The Vertical and the Horizontal. Relationship with God and then everything else. It's important that we get this order right. Under the old covenant the law was all about the horizontal and getting the horizontal right in order to establish and maintain right relationship with God...Jesus flipped that process on its head and said that the vertical and relationship with God comes first, and that through that our lives on the horizontal would begin to be changed. Most people (even believers) still live in the old way, trying to do enough in the horizontal to get and stay right with God in the vertical. But doing the horizontal never adds anything to the vertical. Any vertical relationship to God is only established by the work of Jesus on the cross, and because it is established by Jesus and only Jesus our vertical relationship is kept by Jesus as his work has never changed.
If we see our relationship to God as depending on anything we do in the horizontal, it will determine how we THINK God feels about us and sees us. And that will all depend on our performance.
