AFFECTIONATE RELATIONSHIPS

Genesis 22:6,7 (to “my son”); Hosea 11:4; Luke 10:41; Acts 9:13-16

 

Last week, a question was asked in our reading meeting, which was answered then, but has remained in my mind. The question was ‘What does it mean to be real?’. What does it mean to be a real Christian; what is the reality of our Christianity? Then last evening at our prayer meeting, a brother used the phrase ‘affectionate relationship’ in prayer, and I thought that that was a large part of the answer to the question. The reality of our Christianity, if it is going to have any life at all, means having affectionate relationships with divine Persons and with each other. It means that in our day to day lives, whether at school or work, whether young or old, we have ongoing, living and vital relationships with God in the detail of our lives. It is not just a prayer in the morning, and a prayer in the evening, although that is a good thing to do, but it is more what we are characterised by – characterised by bringing divine Persons into our circumstances.

In the first scripture, I thought that we see in the type something of affectionate relationships between divine Persons. Here were Abraham and Isaac going to the place of sacrifice together. Isaac spoke to Abraham his father, “My father! And he said, Here am I, my son”. Think of the affection that was seen at that point, speaking typically of the affection that there is between the Father and the Son. When the Lord Jesus was walking here on this earth as a Man, there was affection between divine Persons all the way through His perfect life. We cannot enter fully into it, but think of the way in which the Lord Jesus knew what that was, His deep, affectionate relationship with His Father. We see it in type here in the Old Testament as Abraham and Isaac, representing these two divine Persons, “went both of them together”. It was Abraham’s mind that a sacrifice should be made in obedience to God. Well, for us, it has been made; the fact is that the work has been done by the Lord Jesus. It has been done perfectly, it has been done once and it will never need to be done again. The Father is completely satisfied with everything which His Son has done, with the work of Christ as He went to the cross, the shedding of His blood. We see, as a pattern here, a relationship in nearness, a relationship that never fluctuated. It was not like some of the relationships that we can have sometimes. We know how weakness can come in, that things can sadly sometimes deteriorate, but this was a relationship that was marked by love and nearness and vitality. There was communication. One of the expressions of a near relationship is communication. It says in Isaiah of the Lord Jesus in type, “He wakeneth morning by morning, he wakeneth mine ear to hear as the instructed” (Isa.50:4); there was a closeness of relationship.

But the Lord Jesus has in mind that we should have a living relationship with Him, and with the Father. As we do have that kind of relationship, we are formed by it. I was thinking too of that hymn:

‘I’ve found a Friend, O such a Friend!

He loved me ere I knew Him;

He drew me with the cords of love’ (Hymn 187)

That is why I read the scripture in Hosea, speaking of the relationship of God with His people Israel. “He took them upon his arms – but they knew not that I healed them. I drew them with bands of a man, with cords of love; and I was to them as they that take off the yoke on their jaws, and I gently caused them to eat”. Think of the gentleness that was involved in that relationship, and we can know it for ourselves. It is possible to get caught up in the circumstances of life, even in a right sense. We go about our work, or we go to school, or we go to the meetings, and our lives are busy. We can do all the right things and say the right things, and we can look as if all is well, but the vital thing in Christianity is nearness to divine Persons, to know that nearness in our day to day lives. If that gets eroded, we lose the sense, we lose the freshness, we lose the life that is involved in our Christian life. That is why we have to know the Lord Jesus as our Friend, we have to know Him as the One who can sympathise, the One who walked on this earth, the One who drew near to persons in their need, came close to them so that they might know Him as a Friend. Think of the drawing power of the love of Christ, the drawing power of a Man in heaven. He would draw us to Himself. You might say that He drew me when I first came to know Him in the gospel. That is true, but I think that we are always to know His drawing power. We know what it is to be attracted to the Lord Jesus, and as we are attracted to Him, we become formed by Him. As we are drawn to the Lord Jesus, there is something that becomes changed in us; it is a relationship that changes us and forms us substantially to be more like Him.

The Holy Spirit is also involved in that. We have a divine Person to whom we can be close, a divine Person to whom we can speak during the day. What would He do? He would magnify Christ in our hearts, He would occupy our hearts with the Lord Jesus where He is now – a Man in heaven. Rather than our horizons being limited to this world, our eyes can be lifted to the Lord Jesus where He is. Then as we have that relationship with Christ where He is, we come to see that there is another sphere, another area, another place where He is the Centre. I think that something of the atmosphere of that place will be known as we gather together. There are times when we need to be on our own with divine Persons, times when we need to work things out, times when we might go through exercise when we are on our own. That involves being alone; in fact, I would say that it often involves being alone, but the result of that exercise is that something would be expressed as we gather together, something that is the imprint that has been made on us by that experience. As we gather together, our meetings show in a simple way that there is something worked out in one and another that can be seen substantially.

In Luke 10, Martha was distracted, she was busy, and she said “Lord, dost thou not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? … But Jesus answering said to her, Martha, Martha, thou art careful and troubled about many things; but there is need of one”. Even at that point, there was the need of slight adjustment on Martha’s part, but the Lord’s affection was seen. That relationship was already there; He loved her, and she would have known that love. He had in mind that His love should be responded to. I was affected by the way these words were expressed, “Martha, Martha, thou art careful and troubled about many things”. The Lord had taken account of what was in her mind, the responsibility that she felt, the service that she was doing, and He was able to speak to her at this point and explain to her that there was another part, the good part. He would also have in mind that Martha would come into that, and He did it by affection, by coming near to her, being close to her as He spoke to her in this way.

Where we read in Acts, Ananias had not previously had a relationship with Saul. Everything that Ananias had heard about Saul was not good; he had heard about what Saul had been doing at Jerusalem. He said, “Lord, I have heard from many concerning this man how much evil he has done to thy saints at Jerusalem”. But he went to Saul and put his hands on him, and said, “Saul, brother, the Lord has sent me”. Think of that new relationship between them, a relationship which had never existed before, but by divine workmanship, through the work of God, it had come into being. Saul knew what it was to have this man put his hands on him and say these words to him; “Saul, brother”. What a magnificent thing to say, bearing in mind what Ananias had heard about Saul before. Yet he put his hands on Saul and said, “Saul, brother”. What a wonderful thing that was, and underlying it, there was reality in Ananias. He received a word from the Lord and he did what he was told. There was reality in his heart, he wanted to do what was right, and he responded to what he was told. What was seen there in expression was divine love, seen in the way in which he put his hands on Saul, and Saul knew what it was to come into another circle altogether where this affection was flowing and these relationships could be known.

It is a simple impression, but may the Lord bless the word.

Word in a meeting for ministry, Grangemouth

10 March 2020

 

Phil Hogan

 

Edited and published monthly by John Brown and Paul Martin

 

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