February 6, 2024

Have you ever noticed that a cross has two beams? One is vertical, and the other is horizontal. One of the beautiful reminders of that image is that Christ came to bring healing, wholeness, and restoration in two ways. First of all, He came to restore our relationship with God. That’s the vertical beam. Christ’s sacrifice made it possible for our relationship with God to be restored. As we confess and repent, God’s grace and forgiveness are poured out upon us. We become one with Him through Jesus.
The horizontal beam represents the healing that Jesus wants to do between us and others. That’s a little trickier. God challenges us to love and forgive just as He loves and forgives. But God is perfect, and we are not, which means we don’t do it as easily, completely, or even in the same way as He does. He does expect us to give it our best shot though, even when it has to come with some conditions.
For instance, we can love people even though we may not be able to have them in our lives. Some people aren’t safe. Though abusers and unsafe people can’t hurt God, they can hurt us. So we must try (to the best of our ability) to love them from a distance. There are other people who are toxic to our mental health. These are people who may be too harsh, too critical, too negative, or too overbearing to allow them close. As much as we’d like their words or attitudes to not crush us, they do. So as we try to love these people as well, we have to do so with boundaries. Limited time, limited exposure, and/or limited places. Another group that we have to love but keep our distance from are people who are not good influences on us. If we allow them in our lives, they will lead us down paths and to places that we shouldn’t go. They feed our addictions or lifestyles that we’re trying to live in victory over. All of these are people God has called us to seek to love. But we have to know that it’s okay to care about these people, pray for these people, and to ask God to help us with our attitude towards these people…from a distance.
So as you pray today, thank God for the vertical beam of the cross. Thank Him for His Perfect Love and for how He’s helping you learn to love Him. But thank Him, too, for the horizontal beam. Thank Him that, though you will never love some people in your life as perfectly as He will, you will, with His help, love them the best that you can. And yes, it’s okay to let Him know that with Some People you will need a LOT of help! That’s God’s Word for you today.