Pastor Yeang Cherng shared at our last leaders' meeting a question which I am sure would have crossed the minds of many in our church. One of my friends who joined our church in the last year framed the issue nicely: Why is it that even though we meet at least once a week in church, that we do not get as close to each other as we would with other friends outside of church? The question was simple but cut straight to the heart. In his sharing, Pastor Yeang Cherng compared how the differences between the role of the family and that of the friend affected the way we related to our friends and our family. Friends are formed based on common grounds - it can be hobbies, interests, lifestyles, age group - and are often to our choosing. Family is given to us. We had no choice, but because of the commitment and responsibility that we have towards each other in the family, the environment is stable and secure and we grow as a result.
Our relationship with Jesus is, in fact, based on similar concepts. Jesus calls us His sons and daughters because before we even knew him, before we were born, He made a deliberate decision to die for our sins. As Eph 1:4-8 says,
For He chose us in Him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in His sight. In love He predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will— to the praise of his glorious grace, which He has freely given us in the One He loves. In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God's grace that He lavished on us with all wisdom and understanding.
He did not even have an emotional bond with us and was not even be able to have shared experiences with us since we did not even exist then. But He chose to redeem us still, regardless of how we responded to Him. For Him, commitment came first. Getting to know us and for us to know Him would come later.
He shows he expects the same of us too. We might first be drawn to Him because He understood what we went through, because He delivered us from difficult circumstances or simply because we are 'wowed' by His work on the cross. But He tells us in the bible that we would only be considered His friends if we do what He commands. Sounds absurd to associate friendship with obedience eh? But that is what it says in John 15:14,
"You are my friends if you do what I command."
God wants to test our commitment to Him. It is like the way we test to see if friends are worth keeping, in the effort they put in to keep in contact especially if the common grounds are lost. God does it by testing our obedience, because our response to that test would show Him if we trusted Him and believed that He will fulfill His promises and has our best interest at heart.
Christianity has always been different from all other religions in the sense that being part of a Christian community is one of our key principles. We meet each week in church because we have a common belief in God. Very often, we would not know many people well enough before we enter church and interests, hobbies, things which would bind others together in the secular context take a back seat as we focus on activities that is meant to stimulate our spiritual growth or church/tribe events. Is closeness sacrificed as a result? I would think it sometimes is. But does the lack of feeling mean that there is a lack of love? Perhaps love is better felt in actions than in feeling, in commitment rather than common grounds. Maybe the question to ask is whether we have been the friends that Jesus has called us to be - committed, tested and centred on the development of the other.
karen :)
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