Vertical and Horizontal love

 
Christian or not, we have all been exposed to the Cross.
 
I was sitting out on the beach and there is this cross that’s stands in one of the dunes on Pensacola Beach. I started looking at the cross and thinking about how a cross is built. The cross is built vertical and horizontal (north and south, east and west). So, think about our relationships with our spouses, significant other, friends and family. These are horizontal relationships, people you interact with daily and go through life with. The people who are in your sphere of influence.
 
Now think about your relationship with God. No matter where you stand on this, Jesus, God, "religion", everyone has a relationship with God. Where we are in that relationship is truly up to us. HE does not move, it is us who grow nearer or further from Him. Understanding that, think of your own relationship with God. The way you talk, pray, seek to know Him, look to Him for guidance and steps of obedience; this is your "vertical" relationship with Him. Your understanding (however that might look for you) that God is with us. Imagine for a moment that the cross on the hill is suddenly without the vertical portion. What happens to the horizontal part of the cross? It crashes to the ground, right?
 
In John 13:33-34, Jesus gives us a new commandment and that is, “Love others the way I loved you.” When Jesus said this, he was sitting at dinner with his disciples. When we hear this verse we might think about the Cross and what Jesus did for us on the Cross, but they didn’t. They may have thought back over the last few years they followed Him and when he really showed them Love.  Jesus could have called them out and said something like this”
 
Jesus could have said to Mathew remember when I first met you? You were not liked by your community and were an embarrassment to your family, However I invited you to follow me. So Mathew extend that same grace and love to everyone you meet. As I loved you…..
 
Nathaniel, remember when we met? Remember what you said about me? “Does anything good come from Nazareth?” You talked about me, my town, my family, and my child hood friends. But I invited you and loved you anyway. So extend that same grace and love to everyone you meet. As I loved you….
 
Hey you all remember that day that I gave that blood drinking, flesh eating illustration and how it offended and confused the crowd and we started to lose them? And all you yahoos were thinkning about leaving me to fend for myself. I could have left you to fend for yourselves, but I didn’t. So do unto others as I have done unto you.
 
This is what horizontal love looks like and this is what Jesus has called us to do.  When your vertical relationship (with God) is not in place or is wavering. All of your earthly relationships, whether you know it or acknowledge it, are held up or let down by the condition of your vertical relationship with God. If your relationship with God is not in the right place, all of the relationships in your life will be affected or fall. All of them.
Remember what Jesus said just before He gave up His life on the cross? "It is finished." Scholars and theologians have examined and unpacked what He said in that moment for centuries, trying to understand what Jesus truly meant.  Here's my two cents: the work that was finished on the cross at Calvary? It was the work of Him always being with us; when we submit to Christ as our Lord, the Holy Spirit is always in us. He dwells within us so that the vertical relationship is always secure. THAT'S the work that was finished. THAT'S the miracle of the cross. THAT'S the reason He came and the reason we can celebrate.