factors?
The God is true in relation to us constantly, therefore and we should support fidelity in relation to Him constantly.
In the book of prophet Hosea there is very passionate 2nd chapter. The God convicts Israel of infidelity, reproaches with betrayal, adultery. He also does as the husband in relation to the wife. All chapter is impregnated by a regret, anger – but at the same time hope and love.
Hosea 2:5:
“… I will follow my lovers who give me bread and water, a wool and flax, fur-trees and drinks”.
When it became bad to Israel, when somewhere something did not suffice, it always evaded from the Lord. He always searched ways, either food, or a harvest in other places. In a following verse it is told: “But you did not know, that I gave you all it”. Read this chapter – and you will be shaken by that scale of feelings which are shown by the God, reproaching Israel for betrayal. It expresses anger, speaks with bitterness, but simultaneously and with passionate love.
Hosea 2:14:
“Therefore here, and I will carry away her, I will result her in desert, and I will speak to her heart”.
The God addresses today to our heart. He so wants, that our hearts belonged to Him that they did not look at other idols, did not look at other gods.
The basis for fidelity is the love. But also fidelity is based on memory and gratitude.
The God very often says a word “remember” : “Remember, how I have deduced you from Egypt … Remember, how I conducted you … Remember My covenants … Remember, how many you irritated Me, and I pardoned you … Remember eternally a covenant Wash …” etc.
If your fidelity fluctuates today, recollect everything that the God has made for you. Recollect, how He surrounded you with love as He has deduced you from a difficult situation, has cured your children. If you walk on ways of your memory – you will make decision to remain true to the Lord.
The God speaks to our hearts that our mutual relations with Him have not fallen into decay. Says, that they are precious for Him, that He would wish to open even more to us, to become closer, more native for us, to show the love.
Remember everything that the God has made for you and remain grateful in the heart. It will allow you to be true to Him at any time.
