Defining The Distance Between You And God

By John Stallings

And Peter followed Him afar off, even into the palace of the high priest; and sat with the servants and warmed himself at the fire. -Mark 14:54


Living for God at a distance & in a half-hearted way sets us up for internal tension.

The vitality of a real walk with God oozes out of our relationship. God doesn’t have “one style fits all” relationships. He leaves it up to us to decide what the distance we walk from Him will be. Holding God at arms length isn’t the kind of walk He wants to have with us, but He won’t force a closer one.

A prime example of this is Peter. In 2 Peter 2:20-22 Peter tells us of the real possibility of backsliding. He described it as “a dog returning to his own vomit.” Isn’t it interesting that this comes from the inspired pen of Peter? If anyone knew first hand the reality & dangers of backsliding it was he. Peter declared that he would follow Jesus no matter what. But Jesus told him that before the cock crowed three times Peter would deny Him. To prove that could never be true of him, Peter cut off the ear of Malcus, the soldier who tried to take Jesus into custody. Peter took up arms for Jesus.

Peter’s story provides us with a post-mortem if you will on backsliding. It’s the cautionary tale of a man’s downward spiral. Just to broad stroke the story of backsliding; -- it’s gradual, & some of the issues are pride, laziness, cowardice, worldliness & denial.

While Peter was warming himself at a fire somewhere in the city, a young girl pointed her finger at him & declared he was one of Jesus’ followers. Peter had a cussing-fit & told all who were interested that he didn’t even know who Jesus was. This behavior became a deeply humiliating failure for Peter. The main reason for his disappointment in himself was that Peter loved Jesus deeply. He was a leader. He was a son-of-thunder but during that week of Christ’s passion, with all the pain, violence, blood, gore & high drama, Peter had to face the fact that he was scared.

As the pressure on Jesus began to build, Peter followed further & further behind Him. We know that Peter later got his courage back & preached a great sermon on the Day of Pentecost. He ended up helping to write the New Testament, & legend tells us he refused to die like Jesus did. Peter was crucified upside down.

You’ll remember that Jesus didn’t hold Peter’s denial against him. Jesus didn’t stand in rigid judgment of how close or how far Peter was from him. And later Jesus, without any harshness allowed Peter to redeem himself by declaring three times his love for Him. Seems strange doesn’t it? Strange but true.

What’s going to be your distance from God? You will define that distance. God leaves that up to us & loves us no matter what our choice is. It matters greatly to Him what we choose but He won’t put us in lock-down or force us. He gives us options. God desires the close walk with you & me but He will let us make that choice.

Jesus set the example of the kind of relationship He wants with us when He came to where we were. He left the ivory palaces of His heavenly home & came crashing out of timelessness into time to be born of women. He lived & moved among us & had close personal relationships with people. Even in His miracles He didn’t do things on the grand scale that the miracles of the New Testament were done.

There were no walls tumbling down or seas piling up. Jesus would find a woman with disease & heal her. Or He’d find a grieving family & bring their dead back to life. He’d sit at a well & talk to a woman & totally change her life with a conversation. He was always saying, “See, I’m available to you. You can walk close to me & have just as intimate a relationship as you want, it’s up to you.” He’s shown us the kind of relationships He wants but still He lets us decide. Jesus didn’t call His disciples in a “group call,” He personally & purposefully called them one by one.

Have you ever had a friend in your life who wanted to define how close the relationship was? Friends can sometimes be very smothering. Some friends want to be every day friends. Others want to be weekly friends. I’ve known people who wanted to be so close that if you went to a movie or went to a new restaurant without them they’d have a conniption fit & say something like “What? You went without telling me? Well I’m hurt.” They can act as if you aren’t capable of going out on the town without them. You almost have to ask permission to do something without them. This can be extremely annoying. They will try to set the boundaries of the relationship by saying, “If you’re going to be my friend, stay in touch.”

Sometimes parents can be this way with their adult children. Have you ever seen a “smothering mother?” I think they are called “helicopter parents.” They lurk & hover close by. They will give their kids cell phones & they expect their kid to always be checking in with them. They will say things like, “what, I’m not your mother any more? You didn’t call me. You never call. I’ll be dead soon & then you’ll be sorry.” Sometimes parents will try to keep this kind of relationship even after their offspring is married. That’s when things turn squirrelly. God won’t do this to us. He wants us to realize on our own that closer is better and closer is easier, but He won’t force it. We must decide if we want our attachment to God to be a big deal in our lives or a small deal.

In 1957, I stood at the alter of my father’s church in Orlando Florida on a Sunday night in late August. The service was all about a few of us high school graduates who were leaving to go to college. I was leaving the next day for Southeastern Bible College in Lakeland Florida to study for my ministerial degree. But as I stood at the alter that night along with several others who were off to college, I was fighting a battle in my soul.

Up to now, my calling just amounted to preaching in a youth service once in a while & maybe occasionally going elsewhere to conduct a youth revival. This night was different. Now I was going to do something that would affect all of my life from now on. I was leaving the next day for Bible College & this would determine what my life’s goal would be. I was renouncing math as a major. I was renouncing music as my major. I was renouncing everything else but the ministry & that meant, by & large- pastoring, missionary work or evangelizing.

What to do, what to do? This decision would determine who I would marry & spend the rest of my life with. This decision would determine what kind of house I’d live in & the kind of car I’d drive. This decision would determine how much money I’d make & how much I’d have to someday retire on. What to do?

It was crunch time for me. I was afraid & felt guilty for being afraid. I was faced that night with the decision of just how close I wanted to be to God. After all there were options for me.

1. THERE WAS THE OPTION OF PARTIAL COMMITMENT.

I didn’t have to abandon the faith, I could just straddle the fence, maybe get a business degree (Not that there’s anything wrong with that) & preach on Sundays. After all, wouldn’t it be great to be able to preach to people & not worry about them having to pay me? I could make my own living & preach on the side.

Of course I didn’t make that decision to be partially committed & as I look back I’m happy I didn’t. In all probability God won’t call on you to make the commitment I made because it was for full time Christian service. All of our walks with Him are personal.

What was I afraid of? What are many people afraid of when it comes to total commitment to Christ? Why do we so often stiff arm God? Maybe we’re afraid God might make demands on us. We might be called to do something we don’t really want to do. But God doesn’t force people to do grievous things they’re not equipped to do or not happy about the prospects of doing. Jesus said, “My yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

Another reason some are afraid to follow too closely to Jesus is they’re afraid of what people might say about them. They’re afraid people will think they’re too caught up in religion & are in danger of being a fanatic. Maybe people will think they are involved in a Jim Jones like cult. Maybe they’re afraid they’ll start writing checks to the work of God with reckless abandon or start engaging in “destructive behavior.” They might even join the choir. What would happen then? They deduce that it would be safer to remain a spectator Christian & continue to keep a safe distance from God.

2. PEOPLE OFTEN USE THE POMP & CIRCUMSTANCE OF RELIGION TO REPLACE A CLOSE WALK WITH GOD.

All the revivals of history were periods of calling men back from institutional relationships with God to personal relationships. The Luther reformation was a move back to a personal God & a personal walk with Him. Every man is a priest. You didn’t have to go through an interloper; you could go straight to God. Up until the Reformation, Bibles were chained to the church pulpits & anyone with a Bible could be thrown in jail. People were forced to have corporate relationships with God.

The charismatic renewal that happened a few years back was a move to call the individual to a closer personal walk with God. But still there are many who want a relationship with God that will keep them out of hell & not much else. They will say in essence, “Just let me be loose about this. I might come to church once a year or I might come more often.” These folk are the ones that started the joke—“The church roof might fall in when I come next time.”

3. THEN THERE ARE PEOPLE WHO KEEP A DISTANCE BETWEEN THEMSELVES & GOD BECAUSE THEY'VE BEEN “HURT” BY THEIR CHURCH AFFILIATION IN THE PAST.

I hear about these folk on a regular basis. They got “too close” to a pastor or other Christians & something happened that disillusioned them. I am tempted to say at this point “poor baby” but I’ll resist that temptation.

To be hurt by a good man or woman undoubtedly gives us an eternal excuse to stay away from God & His church. After all, we now have to ability to point to the church & say—“Well one of the most spiritual among God’s people did me wrong. A man who stands in the pulpit & preaches hurt me personally so I have the perfect excuse not to get too close & return to religion.”

Let’s go back to Malcus, the man whose ear was cut off by Peter. Apocryphal writings tell us that Malcus in later years became a part of the Christian church. What? Do you mean to say that Malcus, the man who was brutalized & deformed by Peter’s sword later became a believer? Obviously that’s true. Wow! Malcus had the best reason to doubt & deny the Lordship of Jesus than any man ever had. One of Jesus’ closest men actually hurt him. He actually cut off his ear. Never mind the “small detail” that Jesus put Malcus’ ear back on & healed him. He now had a personal reason to testify to the "dangers of Christianity." Malcus was willing to allow Jesus to heal him that day. He could have pushed Jesus away & taken that severed ear, had it bronzed & shown it to folk for the rest of his life as exhibit A-"that Jesus crowd can really hurt a fellow." Alas, there are still some who refuse to be healed because their wounds are too precious to them.

Speaking of being hurt by Christians or hurt in the service of the lord, let me tell you about a very dedicated lady who was hurt in the service of God. While she & her preacher husband were conducting revivals under a gospel tent,her seven year old daughter took sick & died in a small backwater town. This woman was a truly committed person, but when she lost her daughter she got angry with God. She over-adjusted big time, vowing she’d never darken a church door till the day she died.

She let her husband go on alone in his tent ministry although he was hurt just as much as she was at the loss of their beautiful little girl. One day a year later, this lady had to break her vow to never enter a church again, to attend the funeral of the child of a beloved friend. As the funeral service progressed, the minister told the story of a mother sheep who refused to cross a raging stream. The Shepard needed her to join the rest of the flock so they could travel to lush green grass but the mother sheep was frightened & wouldn’t budge.

The Shepard in desperation finally got an idea. He took the sheep’s little fold & carried it across the stream & stood it on the bank on the other side. When the mother saw her baby on the other side of the stream she was finally persuaded to brave the troubled waters to join her baby. This bitter lady was smitten in her heart by the illustration. God brought it home to her that even though she couldn’t understand it all she now had a reason to endure any hardship because it was the only hope of someday seeing her baby girl again.

That day this lady was forced to define the distance between herself & God. Thankfully she chose to rededicate herself to her Lord, & humbly & closely follow Him the best she knew how, trusting that her remaining two small children would follow her example. I’m glad she did because that lady was my mother. From that day forward she guided my sister & me, encouraging us in spite of all the unanswered questions & vicissitudes of life to covet a close walk with the Lord.

I am grateful that even though I’ve made many mistakes in my life there has always been a force pulling me toward God; an inner hunger that won’t let me be content without Him.


How about you? Have you defined the distance between you & God lately?


Blessings,


John