A Love that Puts Us Back on Our Feet Again

I believe that it is through the powerful, resurrected Jesus that we experience true intimacy in our lives. The essence of intimacy is our ability to experience God through our relationships with others. It is the link between God, ourselves, and another person. Jesus Christ Himself is the focal point of intimacy. Through Jesus, God has shown us the building blocks that we need to create a solid foundation of intimacy, namely: compassion, caring and concern. 

Compassion 
I would describe compassion as, ‘the quality that allows us to see depth in another person (the natural results of sin: anger, unbelief, fear, etc.), and still love them. A general rule for compassion is that whatever compassion we show toward others, we must first have for ourselves. 

In order to give something away, we must first possess it ourselves. If we do not have compassion for ourselves, it is impossible to have it for others. This is because we become so busy judging ourselves, that we rob ourselves of the ability to experience the intimacy that God would have for us. We can ask God to help us experience His compassion for us so that we may share it with those people around us. 

Caring 
A good way to understand the concept of caring is to think of it as the opposite of self-concern. It is the ability to think of the needs of others before our own. Think of this analogy: If we are swimming in the pond of self-concern, we will never be able to enter the ocean of intimacy that God wants us to experience. 

Now, we may think that we already experience enough intimacy in our lives. However, God always has more for us. Without a living relationship with God, we cannot have true intimacy. We may claim to have physical, emotional, and spiritual intimacy, but without caring, there is no depth to it. When we put the needs of others before our own, we add another building block to the foundation of intimacy in our relationships. 

Concern 
Concern is another building block for intimacy. If we do not have time or thought for what happens to the people around us, then we are not going to have much intimacy with them. For example, if my neighbor tells me that he/she has a flat tire and say, “That’s tough luck. I hope you get it fixed” (Then walk away) I am not showing real concern. Likewise, if someone has had a hard day at work and I say, “Oh just pray about it. It will be all right eventually.’, then I have lost an opportunity to build a stronger relationship with that person. 

If we are not willing to share other people’s concerns, then we may as well forget having intimacy with them. If someone sees that we do not genuinely care what happens in their lives, then they will feel that we are not interested in them as a person. Consequently, they will not want a relationship with us. 

Boundaries 
Boundaries are also part of a solid foundation for healthy relationships. God uses boundaries to define the directions that He wants each relationship to follow. Boundaries are part of the beautiful tapestry that God makes out of each relationship that we have. 

The world’s definition of boundaries is usually negative; Don’t do that, don’t act that way. You had better not do or say that.” God; however, gives us positive boundaries for our relationships in order to help them grow. God concentrates on the “dos”. Some of God’s positive boundaries can be found in I Corinthians 13:4-7: 

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. (NIV) 

Paul encourages us to do the thing that will please God and draw us closer to others. Let’s look at each “do” by examining the definitions of love: 

Love Is Patient 
Patience says, ‘You can go farther than you did before. You’ve been patient; maybe you can be a little bit more patient.” God’s boundaries are always calling us on to do more. We can draw strength by remembering how patient Jesus was with us. His boundaries were constantly pushed farther! 

Sometimes we may think that we have reached our boundary of patience, but God is always pushing it out further. Patience is a wonderful boundary to have because we can always move it by growing in love, the boundaries of intimacy can always be stretched to new lengths! 

Love Is Kind 
Can the word kindness describe our relationships this past week? What kind of boundaries have we established in the area of kindness? We need to take a step back for a moment to think about our attitudes. For example, have we thanked Jesus lately for all that He has done for us? Haven’t we experienced the kindness of Jesus that extends our boundaries of kindness? God stretches the boundaries of intimacy when He says, “love is kind.” Let us remember the kindness of God toward us, and then turn around and express that same kindness to one another. 

Love Does Not Envy 
Envy is one of the negative boundaries that Satan tries to set for our relationships. Envy has us thinking things like, “That person has what I want.” God’s positive boundaries push this kind of thinking back. God allows us to sincerely say, ‘God has blessed you! I rejoice that you have more money than I do. I’m glad that you have a nice car. it’s O.K. that you live in a bigger house than I do.” There is no need to envy when we have Jesus, because Jesus does not envy. This is because Jesus never dwells on what is lacking. Instead, He chooses to be thankful for what His Father has already given. When we begin to be thankful for what God has given others, we can increase our intimacy with them because of our thankful hearts. 

If we do not have a thankful heart then we cannot have intimacy. However, when we ask God to give us a thankful, patient, kind (and so on) heart we gain the love that Jesus wants us to have. These are the kind of boundaries that will ultimately bring us closer to others, and even to Jesus Himself. 

Love Does Not Boast 
The resurrected Jesus does not boast in the prideful sense of the word. He only boasts about His Father. Who are we boasting about? Are we boasting about Jesus and our Father in Heaven? We could boast about ourselves and say, “I’m pretty great -I’m special!” What happens, though, when something or someone “better comes along? Let’s boast about the resurrected Jesus, our Father, and the Holy Spirit who is always pushing the boundaries of boasting further. Think about it; If we gathered every possible descriptive word from every language in the world to boast about God and how good He is, it would not even be a smidgen of how great and wonderful He is! Now, if all the words in all the languages cannot begin to boast about God, how then should we live our lives? 

When we extend our boundaries for boasting about God, we increase our levels of intimacy with our brothers and sisters. This is because we will always be tuned into the same thing. We can agree, “Isn’t Jesus great? Isn’t our Father wonderful?! Look at what He did for me!” This is why building intimacy includes boasting about the right things, and having the common goal of worshiping God. 

Love Is Not Rude, Self-Seeking, Or Easily Angered 
The best boundaries to have in relationships are the ones that are based upon the resurrected Jesus. He is not easily angered, rude, and does not keep a record of wrongs. He was, and is, always seeking the will of His Father in Heaven. Who and what do we seek in relationships? 

Jesus is the key to intimacy. He empowers our hearts and minds so that we can have the type of intimacy that we need in our lives. Without Jesus, the best that we could be is rude, crude, and easily angered. We would become victims of our flesh and do the very things that destroy the relationships. 

The boundaries of the resurrected Jesus are the best ones to have; they are the ones that bring us life, and last. If we build our relationships upon Jesus, then we will have intimacy with people and God.