With: Reimagining the Way You Relate to God

by Skye Jethani

And the crescendo of history in Revelation celebrates the reunion of God and humanity: “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God.”

Fulfilling God’s desire to be with us is why Jesus went to the cross. He did not die merely to inaugurate a mission (LIFE FOR GOD) or to give us a second chance at life (LIFE FROM GOD). He did not endure the horrors of the cross just to demonstrate a principle of love for others to emulate (LIFE OVER GOD) or to appease divine wrath (LIFE UNDER GOD). While each of these may be rooted in truth and affirmed by Scripture, it is only when we grasp God’s unyielding desire to be with us that we begin to see the ultimate purpose of the cross. It is more than a vehicle to rescue us from death; it transports us into the arms of Life. The cross is how we acquire our treasure. It is how we find unity with God.

The treasure we have in heaven is also something very much available to us now. We can and should draw on it as needed, for it is nothing less than God himself and the wonderful society of his kingdom even now interwoven in my life. Even now we “have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to countless angels, and to the assembled church of those born earlier and now claimed in the heavens; and to God who discerns all, to the completed spirits of righteous people, and to Jesus the mediator of a new agreement” (Hebrews 12:22–24). This is not by-and-by, but now. What is most valuable for any human being, without regard to an afterlife, is to be a part of this marvelous reality, God’s kingdom now. Eternity is now ongoing. I am now leading a life that will last forever.

While Jesus certainly prayed vocally both in private and public, these utterances did not encompass the fullness of his relationship with his Father. A fuller reading of the Gospels shows that Jesus lived in constant communion with the Father even when no words were used. This fuller understanding of prayer is often perplexing to those who have only known prayer as communication. For example, in the 1980s Dan Rather interviewed Mother Teresa. The CBS anchor asked her, “When you pray, what do you say to God?” “I don’t say anything,” she replied. “I listen.” “Okay,” Rather said, taking another shot at it. “When God speaks to you, then, what does he say?” “He doesn’t say anything. He listens.” Rather didn’t know how to continue. He was baffled. “And if you don’t understand that,” Mother Teresa added, “I can’t explain it to you.”22 This communion view of prayer is what Paul meant when he commanded Christians to “pray without ceasing.”23 Paul was calling us to live as Jesus did—in constant connection

This call to dwell or abide is an ongoing state of being, not an invitation to chat once in a while. We are invited to live in ongoing communion with God, and this is made possible through the presence of his Spirit who is with us.

Thomas Kelly wrote about this kind of life in his simple but profound classic, A Testament of Devotion. He described it as “simultaneity”—the ability to be engaged with two things at the same time: There is a way of ordering our mental life on more than one level at once. On one level we may be thinking, discussing, seeing, calculating, meeting all the demands of external affairs. But deep within, behind the scenes, at a profounder level, we may also be in prayer and adoration, song and worship and a gentle receptiveness to divine breathings. The secular world of today values and cultivates only the first level believing this is where the real business of mankind is done . . . But we know that the deep level of prayer is the most important thing in the world. It is at this deep level that the real business of life is determined.26 This certainly describes how Jesus lived. While attending to his good work of touching, teaching, healing, and helping, he was in ongoing communion with his Father

Times of solitude and stillness were sought and planned for, but they did not contain or constrict his communion with the Father. Instead they were times when life on two levels could be condensed to one.

John was the youngest of Jesus’ apostles—likely just a teenager at the time of his calling. And when John came to the twilight of his long life, he wrote down the message that had transformed him. “This is the message we have heard from [Jesus]. . . that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.”3 Jesus carried to earth the message of God’s complete goodness toward us. God can be trusted. And this message of his goodwill toward us is confirmed by the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross.

Case in point, a few years ago I taught a class at my church about the Sermon on the Mount. On the first day, after reading the sermon aloud together, I asked the thirty adults in the class a simple question: “Do you think Jesus was serious? Do you believe he actually expects us to live the way described in this sermon?” With a show of hands, nearly everyone voted no. They did not think Jesus was serious. “Why not?” I asked. “It’s just not possible to live that way,” said one woman. “No one can really love his enemy or give that generously. Jesus was exaggerating to make a point.”

“It’s unrealistic,” another man said. “This world is going to walk all over someone who lives like that.” The comments continued along these lines for the remainder of the hour. Words like unrealistic, impossible, and foolish were frequently used to describe Jesus’ teaching. The class generally believed that anyone trying to live as Jesus taught would either be miserable because of their failure to do it, or as stupid as the sheep who went over the cliff. In a dangerous world, obeying the Sermon on the Mount was tantamount to suicide. It struck me how insistent these Christians were, most of them lifelong churchgoers, on dismissing the commands of Jesus even when he concluded the sermon by warning his listeners about the dangers of not obeying his teaching.19 Of course, given their admiration for him, most people in the class tried to come up with some alternative interpretation for the Sermon on the Mount that didn’t make Jesus look entirely detached from reality. “Jesus was showing how it’s impossible to obey God’s commands. He doesn’t expect us to live this way,” someone added. “He was helping us see our failures and feel our need for God’s grace so that we would turn to him for forgiveness.” Why is it so difficult for self-identified Christians to believe, let alone obey, what Jesus said? Well, if they still see the world as a fundamentally dangerous place in which their well-being is in constant jeopardy, then the call to love your enemy, give freely, and not worry ca...

If I am eternally safe in the care of my Good Shepherd, and I come to see the world as a safe place, then I am set free from my fears. I am free to give rather than hoard. I am free to enjoy each day rather than worry. I am free to forgive others rather than retaliate against them. And I am even free to love the person determined to harm me. But all of it starts with trust (a.k.a. faith) in God’s ever-present love and care for me.

Eternal life, then, is unending union with God. Many people have accepted the idea that eternal life begins when their body dies, and that their present life is therefore of less importance—it is a temporary life, they believe. But if we see that union with God is promised to us today, in this present life, then our perspective changes. If we are with God, then our eternal life begins now and will continue forever. The life we are now living with him will never cease.

The Resurrection is the means by which we have been set free from the fear of death. As N. T. Wright explained, “The point of the resurrection, despite much misunderstanding, is that death has been defeated. Resurrection is not the redescription of death; it is its overthrow.”32 Those who surrender themselves to God through faith in Christ partake in his resurrection. They are granted life without end. This is why we can declare with Paul, “O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?”