I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go;

I will counsel you with my eye upon you.

Be not like a horse or a mule, without understanding,

which must be curbed with bit and bridle,

or it will not stay near you.

(Psalm 32:8,9)

I heard someone ask once, “What are the minimum qualifications for being a Christian? What is the least I must do or believe to get “in”?  I had trouble answering that question. It felt like a young man asking a friend’s advice on a relationship with a woman who expressed her love for him, by asking, “What is the minimum required of me to be married to her?”

I would be tempted to say, “Run, girl!”

Jesus answered a similar question in Mark 10.

 And as he was setting out on his journey, a man ran up and knelt before him and asked him, “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” And Jesus said to him, “Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone. You know the commandments: ‘Do not murder, Do not commit adultery, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Do not defraud, Honor your father and mother.’” And he said to him, “Teacher, all these I have kept from my youth.” And Jesus, looking at him, loved him, and said to him, “You lack one thing: go, sell all that you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.” Disheartened by the saying, he went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions.

In other words, he wants your whole heart.

When first introduced to the God of power in the desert, the one who showed up on the mountain in a sound and light show beyond description, the children of Israel said, basically, “Moses, this God is too scary. Tell you what, you talk to him, get his demands in writing, and when you have it in black and white we’ll have our people look at it and get back to you.” Thus a relationship with rules and a book (and experts on rules and the book as intermediaries) became the norm. The question they were asking was, “What is the minimum we need to do to get what we want and keep this God from being mad at us and making our lives miserable?”

A minimum marriage requires signatures in black and white on a marriage certificate. A true marriage requires a husband to lovingly lay down everything for his wife, the way Christ laid down his life for the church, and for a wife to respond to that love by offering him everything she has in return. The Bible often uses the metaphor of the Bride of Christ for his chosen church, the ones who have responded to his call.

Being a Christian is all about relationship. And yes, God does communicate with his beloved with more than rules and a book. He has already given everything. She just has to come to him.