There’s something extraordinarily safe about the surface. Depth can be frightening.
For instance, once upon a time Grace (my wife) and I were on vacation- and she wanted to go kayaking…in the ocean. I was ok with that…until I couldn’t see the bottom of the ocean floor anymore (which, as you can imagine, is not very far out).
Grace is more adventurous than I am in that respect. She kept on paddling…she wanted to further out…and I wish I could say I was all in on that, but my paddling became very half-hearted. Going where it’s deeper in the ocean is unsettling to me, because Jaws lives in the deep part of the ocean and will make you a snack.
This is why so many of us default to surface level relationships. Sure, we like to exchange pleasantries and talk about the weather…but we are timid about letting people get behind the curtain and discover what we are really like. It’s uncomfortable to go deep, because depth in relationship gets into areas that we just aren’t that comfortable letting people into.
Our relationship with Jesus is no different.
Sure, we love the concept of not going to hell. We are drawn to the fact that Jesus loves us. We even like to casually hang out, talk with him a bit, and even listen a little to what He has to say.
But we have a difficult time going beyond that. We have a difficult time going deeper with Jesus, and here’s why: because He begins to mess with things that we’d rather Him keep away from and keep His hands off of.
Here’s where it’s important to understand something about going deep with Jesus- something that is often misunderstood within the church.
Spiritual depth is not about growing in our intellect about Jesus. It’s about growing in our intimacy with Jesus.
I believe that what we often do in the church world is gravitate towards ideas about Jesus- and, as we master those ideas, we believe that we are now “deep.” However, if ideas about God and theories about God were what defined depth, then the Pharisees and Sadducees- Jesus opponents during His time on earth- would have been the deepest people around.
Yet Jesus called them a “brood of vipers”- or a bunch of snakes (Matthew 12:34).
While there is nothing wrong with growing in our intellectual understanding of Scripture and of God’s nature, there’s a profound danger in it if we are not careful. The danger is that we can mistake intellectual knowledge about Jesus with intimacy with Jesus- and the two are not the same.
Intimacy with Jesus means transparency with Jesus. And by transparency with Jesus, I mean more than understanding the fact that He already knows everything about us. What I mean is willingly coming to Him with everything about us.
If I’m honest, I have a hard time being honest with God- and I can even find myself spiritualizing my dishonesty! I may be broken, hurting, grieving, confused, in pain…but cover it up when I come before God in prayer and not even acknowledging what is really going on in my heart.
That does me zero favors because it keeps God out- and it’s the opposite of what Scripture shows us.
Read Psalm 22– particularly look at the first two verses. This is David- a man after God’s own heart- who wonders where God is and wonders why God doesn’t seem to answer. And yes- while the psalm goes on to utter some powerful statements of faith, it starts with brutal, gut-wrenching honesty.
By the way- the only way to really grow in your faith- to go deeper, as it were- is to start by truly being honest before God about what’s going on inside you. Jesus wants to change you, but He won’t force you to change. He’ll only change the parts that you stop trying to hide from Him.
Put another way- Jesus won’t heal what we insist is not injured. We don’t change until we realize the need for it- which starts with honesty before God.
Shoot, that’s where the “narrow gate” Jesus speaks of as the door to salvation starts- with being honest about where you stand before God: not as a sort of good, not that bad person, but as a thoroughly wicked sinner in desperate need of grace.
We never lose our need for grace after salvation- because while Jesus saves us and make us new, the process of us becoming like who we already are in here carries on the rest of our lives. While we are perfected in God’s eyes because our life is now “hidden in Christ,” we ourselves are not by any means perfect and still need to be changed to become more like who God sees us as.
The problem, so often, is we stop being honest with God quickly after salvation- and here’s how you can tell:
While you may truly be a follower of Jesus, your life doesn’t resemble Him too much.
Here’s the thing about intimacy with Jesus- when we let Jesus in and He gets close to us, not only does He start dealing with things we don’t want Him to, He begins radically altering the way we do things. In short, He doesn’t just address the pain, the wounds, and the scars that we’ve been hiding- He heals them in a way that produces a lifestyle that is marked by His very nature. In healing what is going on inside us, He begins to produce in us something that is loving, humble, kind, gracious, gentle, forgiving, faithful, peaceful, and self-controlled. It begins to become obvious that we’ve let Him get close because the closer He gets to us and the more we let Him in, the more we begin to resemble Him.
If you know a lot about Jesus but you don’t look much like Jesus, then you simply aren’t as deep as you think you are- and it’s probably because you’ve yet to be gut-wrenchingly honest with Him about what is really going on.
Here’s the good news: there is nothing you can do to make Jesus love you more- and there’s nothing you have done to make Him love you less. He loves you fully and completely- no strings attached. He already knows everything about you- you do not have to hide it from Him or try to be super-spiritual when you come before Him. Just be honest.