Following does not mean that we are to try to imitate [Christ's] characteristics. No, it’s something both simpler and easier, deeper and better than that. It means that, as we companion with Him daily, these same traits will appear in us… Your part is opening up, and keeping open, listening and loving and obeying… With us character is a result of choice… the result of a fight to keep to the choice decided upon. — S.D. Gordon, Quiet Talks on Following the Christ
Earlier this week I was thinking about how, in my early life, I would struggle and struggle to be perfect, resolving anew every night to never do anything wrong again. The resolution was born of fear: I thought if I were perfect my father would love me and not get angry and hit me. Day after day I failed, almost immediately.
I don’t believe God wants a fearful obedience, following the law to the letter to avoid dire consequences. Jesus tells us that all the “thou shalt nots” of the ten commandments are summed up in two great commandments: love God with all your being, and love your neighbor as yourself. Where’s the fear in that?
All we need to do is choose God’s love over our own cowardly, petty ways. To use the vernacular, “Well, duh!” It’s a no brainer — but in the heat of day-to-day life it’s so easy to stray. Isn’t it wonderful that God lovingly reels us back to Him, if we let Him?
I had been trying to come up with how to phrase this gift of grace, when I happened to read the passage above. It said exactly what I wanted to say, so eloquently, and I read it at just the right time. Coincidence? I don’t think so!
I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you through the laying on of my hands. For God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, of love and of self-discipline. — 2 Timothy 1:6-7
Someone once told me that, in our fearfulness, we tend to see the Commandments as an angry God swinging a hammer and giving us all these impossible rules by which we must obey, or else. He told me that, instead, we should view the Commandments as promises. In which case the emphasis would be, “Thou SHALL not…” In a relationship with God, the promise is that we shall not, or, we shall, rather than the rule being, we had better not.