Now while He was in Jerusalem at the Passover Feast
many people saw the miraculous signs he was doing
and believed in his name.
But Jesus would not entrust Himself to them,
for he knew all men.
He did not need man's testimony about man,
for he knew what was in a man.
John 2:23-25 NIV 

For all His love and grace, for all His profound relationships,
still, Jesus did not "entrust" himself to anyone.
Even if they believed utterly in His name.

The NKJ and the KJ translate it "commit himself"
Amplified - "Jesus (for His part) did not trust Himself to them."
NAS - "Jesus on His part, was not entrusting Himself to them."

The Greek word for "trust" here is PISTEUO and
it means "to believe, to place confidence in,
to trust, reliance upon."
John used this word far more than any other gospel, 99 times.
It is often translated "believe."

The Biblical "believe" infers the meaning
that you give your being into the
which you believe is true.
It is more than just mental assent to a truth.

It is the transfer of your "very self," of your entire being,
giving yourself over - and into - the object of your belief.

Jesus did not give himself over to any person.
He did not rely on anyone, He did not "trust"
even those who exuberantly believed in Him.

It was not a cynical despair but the simple reality of
two fundamental things:
One: humanity is totally untrustworthy, absolutely corrupt.
The best and the worst are equally and totally fallen.
You cannot "give yourself" to that which
cannot possibly "keep you."

Two: Jesus was given - utterly and completely - to His Father
and God had exclusive and
inclusive rights of total access to Jesus.

No human being had control or influence over Jesus.
He tolerated no such enmeshment and
no such interference.

Jesus had one allegiance. One relationship.
One Master and one Lord.
And He commanded us to live in the same chosen
boundary of God's ownership . . .
absolute and unequivocal.
Permitting no rival and no distraction,
not even allowing anyone's participation
in the secret place of that Divine relationship.

Jesus' habit was to spend nights alone with God in the bleak mountains of Israel . . . a picture of
the privacy of His intimacy with the Father.

No disciple was invited or permitted to enter
that secret "tent of meeting."

No description is written about Jesus' night vigils,
no information, no pattern revealed.
All of it was secret and remains secret.
Was it prayer?
Was it worship?
Silence?

Not even one second of it is revealed.
That communion is left to
our personal discovery,
our own visit to the mountain trysts
during the dark and silent hours of earth's natural sleep.


We Believers are entirely too relational.
We are too much enmeshed with a humanity
that cannot be the support of our hopes or
a source of our dependence.
And who cannot live up to our expectations of fidelity.

So our offenses are deep
and intensely wounding.

Our disappointment in betrayal is devastating,
not over the offense, but because
our own foolish trust and
illegitimate bonds are so violated.

 
Love, God's agape,
does not mean trusting a person to bear you up,
to understand you, to sustain you.
These are God's roles for which He is
extremely Jealous!
Real love is giving - not leaning, freedom - not chains
of attachment,
setting others entirely free of the burden of you.
Giving them space to fly or fail without the load
of your heavy expectation.

The stake of your life's success depends on no other
person . . . only yourself and your God.

Jesus loved fiercely. He had profound compassion. He
gave His very life for the love of God for humanity.
But He never gave His soul's secrets nor
the responsibility for His journey to
any other person.

For love, He gave His Throne, He gave His life's blood.
He even gave up His Father's presence on the Cross.
But He never gave His private soul into the hands of
Adam and Eve's unworthy children . . . .

So His forgiveness flowed easily and constantly
by the open absence of expectations.

 
Strange restriction was given to His disciples toward the end of
His life. A limitation in relationship, one we have not heard,
much less, obeyed.

But you are not to be called 'Rabbi'
for you have only one Master and you are all brothers.

Let no one give you the responsibility for their spiritual
growth. That is entanglement.

And do not call anyone on earth 'father,' for you have one Father and he is in heaven.

Give no one the responsibility for your childlike need
of a parent. The only one who can Father you
is the Father in Heaven.
To have an earthly father is . . . entanglement.

Nor are you to be called 'teacher,'
for you have one teacher, the Christ.
Matthew 23:8-10 NIV

Only One Teacher can teach you in a
perfect and individual instruction.

Let no one teach you, and be the teacher of no one.
God's voice and instruction can come through any
human vessel but only His voice, the quickening
of the Holy Spirit to me, constitutes His teaching.
Anything else is . . . entanglement.

One Rabbi. One Father. One Teacher.
One relationship. One dependency.

Anything added to that is . . . entanglement.

The strength of the Christian's life is precisely the measure
of his solitary relationship in seclusion with God.
The measure of his worth to the Body of Christ
is the same.

Individual intimacy alone with the Father, Rabbi and Teacher
is one type of dynamic.
Add one Believer and you have 'church' - an entirely
different operation of fellowship with the Divine.

Both experiences are essential . . .
yet 'church' functions only out of, only from
the secret fountain of
the One Relationship.

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Copyright © 2001 Martha Blaney Kilpatrick