The line between love and hate is a thin one, and when one feels passionately about something or someone, that line becomes even thinner. When it comes to Jesus, sometimes that line for me becomes so infinitely small that love and hate seem to blur together. I can hear people now: "How can someone hate Jesus?" It's really easy, actually.
I have made mistakes in life, but there are a few in particular I happen to love. There are some sins that have crawled into my heart and made a home, and I have been the one who threw them a house warming party. It's the enjoyable sins we invite, our comfort sins, and kicking them out seems to feel like kicking out a part of oneself. This is where my problems with Jesus begin. I have been a Christian the majority of my life, but I say that loosely. As a child, my relationship with Jesus was shallow in comparison to how it is now. Now, I understand exactly what Jesus asks from me, and it is the most uncomfortable price: Everything. I have to burn the house I built in my heart for my sins to the ground. I have to swear total allegiance to him, no exceptions. What Jesus asks of people is difficult to carry out to the fullest because every single one of us swears our number one allegiance to ourselves.
I have the re-occurring realization that I fail to live up to Jesus' standards. Even though I attend church and claim Christ as my savior, every now and then, as if my heart has been handed to me and I'm looking inside of it, I see that I haven't truly given him everything. I tell myself I've burned the house for my sins, but the truth is I leave a little room for them. I think I've given him my full allegiance, but the ugly truth is, I give myself the most allegiance. Thoughts like this have honestly kept me up at night, as they should, but often I find myself more angry than anything. What is so wrong with some of the things I want to keep in my life? I think sometimes, more often than I'm proud of. This headstrong feeling of self importance rises up inside of me and sometimes I shake my finger at God and tell him I like the things that make me feel comfortable. I used to think God's punishment would come in the form of bad luck, but what I'm beginning to realize is sometimes God's punishment comes in the form of letting us stay comfortable, because comfort is a cheap copy of God's peace. Comfort in my sin makes me think I'm at peace with myself when I'm actually at war with God. God's peace not only makes me feel at peace with myself, but it also puts me at peace with God. So really, it's the worst punishment of all, to be comfortable in one's sin.
Jesus disrupts my comfort, and sometimes I hate him for it. I can hear people gasping now," isn't it the worst sin of all to say one hates Jesus?" But Jesus himself has made it clear that those who obey him love him, there is no middle between love and hate, it's one or the other or the word one may be looking for to describe the middle is actually complacency. One either loves or hates Jesus, but the feeling for him can never be casual or such a person has no real ties to him at all. When he disrupts my comfort and I continue in sin, I'm actually telling him I hate him. I'm sticking my thumb in God's face and telling him he is not worth my allegiance and my trust. Harsh, isn't it? I speak for myself when I say most Christians have found a happy medium so they can live comfortably with their sins and Jesus as well, but that's like inviting someone over to eat dinner and then throwing the food in his face. Jesus requires everything, or nothing.
At this point of my thought process, I usually despair. There is no way I can possibly live up to his standard. He is too good, and I am too bad. This is when I love Jesus, when I realize he is good to me even when I am not good to him, but it's not enough to love someone when it is most convenient. It's easy to love Jesus when we think of grace, but it's equally as easy to hate him when we make our daily decisions.I want to give my allegiance to Christ solely, but all of the things I feel I would be giving up in order to do that beckon to me every single day.
What can I do for my divided heart? I can stop dividing it. It's hard to live for Jesus. Everyone loves to talk about grace and how lovely it is to follow Jesus, but I feel like the world needs to also hear the path to righteousness is called narrow for a reason. So why bother? Why bother with Christ when his standard is impossible to ever meet?
When one encounters Jesus, the real Jesus, one will discover he is worth bothering with, he is worth the uncomfortable price he requires. Even Jesus knew we wouldn't be able to live up to his standard, and that is the reason for grace; but grace was never meant to be an excuse to sin but rather a motivation to move forward and be better. His goodness was never meant to give me enough peace to live outside of God's will comfortably, but rather his goodness is meant to call me closer. The path to righteousness is indeed narrow, but it is not dark-- he provides plenty of light. Christ gives me everything I need to un-divide my heart, but I have to willingly accept. I have to kill my flesh, I have to kill the part of me that hates Jesus until here is no thin line between love and hate, until there is no line at all.
