Part One Part Two Part Three Part Four
To review, people want to be happy more than anything and they think relationship is the top reason for that. Taking this further though, when they say relationship, they don’t mean what God intended for relationship. I heard a commercial the other day, that I discovered was using an audio clip from the British rock band, Queen, a movie about which was nominated for the Academy Awards this year. Perhaps the Oscars and the usage in the commercial fed off each other. I looked up the lyrics and the refrain or chorus were the operative words, except with two preceding lines:
It ain’t much I’m asking, if you want the truth
Here’s to the future for the dreams of youth
I want it all (give it all I want it all)
I want it all (yeah)
I want it all and I want it now.
I wondered if those lyrics were intended to express irony, as if Queen were mocking millennials or the present generation, rather than admiring their point of view. “I Want It All,” I recognize as a perfect millennial anthem. Apparently band member Brian May wrote the words at the time he had left his first wife for a second, the words serving as a defense of the relationship. Lead singer, Freddie Mercury (born Farrokh Bulsara), perhaps got what he wanted, but he also contracted the HIV virus, then full blown AIDS, something nobody would want, and died age 45 in 1991, two years after “I Want It All” was released.
What people want in relationship and what God designed or what scripture teaches conflict with one another. You can’t actually “have it all,” even if you want it, unless you mean that you are committed to wait for it and then inherit all things in and through Jesus Christ. That is usually not what people mean when they say, I want it all. Maybe the key is, they want it, now. They want the relationship that they want, even the one they have with God — they want that to be like they want it. Nobody gets a relationship with God by subjugating God to his desires, what he wants, but by submitting his wants to God’s wants, just like Jesus did with His Father.
Horizontal Relationship
In part four, I alluded to the identification of the “horizontal relationship.” Scripture evinces equality. In Galatians 3:28 Paul writes:
There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.
My brethren, have not the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory, with respect of persons.
Elimination of Distinctions in Relationship
Forasmuch as this people draw near me with their mouth, and with their lips do honour me, but have removed their heart far from me, and their fear toward me is taught by the precept of men.
Egalitarianism neutralizes love. Love elevates God above self, truth above self, and others above self. That isn’t horizontal. Scripture itself is above men. To practice love requires submission to God. Love isn’t a fancy. It isn’t a communal experience that flows through us. It is pure. We’re not, so we must depend on God, Who is above us, to live the life of love toward others. The goal isn’t a shared feeling. It is the eternal betterment of someone else. That doesn’t occur by tolerating others and whatever they might think or do. Walking in the light isn’t just keeping it real, attempting not to be a put-on. God is light. Love is doing what God does. When we belittle God to our level with profane worship, we are not more likely to submit to Him.
Relationship of God with man hasn’t changed. God sets the terms for the relationship. Someone can conform God in His imagination to a God that accepts what he wants in a relationship with God, but that doesn’t mean it is a relationship with God. This trickles down to the relationship of people with one another too.
More to Come
I am a little behind in reading your blog but these posts on relationships are very illuminating
Thank you
Dmitry