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The way of partnership and friendship
When man fell into sin and unjustly placed himself as the center of his life instead of God, the result was that he not only distanced himself from friendship and partnership with God, but also broke his loving relationship with his fellow human beings. The description of the first dispute between man and God is mentioned in the third chapter of the Book of Genesis, and right after that, in the fourth chapter, we read the description of the dispute with his fellow humans and the killing of Abel by Cain. The fall means “every one of us had turned to his own way” (Isaiah 6:53). If I am selfish enough to consider my thoughts higher than God’s thoughts, it is clear that I will also consider myself higher than my fellow humans. It is obvious that someone who wants independence from God will not submit to the yoke of man. But a world where everyone pursues their own desires will be full of tension, disagreement, suspicion, misunderstanding, friction, and conflict.
God’s work on the cross was not only to create closeness and friendship between God and man, but he also wanted to establish peace and reconciliation in the relationship of humans with each other. The truth is that it is impossible to do one of these two without the other. The closer the spokes are to the center of the wheel, the closer they are to each other. Therefore, if we don’t have true friendship with our brothers, our friendship with God is equally lacking. In his first letter, John says that in order to understand how real and deep our relationship of friendship and partnership with God is, we must see how real and deep our friendship with our brothers is (1 John 9:2 and 14:3-15 and 20 : 4).
The way of partnership and friendship
Some of us have understood very well how much our relationship with fellow humans depends on our relationship with God. Whatever creates distance and separation between us and another person, even if it is very small, will also create separation between us and God. We have realized that if these differences are not resolved immediately, they become deeper day by day and lead us to a place where we are locked inside thick walls and stay away from God and our brothers. Therefore, it is clear that whenever we allow new life to enter us, the first result will be union with God and our brothers and any kind of wall of separation and difference will collapse.
Light and darkness versus partnership and friendship
On what basis should we base our friendship and partnership with God and with our brothers? Here, 1 John 1:7 finds a new meaning for us: “If we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of his son Jesus cleanses us from all sin.” We know that light reveals everything, but darkness hides. Whenever something rebukes us and shows us to ourselves as we really are, it is the light. “Whatever is revealed by light is clearly seen” (Ephesians 13:5). But whenever we do something or say something (or refrain from speaking) in order to hide our true situation and hide our actions, this is darkness.
The way of partnership and friendship
It should be known that the first effect of sin in our life is that it always forces us to try to hide what we are. Sin forced our first parents, Adam and Eve, to hide themselves behind the trees of the garden, and now the same effect is observed in all of us. Sin always forces us to be unreal, pretentious, hypocritical, and show off and always consider ourselves innocent and blame others. It is even possible to commit the above acts without saying a word, with our silence and without doing anything. This is what is called “walking in darkness” in the word of God. For some of us, this sin may be the fear of shrinking (of course, any feeling that is somehow related to the greatness of “I” is a sin.) and maybe our secretive actions are actually actions arising from this fear, but In any case, this is still walking in the dark.
Unlike us who are full of sins, God’s word says that “God is light” (1 John 5:1). The meaning of this sentence is that God reveals everything and shows us as we really are. The above verse adds that “there is no darkness in him (in God)”. That is, there is nothing in God that is similar to our least darkness and hidden actions.
So, obviously, if we walk in the smallest kind of darkness, we cannot have true friendship and intimacy with God and our brothers. This is because our relationship with God is not based on reality and therefore cannot create real intimacy. This also creates a wall between us and God.
Taken from the book of the Way of the Cross
Today in the article : The way of partnership and friendship? We reviewed useful information about the Bible and the way of Jesus. If you wish, you can view other articles of Ali Vahidi about Christianity
