When people fall in love, whether instantly or slowly, it is always a response to other actions and events that came before.
It might be a response to our circumstances and needs. It could be a hungering and thirsting for a relationship to take us out of the problems of our life. Nothing wrong with this if it works out, but it’s a bit troubling if there isn’t something more to the forming relationship than meeting basic needs. That isn’t how bonding in love really works, but it also doesn’t have a chance if there isn’t something both are looking for.
Whoever decides to pour themselves into love, if it is real and sincere, begins to unilaterally change and improve their priorities and behavior. We see this all the time when someone begins to “clean up their act” because they have a new “love interest.”
Most relationships are not this intense (thankfully) and they operate more as cooperative arrangements (friendships) where there is a transactional give and take. Nothing wrong with this necessarily, unless it begins to creep into the soul-mate making kind of love.
My point is, true love cannot be conditional. It is a complete giving of the two to each other, and it is exclusive. It isn’t playing games.
Now if I were describing falling in love between human beings I would encourage both individuals to do the hard preliminary work to develop strong characters first because love that is treated as a simplistic romantic notion is doomed to fail.
But that is not the falling in love I am wanting to describe here. It’s actually deeper and more profound than that. Take a look at this statement by Paul in his letter to the church in Ephesus
Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church.
Ephesians 5:31-32 (ESV)
Do you understand?
Paul wasn’t talking about marriage.
He was using marriage to talk about God and how he loves people. The church is composed of people who have entered individually into a covenant relationship with God, like a marriage vow. We call them believers. This means that these particular people know something others might not yet understand. For this reason, permit me to explain to anyone who really doesn’t yet get it.
Please join me on a small excursion into an amazing mystery.
So far I have written three posts on the first three Beatitudes found in Matthew 5. We will get to number four in a moment.
Remember, I said that the information Jesus is providing is cumulative and is delivered in a particular order. This is like the twelve steps of recovery. They are in a particular order and cumulative as well. Both series of statements begin at the bottom and work as steps taking us up to a different perspective than the one we had standing on the bottom step. Both require time and reflection before moving to the next one.
Now, having said this, I am not saying they are both describing the same staircase.
But let’s look back on where Jesus began his remarks.
The first group he addressed were the poor in spirit. This is bottom. This is total defeat. There is nowhere to go from here but up.
The second group he addressed were those that mourn. These have a spirit but it’s a sad one. Coming up from bottom passes through a lot of regrets.
The third group were the meek. These have dried their tears and are quiet having come up from the bottom and passed through that river of tears.
At every step Jesus calls them “Blessed.” This is because they are loved by God. They have never been away from his love. They have never been a disappointment to him even though their actions were destructive to themselves and others.
At every step Jesus pronounced the to be blessed and highly favored.
For the poor in spirit he gives a spiritual gift – all of heaven.
For those who mourn he give them an emotional gift – comfort.
For those who are meek and willing to let God be God he gives a physical inheritance – the earth.
What else do we see in the first three Beatitudes?
Man is a mess and God never changes.
God always loves.
Man is always needy, but with God’s help he has the opportunity to improve.
Which brings us now to the fourth blessing.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.
Matthew 5:6 (ESV)
How would you describe the individual in this passage?
I see him or her as passionate and obsessed about living better, about doing the right thing.
Now what kind of person wants to unilaterally change like this?
The one who has fallen in love.
And what is God’s promise?
That this love growing in us for God, that is changing us into better people, will be found completely satisfying.
No regrets.