“Recently, I was talking with a group of church staff sharing how in our pursuit of God we can become so focused upon going upward toward God, our hearts directed in a heavenly, spiritual direction, that we fail to come down from the clouds to approach each other, here on earth, in loving and gracious ways. As the old gospel song says, we become so heavenly minded we are no earthly good. Even worse, we can become self-righteous and judgmental. In our spiritual pride we can hurt people.
“Anyway, in trying to share this idea, this image came to mind and I shared it off the cuff: "We become so focused upon heaven we get pulled higher and higher, so high in the clouds we freeze, so we fall to earth not as refreshing rain but as damaging hail."
I think that's a great way to think of the contrast between Jesus and the Pharisees in the gospels. Jesus fell upon the earth as a gentle rain, where the Pharisees, in their pursuit of spiritual/heavenly purity, fell upon people as damaging hail”” (Richard Beck*)
Beck’s comparison between Jesus and the Pharisees is right on target. For all of their well-intentioned efforts to draw near to God, many of these Jewish leaders shamelessly abused those around them. In Matthew 23, Jesus calls them out for using their pretentious “godliness” as a cloak to take advantage of others. The Lord pronounces woe after woe upon them for hurting others while claiming to be men of God.
Our pursuit of God should never lead us to be damaging to others. “If someone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for the one who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen. And this commandment we have from Him, that the one who loves God should love his brother also” (1 John 4:20–21). Let’s endeavor to rain that refreshes rather than hail that shreds.
God loves you!
Mike
*https://experimentaltheology.blogspot.com/2019/11/are-you-rain-or-hail.html
No comments:
Post a Comment