The beauty of our life with God

When we commit to follow Jesus, we are invited into the life shared by the Trinity. Their fellowship and love is the space where we grow and are transformed to look like Jesus. 

Much of the evangelical tradition has centered on individualism. You will find people who claim that they can follow Jesus without going to church. They insist that they are the church by themselves. People will state that their personal relationship with Jesus is the only thing that matters. And, to a small extent, they are right. There are solid reasons people take breaks from attending church. Perhaps their health necessitates it. Perhaps they have suffered abuse at the church and are unable to stomach the church building. We do, in fact, personally have a relationship with God. But that is not the full story. It’s like zooming in the story of God to the tiny speck that is us and insisting that tiny speck is the point. 

If we are welcomed into the fellowship and love of the Trinity, every other believer is welcomed into the fellowship and love of the Trinity. That means we live in the same love. We share that same life of God. We share life. We are alive together by the will of Father, the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, and the ongoing work of the Spirit. Our lives are unmistakably intertwined. Two passages of Scripture will allow us to look at this idea. 

1 John

This week I finished translating 1 John from Greek to English. It’s a poor translation to be sure, but it was excellent practice for my developing skills. 1 John is one of my favorite books of the New Testament. In this work, John tells his fellow believers that “those who say ‘I love God,’ but hate their brothers or sisters, are liars; for those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen. The commandment we have from him is this: those who love God must love their brothers and sisters also” (1). The beginning of the next chapter (remember the chapter divisions were added later) reminds us that “we know we love the children of God when we love God and obey his commandments” (2). Interestingly this is phrased the opposite of the rest of the book where we are told that loving God means loving others. Our love for God and love for others is intertwined and inseparable. Our life with other believers is part of our life with God. We cannot toss other people out of our relationship with God.

1 Corinthians 12

Paul discusses this same theme in 1 Corinthians 12 when he describes believers as the literal body of Christ. He writes, “As it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose. If all were a single member, where would the body be? As it is, there are many members, yet one body. The eye cannot say to the hand, ‘I have no need of you” (3). I encourage you to go read the whole chapter. One of us, alone, is not the body of Christ. All of us, together, are. That makes life much richer, and more complicated, than it would be otherwise. We cannot toss people off because they are stinky feet or we’re not sure what purpose they serve, like a spleen. God has arranged us as we are. To be part of Jesus is to be part of the body. 

My guess is that we rarely sit down and meditate on the life of the Trinity (4). But if we are to understand the life that we have in Christ, that is a good starting point. Then we must realize that other believers share in that with us. What implications does that have for our life with others? What about when we consider that God is offering that life to unbelievers? God is beckoning them to come be part of God’s own fellowship and love. What does that truth mean for our lives with people who do not follow Jesus? 

May these questions linger in your minds all week as you work and rest and play, remembering that you share in the life of God. 

Always, 
Lisa

Links I Love: 
I made this on Tuesday and everyone raved over it. We even sprang for the homemade tortillas. 
A friend shared this gardening (really homesteading) YouTube channel. Do you have suggestions for similar channels or podcasts? 
This is guaranteed to make you laugh. 

Footnotes:
(1) 1 John 4:20-21 NRSV
(2) (5:2)
(3) 1 Cor 12: 18-21
(4) Delighting in the Trinity is a great, accessible book to aid in understanding God as a Trinity and why that matters. Because we talk about gender issues frequently here, I do want to point out that twice he tries to make comparisons about men and women and, while I admire his intent, I find his conclusions to be faulty. It's still a book that I recommend over and over.