I love you if…
I love you if you keep me happy and healthy.
I love you if you keep me wealthy.
I love you if you give me what I want.
I love you.
If.
The worst word you can add to 3 words that need no additive. Throw that “if” in there and you’ve thrown a wrench into the machine. Did you hear the vinyl scratch? So, my question is, why are we/I so comfortable saying it to God? I can already hear the cynics, “well God has requirements too ya know?” To which I reply, “He’s GOD!” You wouldn’t be here without him, that’s not a challenge that’s just fact. How does your body know what you need to stay alive? How do find the food every single day to stay alive in the first place? And how does your body digest this food everyday so that you can repeat the process? You know me, I’m the bubble burster, you were created; that wasn’t coincidence.
Alas, we love him if. We want to love the Lord, the God of all creation on our terms. You’re not alone, we all do it I certainly have and do and that’s precisely why I’m writing about it. You don’t have to say it, you show it. The same way your spouse knows the difference between whether you really do love them or not, they can tell, I don’t need a spouse to know that. It’s the same way anyone would know, it’s almost always obvious and if it’s not they are either a great liar or you’re in denial. I’m saying this because, we’ve made it acceptable. We (and yes, don’t forget I do mean myself) so want to justify it more often than not so we start to re-write our own rules and then somehow it becomes ethical and moral and Jesus is nowhere in sight.
The wake up call is the cross and the man that hung on it, for you and I. He didn’t say I love you if… He didn’t give us commandments so that we feel bullied and prodded at like cattle, perhaps it had something to do with what’s beneficial for us and Him. You were made for his Glory, he made you AND he died for you. But you love him - if. I love him - if. I love him if he lets me cuss. If he lets me get drunk. If he lets me have sex from time to time. If he lets me slander and gossip. If he lets me be lazy and not do work for his Kingdom. If he lets me disobey him - that’s what we are saying.
Being a christian isn’t about how much we can bend the rules and what we can get away with while still trying to be in the good graces of God, it’s about being as much like Jesus Christ as we possibly can. It’s just, I love you.
