27.4 Enjoying One Another
© 2018 Christ Revealed Bible Institute
Let’s put in front of us our two sets of action points. First, those from Patterns of Home, but modified. 1. Emphasize the qualities of individual people by contrast. 2. Use the different colors and textures of each one (no sameness). 3. Emphasize the beginnings and endings of individual people in their places. 4. Clarify the connections between two and among many. 5. Contrast raw beauty in one with refined beauty in another. 6. Celebrate aging and wisdom. 7. Renew the tired person until he or she is sparkling. 8. Use people’s gifts in new and interesting ways.
We want to spend this short lesson just talking about how we enjoy one another as humans, and as the revelation of Father inside of life together.
Knowing God. Then we bring in the action points from we in Jesus and Jesus in us, modified just a bit. 1. Know all that is God today. 2. Hear Jesus call each one’s name inside Himself. 3. Know that you together are inside of Jesus inside of Father. 4. Know that Jesus is inside of all that you are together. 5. Continually put Jesus upon all that you together are and upon each other. 6. Know the meaning of the unfolding of God. 7. Exercise together your capacity to know God. 8. Be the revelation of Father through Jesus through you together towards one another and towards all.
We want to direct our conversation by at least some of these sixteen points. We are just humans, but as humans, we are extraordinary.
God’s Doorway. Then, look back through the 30 “rules of thinking” in the last lesson. In fact, those are the rules of how God thinks. But even more than that, you and I as humans, in all that we presently are, we are simply the expression of God’s thoughts, and thus these rules of thinking are what we come out from every moment.
As we ENJOY one another, we ARE enjoying God. More than that, God’s enjoyment of us takes on a far different flavor for Him inside the dynamics of our enjoyment of one another. Humans are God’s doorway into His creation, into being seen and known as we love one another.
Wholeness. In actuality, I am considering something we humans don’t do. We live in a world in which we accuse one another or impose on one another or manipulate one another or despise one another. And we think it will be different after we’re dead. We imagine that a change of location will change our souls. It won’t. I suspect you will see dead Christians in heaven-only treating one another in the same way they always have.
Salvation is wholeness. We will know that we are whole when we find ourselves thrust together in mundane daily survival and we have no thoughts towards each other except enjoyment and appreciation, seeing one another as we are, the expression of Father.
Liking God. To bless instead of accuse. To lift up instead of impose. To lay down life instead of manipulate. To enjoy instead of despise. To be like God; that is, to LIKE God.
As we LIKE one another, we are liking God – and being like God.
Be kindly affectionate to one another with brotherly love, in honor giving preference to one another (Romans 12:10). We do not take this word as a “command to obey”; we take it as a Word of life coming into us to be what it is, the Lord Jesus, in, as, and through us. And we take it as an immeasurable gift; the essence and being of God.
A Very Dull World. Those who accept themselves as they are can accept others as they are. Those who enjoy the person God made them to be can enjoy others as God made them to be.
What an unfortunate world it would be for me to live in a village of seventy-five clones of Daniel Yordy. Although we would all see the world in the same way, we would also condemn each other in the same way. Before long, none would be communicating with the other. We would have to find someone else to carry our communication from one to another. Our world would be insufferably dull. None of us would be able to express what was inside.
Glorious Differences. In the world our Father has created, each one of us has value BECAUSE we are different, because each of us has what others do not. And each one has immeasurable gifts to give, as we recognize and value the giving of each one.
Sometimes we honor publicly, but not usually. A cook is honored when everyone is piling on seconds and thirds and cleaning their plates. A builder is honored when a family closes the door against the storm and is safe and warm. A teacher is honored when his or her students are honored. But those are larger differences among people, and important, but it is the small differences that really count.
Where People End. I have thought a lot about this rule. “Emphasize the beginnings and endings of individual people in their places.” We do not impose on people what they should be. We recognize the clear distinction between what a person is and where that person ends.
There is a fine line between an instructor who knows what a student can do and does not allow anything less – versus – an instructor who demands of a student what that student simply does not have. “I can do all things through Christ,” is not an invitation to bullies to demand of people to produce beyond what God created them to be.
Honor One Another. But in the positive, when we mark the distinction between what a person is and where that person ends, we honor them for what they are.
So much in people that is irritating to us comes out from a world of pretending, of being unsure of one’s self and having learned to “try” to be what other people think one should be. Christian circles are filled with people who have never been honored by others in the ongoing press of little daily things. Part of the agreement we make in gathering together as a local Church is to bless and to receive blessing, to honor and to receive honor. Inside that commitment, it is our “duty” to honor one another.
The Real Person. And as the pretending drops away, the real person shines forth, not as we want them to be, but as Father made them to be, an expression of His own self-Story.
Here’s something I have learned. There are always those that are “the life of the party,” those that are always visibly popular. Yet when push comes to shove, they show themselves to be pretenders like everyone else. They were popular because they made everyone happy. When you rely on them, they are gone.
What I am getting at is this. People are odd and different. Enjoy them as they are. Enjoy the girl who talks too much about boring things. Enjoy the man who says nothing but works like a horse. Enjoy the person who always seems to say the wrong things. Enjoy odd, enjoy different, enjoy weird. And others will also enjoy you.
New and Different. In daily life, there is a certain measure of necessary work that must be done. Some are better suited for doing one mundane task and others another. No one enjoys washing dishes, so a task like that should be shared by all. Indeed, the enjoyment of daily rhythm can come out from washing dishes together.
Yet in the bulk of our work, we do enjoy things like cooking or teaching or woodworking or caring for children. And those gifts should be honored and enjoyed by each other. But those who become weary should be given new tasks, and those who are bored should have the opportunity to use their gifts in different ways.
A Deeper Expression. Yet in each heart there is a longing to express something deeper than working that which is needed daily. There is a longing for art, for drama, for literature, for sport.
You might just find that the guy under your car covered with grease makes a hilarious or moving actor in a stage production for the family. You might just find that the quiet mother who takes care of everyone’s children is able to write incredible adventure stories. You might just find that the math teacher would love nothing more than to spend an hour each evening tending a well-designed rose garden in the center court.
Give People Space. Give people space to be what they are and honor them. But even more than that, enjoy them.
As you get to know one another, as you allow for the hidden depths in each one to find their own expression, you are getting to know God. God has given us the capacity to know Him in large part by giving us each other. And nothing has robbed us of knowing God more than our dim view of other believers in Jesus.
Of truth, this was Adam’s fall, and all of his children – despising one another for not meeting the “standard.” Through this disdain flows the river of death.
Enjoying God. What if the bottom line is Christians enjoying one another as each is the very expression of Father? I do believe it is.
Most oppose the very idea of Christian Community and respond against it with contempt. The bottom line is this. What we think about others in the gathering of the Church IS what we think about God. It is those who enjoy one another who enjoy God. And when humans on this earth enjoy God, then our Father, for the first time in human history, can show Himself as He is to all.
What is God? – Christians enjoying one another. – Life lived with His GLORIOUS Body.