Tuesday, March 8th, 2016
VERTICAL AND HORIZONTAL
Pastor Max preached several weeks on Ecclesiastes. Last Sunday he concluded the series with an illustration that locked in the message he was trying to get across.
There is a vertical line that reaches upward and represents your relationship with God. And there is a horizontal line sideways that represents your relationship with other people and with the world. The pastor’s point is that the vertical relationship always needs to come before the horizontal one.
For example, justice and equality and fairness are found on the horizontal line and “good” unbelievers chase after them with a penetrating focus and fervor. But without a vertical relationship with God first, all this effort is meaningless and chasing after the wind.
Believers sometimes focus on the horizontal first also. But if they do so, it too is meaningless. Only by a solid relationship with God first can justice and equality and fairness be dealt with in the correct sequence. I think many of our politicians have forgotten this.