THE LONG ROAD HOME

THE LONG ROAD HOME

The long road from religion to relationship is one we all must travel if we desire to meet Him, if we desire to know Him, if we desire to walk in step with His Spirit. This journey was never intended to be about the do’s and don’ts of religious regulations.

A good earthly father lays out boundaries for his son or daughter not so he can weigh the outcome of their performance to see if they are worthy of his love. On the contrary, it is because of his love for them that he lays out those boundaries. He does so with the hope of guiding and protecting them from undue harm. He does so in order that they might discern truth from falsehood, and so they may find their way in life. Love is the birth-place of the boundary. And if love is its origin, would it not be reasonable that its intended destination is love?

If this is true about an imperfectly loving father, how can we think differently about the One who Is perfect love? Perfect love created us for relational intimacy with Him and with each other. He loved us into existence, even knowing that we would fall away and reject Him. The proof that we are loved and accepted is in the very reality that we exist at all.

He loves us as we are, and yet loves us enough to not leave us as we are. The transcendence from the carnal to the spiritual has never been about performance in order to gain acceptance. This yoke is man-made and "luciferian" in source and inspiration. Its origin is derived from jealous hatred, with the intent to separate us through fear from the love that calls us back to Himself.

But someone might ask, what about the Ten Commandments? Isn’t the Bible replete with rules and regulations? To any such inquirer I say, open your eyes and mind to see and understand the reason for the written boundaries. They are there as a mirror that we may see the error of our own prideful way. They are there as a lamp unto our feet to show us where we are standing, and a light unto our path to show us the way home. They are there to bring awareness to the fact that we were never intended to walk alone.  They are there to point us to the One who IS the Way the Truth and the Life without whom nothing can be. This is what He meant when He told the religious leader, and by proxy each one of us, that we must be born again. Nicodemus, you must receive my Spirit because without Him you are not truly alive. 

Let us receive His love and forgiveness. Let us stop trying to perform in order to be accepted, and start living in the acceptance of His love, and in obedient surrender because of the love we have for Him.  The why of what we do, is always more important in His eyes than what we actually do, because He has always been after our heart’s acceptance, and dare I say permission, that He may bring into completion who He created us to be.