A walk through Matthew

I go to a bible study on Tuesday mornings. I love it. We delve more deeply into scripture than I have ever done before in my entire life. I find it truly exciting and enlightening.

We are working our way through Matthew. Right now we are studying the Sermon on the Mount. I am so entrigued by the things we are learning. One of the things our leader said today is that the Sermon on the Mount is the counterpart to the Ten Commandments--it is the inward form and original intent of the Ten Commandments. This information was a complete revelation to me.

When God gave Moses the Ten Commandments, he didn't intend for them to just be rules for behavior--contrary to the conception I've had my entire life. God's entire intent has always been and always will be the heart of humankind. He doesn't want to see how well we can follow a bunch of rules, but rather, He wants our hearts to be turned toward Him so that in love we want to please Him. We need no rules if we would just love God first and love and treat people the way God loves and treats us.

The loving other people part wasn't a revelation. But the reasoning behind it was. The whole doing it out of love thing. You see, I brought a lot of baggage into my relationship with God. I viewed Him in light of my human experience. That's probably no big surprise. I think most people probably do that, but most people probably recognize earlier in their spiritual experience than I did, that God is not like humans, and our relationship with Him will not be like our relationships with other humans.

I've been working through that for some time now. This Ten Commandment/Sermon on the Mount business is just one more piece in my giant life puzzle. I want you to understand that I had a very skewed view of what love was. In light of that, let me explain to you the things I thought about God:

*I thought God was all about rules and regulations. I thought God was standing over me, watching everything I did, waiting to pounce when I made a mistake. My entire life I have tried unsuccessfully to obey every rule to, I guess, earn His affections. It is still a struggle for me at times.
*I therefore thought God's love was conditional. I thought that every time I messed up, He no longer loved me.
*I thought I could not count on God. Every human in my life had failed me over and over--I thought God would too. (This is my most recent internal battle. I'm still working on it.)
*I thought God would use me for His own pleasure and then, when he was through,
*I thought he would abandon me.

There are several other things I realize I projected onto God, but I think you get the drift.

I tell you all of that to tell you that this study of Matthew, of Christ, is incredibly moving and life changing for me. I am seeing Christ as something different than I ever have. If I can be honest about how I really feel about it, I'd have to tell you that I'm pretty terrifed. I hate being vulnerable. I hate feeling exposed. It makes me fell helpless.

I was abused for many years in my childhood. I felt helpless. At some point I decided that I would never be helpless again. I decided that I would never again be in the position where someone could have power over me--power to hurt me, power to crush me, power to rob me, power to drain life from me. Maybe you can see why breaking down walls and allowing God to have power over my life (or really just admit to myself that he has power over my life) is extraordianrily hard for me. I realize that for years I have lived with God at arms length, trying to make him happy with my behavior, but never allowing him close enough to move in me, because then he'd be close enough to hurt me.

As I walk through Matthew, I understand more, and I am more and more amazed at the person of Christ. I am amazed at his extraordinary love and sacrifice. I am even more amazed as I realize he has faced the things I have. He was misunderstood and abandoned. I feel like I have lived my whole life that way.

I feel the walls weakening.