Vertical and Horizontal Relationships

Our relationship with God is vertical, heaven to earth and earth to heaven. Our worldly relationships are horizontal, from person to person. Jesus wants to be at the point where the vertical and horizontal of our existence meets. Christ became man, a person in the horizontal realm so that we might understand the vertical relationship between ourselves and God. When we choose to believe in Christ Incarnate being flesh and spirit, man and God at the same time, He becomes our way to God. And God now sees believers through the filter of Christ. How can we know how to live and love horizontally without God’s vertical love and direction? Many try to live life without this order and direction, never finding this point of vertical and horizontal intersection.

When Adam and Eve disobeyed God they took all of humanity with them. We are all born with original sin. No baby has to be taught how to be bad, we all have to learn how to be good and to do the right things. The Bible says that none are righteous, no not one. When we choose to believe in God and His Word we take on Christ’s righteousness. God sees imperfect us through our Perfect Savior. He took our sins with Him to the Cross. God’s Salvation Plan starts in Genesis after Adam and Eve sinned and fell from favor with God. No one is good enough or has worked hard enough to be saved because of who he is or what he has done. We are saved because we choose to believe. We experience a personal vertical relationship with God because we come to God through Christ. Christ reconciled us and restored man’s relationship with God.

Jesus came to show us how to live horizontally and how to treat and respond to others. The Bible is our guide book and also God’s love letter to each of us. As we grow in our Christian walk we should become more like Christ. We must examine our lives and our spiritual growth. Our spirits must be continually fed. Are we feeding our spirits at all? Are we satisfied with our eternal security thinking that we don’t have to grow from a baby Christian to a mature Christian? Do we listen to sermons, read the word, fellowship with other Christians, and study the scriptures? Are we still only feeding ourselves the milk of the word or are we getting into the meat of the word? We cannot become more “Christlike” if we don’t know what Christ was like!

Our Savior and King was first seen by the world in a humble stable. He came to show us how to humbly serve and love one another. Our Lord demonstrated servant-hood by bending down and washing His disciples’ feet. He is the Good Shepherd and we are His sheep. He was kind, soft-spoken, loving, forgiving, humble, generous, thoughtful, truthful, trustworthy, and obedient. Horizontal relationships require humility and love. As Christ bore our burdens, He wants us to bear each others burdens. He says that if you have helped or given aid to anyone, even the least of your brothers, it is as if you have done the good deed unto Him. The opposite is also true; if we harm someone we hurt our Lord and His spirit is grieved.

I will continue to study the word and nurture my faith. Faith is a gift and as I use and expand my faith it grows and develops into a mature faith. The more I stand out in my faith the more it becomes who I am. I will train the habit of faith. I trust God’s word and strive to be obedient to God’s leading in my life. I will persist to seek a more intimate vertical relationship with God and a more loving horizontal relationship with my family, friends, and everyone I meet. I want to hear God’s voice and do His will.