Jesus is more then a Rebound
To love Jesus is to be in a relationship with him. To keep his commandments. To love Jesus is to know that he comes first before anything else. That he is the one you don't just have to be with but the God you want to be with. The only God you choose to love.
You want to be so wrapped up in him that the thought of departing from him seems worse then death. At least when you are dead you feel nothing. The bible says you are asleep. But to know that you were in a relationship with Jesus and then to know you no longer have that privilege to be with him, is so terrible. Because you are aware of what you have lost and the pain that comes with that, the memory of what you have lost, will always be with you.
Its why sometimes when a relationship fails is is hard to see that person walking around everyday knowing you were once with them. Every time you see them smile, you know that once upon a time you were the reason they were happy. Once upon a time you were the one they turned to for help. You were the one they talked to on the phone or would share a joke with. To be so close to them then for whatever reason, the friendship or relationship has failed and to know you cannot have that again can be unbearable. To know your the reason it has failed can be hard to take. And it can be a long time before the hurt goes away and the wound of the heart is healed.
But as it says in Hebrews chapter 13 verse 8 Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.
He will not and cannot change because he is love. Its just his nature to love. He can do nothing else but love. And he came down from heaven to die for us all and rise again that we may have the opportunity to love him, to receive salvation and be with him forever.
Jesus will never say he is too tired to talk, or too busy to spend time with. We can communicate to him at any time.
I do not need to have a mobile, blackberry, computer or any other communication device or some assistance to speak to him. I can just pray and I know he is listening and will answer my prayers. His love is awesome. He will always be faithful and never let us down.
The question is then, if Jesus is so faithful to me, do I value that faithfulness to be faithful to him too??
I can have faith in someone yet be unfaithful. I can believe that a person called my mum gave birth to me but that does not automatically mean that I can love them or not hurt them. There are many cases of people who have given birth to children yet they have no love or respect for them. They just send a card to them on their birthday or just come around once every few months but there can be no relationship if you do not know them. There are parents who are have the title of parents but do not honour that title.
How many times do we hear stories of dads who are not there for their children or mums not there for their children. Not everyone that gives birth to a child can be called a mother if the relationship that involves love is not there.
Yet God loves us to adopt us as his own and treat us as his own children. And his love is manifested that he died for us on the cross, while we were yet sinners, while our righteousness were as filthy rags. Not one of us can call ourselves good. We all have lied and done something wrong. We were born sinners yet Jesus Christ made us now to be able to call ourselves the children of God, where we cry Abba father.
But when we come to Jesus. Do we sometimes know or value what he has one for us to put aside everything we used to be, to love him totally?? To fully commit ourselves to him? Do we still think about who we used to be in the world or even who or what we used to love? Have we really transformed ourselves by the renewing of our mind to forget the things of the past and move on to knowing that we have the best thing, the most treasured relationship we could ever have and ever be in, which is a relationship with Jesus?
Or do we just treat him like a rebound??? And do we really still have in our hearts a love for something else or someone????
What is a rebound?
A rebound relationship can be described as being in another relationship while still grieving over a past relationship. You can end a long term relationship and then quickly start a new one but you may still be in love with the person you were with. You may not fully be over the person you have separated from. You may get into a new relationship to try and deceive yourself in to thinking you are over the old relationship and you were in or to hide the fact that you need to face the pain of the break up of an old relationship by jumping into another relationship. You may with someone to make another partner jealous or to try and get over them quickly. To cover up the pain. A person might with another person to get rid of the pain then move on to someone else or until their ex takes them back.
You can start something new to try and cause yourself to be distracted and not feel or face the consequences of something that has happened to you. You throw yourself into something or someone else to get over what yo lost or what you did to mask the lost of something or someone you cared about.
What some people do, is to throw themselves into a another relationship to get the same warmth comfort security love they did have. They will quickly choose to be with someone to get the attention they crave or to not be alone.
They will choose to be with someone they may not have considered before yet because that person the new prospect or admirer, shows them such love and respect that they will be with them.
Some people in the world will get into another relationship quickly to prove to an old boyfriend or girlfriend that they can cope or live without them. We have all seen those comic examples on TV of the ex coming around the corner and the person who has been dumped or broken up from them, quickly kissing or drawing closer to the person they are with so as to be seen that they have got over the ex. Then as soon as the ex has gone, they draw away from the person they are with.
Do we as Christians do that??
In church we can be seen to be so holy to be so in love with Jesus, speaking in tongues crying or jumping for joy and doing cart wheels up and down the aisle to make people think we are in such a great relationship with Jesus.
Then on Monday we act as if we do not even know who Jesus is, at work, school, university, even to people who we meet throughout the week. And when we see a person form our church during the week we pretend to be doing good when we were doing something wrong.
Some people may have come to Jesus to run away from something or someone, to need a lift to feel loved by people in church or as a means to escape.
We can come to Jesus for healing for deliverance for strength for genuine help. But will we remain with him when we get what we need and Jesus answers our prayers??
That is the crux of a rebound relationship. ITS ALL ABOUT YOU.
In a rebound relationship you are in it for yourself. Your motivation is not the other person its all about YOU and being seen by others and not by the person you are with. A relationship involves two people walking in agreement together. Its about loving each other. I sacrifice myself, my needs to make someone else happy.YOU want to show someone else you are over them, YOU want to feel loved and comforted in a rebound relationship that YOU can get away from the pain of a failed relationship or something that has gone wrong in the world, that YOU can show people your not weak and can cope on your own, that YOU can be saved and that YOU can feel happy and joyful in side.
But what about JESUS???
Jesus is more then someone who you can be with for a time temporarily until something else comes along. He can give you eternal joy, eternal peace, eternal life. Jesus will not just heal you from something temporary he can give you life and life more abundantly. Jesus can make you whole. Jesus can wash away the tears from your eyes and can strengthen you in your time of need. He can be there with you in the storm of your life and in the serenity of you mind. In your happiest moment he can take you even higher and no matter how far you fall, he can pick you up again. When everyone is against you he is there on your side. And he perfects you from within to be stronger then you are and to have hope that you have a life waiting for you even after you die.
And what does he require in return?? That you love him and love others. Not too hard is it??
But when our minds can not comprehend the value of the relationship we are in, we begin to think of the relationships we had in the past.
Like the children of Israel, who in the wilderness always wanted to go back to Egypt even after God heard their cries when they were in bondage, when they were slaves and he saved them. He parted the red sea to help them escape from their enemies and fed them in the wilderness when they were hungry and quenched there thirst when they were thirsty. But as soon as trouble arose they wanted to go back to their past lives. They did not realise that God had called them to be a holy people to be his people and to be their God and to bring them to a land that they would be free. They did no sacrifices to him in 40 years they wandered in the wilderness. They did not love God and only knew him through Moses. To them God was a means to an end. No relationship just going through the motions until something better came along. God was their rebound. They wanted something from God but not God himself.
They wanted to rebound to an image of freedom. But it was really a reality of slavery they were going back to. And sometimes we as Christians when the going gets tough and we feel we cannot handle the pressure, We want to go back to our old lives to backslide and forget Jesus is the way to eternal life to a spiritual land, to heaven. And where we are going is better then what we have left.
Even in the time of the Judges, every time the people were in trouble they went to cry for help from God. But they treated God as their safety blanket their rebound and when they were saved and the judge who God would use to save them, died, they would go back to their true love. The sins of the nations around them to serve idols, to worship false gods.
Jesus is a great saviour, the only saviour who could save us from our sins and through out every generation up to his return, if we believe in the love he showed us to die for us and to bring us back into a right relationship with himself, then we must start to value the relationship we have with him and recognize his mercy his grace and the life he wants to give us. We have to know his love is the only love there is and his love for us is our eternal hope that he will fulfil his promise to give us eternal life, to return and to save us.
Set your affections on things above and not on things on the earth. Have the mind to not rebound from Jesus but to rebound to him and he will always be found by you to love you with an everlasting love that is deeper then the deepest ocean and higher then the highest mountain. He is worthy of our love, our time and our commitment and dedication. To do right, to do good to live holy and to make him our entire life. There is no life without him. His relationship is the best relationship to be in.
Jesus is my rebound???
No, he is my eternal life.
Next up: God is no respector of persons. But is the Church a respector of the world today??
Coming soon.
By Jonathan Samms
