We shall not care what people think of us, or how they treat us. We shall cease to be afraid of falling out of favor. We shall love our fellow men without thought of whether they love us.Christ gave us the commandment to love others but did not make it a condition of salvation that they should love us. Indeed, we may positively be disliked for independence of spirit. It is essential in these days to be able to protect ourselves from the influence of those with whom we come in contact. Otherwise we risk losing both faith and prayer.
Let the whole world dismiss us as unworthy of attention, trust or respect—it will not matter provided that the Lord accept us. And vice versa: it will profit us nothing if the whole world thinks well of us and sings our praises, if the Lord declines to abide with us. This is only a fragment of the freedom Christ meant when He said, “Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free” (John 8.32).
Our sole care will be to continue in the word of Christ, to become His disciples and cease to be servants of sin.
"...to protect ourselves from the influence of those with whom we come in contact..." Self-protection is a new concept for me, as a psychological necessity. I did not know it had a spiritual context as well. I am more accumstomed to reading about self-sacrifice, and now I am wondering if self-sacrifice is sometimes misunderstood or abused. Of course, we cannot sacrifice our beliefs and integrity, our dedication to prayer, only to win the acceptance of others by drowning ourselves in their dysfunction. It is painful not to be loved in return, but I am learning that the pain is reduced or even eliminated if I abide in Christ. For myself, the more I have faith and confidence in the teachings of Christ, the more I feel I have a "right" to follow Christ and the less I feel obligated to drown myself in another's worldview just to prove that I love them, the more liberated I am to recognize and receive the love of Christ and to love others without being loved in return.
ReplyDeleteIt's a good quote. In a Christian sense, "to protect ourselves from the influence of those with whom we come in contact" doesn't mean to surround ourselves with people who make us comfortable, but to guard ourselves from evil influence of others. I think it also means we guard against letting others dictate our agenda, unless those others are people whom the Lord has placed in authority over us. Some people--including those who appear to be zealous for the Lord--will use manipulation and shame and flattery and lies to turn us into their slaves instead of the Lord's slaves, if we allow them to do so. Both the Lord Jesus and the Apostle Paul had to go against the will of people who tried to protect them from the Lord's will.
ReplyDeleteAunt Melanie, and Brother Jim, yes, and amen, to what both of you have written. In a way, you are both saying many of the same things in a different way.
ReplyDeleteGuarding ourselves against letting others dictate our agenda, yes. This is often a perilous and subtle warfare, carried on often by 'men of the cloth,' people whom we should trust in the Lord because of their position or authority in the Church, who are, however, in various degrees, unfaithful shepherds of our souls and poor stewards of God's mysteries.
We fear to hold back from heeding them, because we fear we might be rebelling against God's anointed, and they take advantage of that fear, sometimes consciously, sometimes unknowingly, unaware that they are doing wrong.
Again, thank you, for expanding what the elder is speaking to us here by the fruit of your own experience.