A Relationship with God!

The ultimate goal of the Gospel is a loving, meaningful relationship with God. Until people understand that, they will run from the process. We fail to realize what God desires and we spend to much of our time pursuing a entirely different goal than what God would desire.

Jesus didn’t come to just build an army, he is but most of all he came to recover a family. It’s through his work we are adopted, Adoption means that we are accepted into a family.

God wants us as His sons and daughters. He wants us to be a part of His family. God wants our involvement and He wants a relationship with us. He initiated the plan that could bring all of this about. He dealt with the one thing that stood between us and Him and that is SIN.

Sin had separated man from God. Sin had created a bridge that we could not cross. Sin introduced the one thing that would keep us from loving,trusting, or being involved with God. It began to reign with Adam, and it has continued until today.

Genesis gives us a closer look into the way sin affected man’s relationship with God. Genesis 3:8 is one of the saddest most profound verses in the bible. And they heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day: and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presense of the Lord God amongst the trees of the garden.

God had initiated this whole plan of man, just as He initiatd every aspect of Creation. God had initiated a relationship with man from the start. But for the first time, Adam did not respond! He hid from God and from that day until the present man has continued to run from the invitation of God. Man has refused to draw near and experience God.

Why? Why did Adam run and hide from God when he came to fellowship with Adam? He never had a problem before right? God would come and visit with him and fellowship with him but then all the sudden Adam hid from God.

Genesis 3:9 says: And the Lord God called unto Adam, and said unto him, Where art thou? There is every indication from the original language that when God called, it meant He called to make peace, God wanted peace. Adam assumed God was mad at him and was calling him to judgment. That fear has been in man from that day forward.

God already knew what had happened in the garden that day. He knew what they did and yet he still came looking for Adam? What could this mean?

After Adam had sinned God still came to him but Adam was so fearful he ran and hid away from God. He thought that he messed up so bad that he did not believe he was acceptable to God anymore.

Adam was always naked before God and he did not think anything of it, to Adam being naked was normal. But then as soon as they ate from the tree of knowledge of Good and Evil then all the sudden they knew they were naked!

Now Adam had these new abilities he did not have before! Thinking that God should not see Adam naked he covered himself. Bottom line Adam covered himself because he didn’t think he could stand before God. and he did what he thought would make him acceptable.

Adam missed the point and so have we all. If God did not want to fellowship with Adam he would have never went looking for Adam in the garden after they did what they did.

Our fears affect our behavior so dramatically that we cannot have meaningful involvememt with God! We do not accept the reality that God still pursued us in Jesus and throught Jesus he made us acceptable. God wanted a relationship with us so bad that he done eveything he could to make it possible, even sacrificing his own son Jesus for our sins so that when we come and ask Jesus into our hearts and we confess our sins he washes away our sins and when he see us he sees his son Jesus.

A meaningful relationship is the product of love, trust, and personal involvement. Relationships grow to the extent that each of these factors are present.

When there is no love, trust, or personal involvement, it is not a relationship! It could be considered an arrangement or “working relationship” but it’s not a personal family relationship.

We need to spend time with God in order to develop and experience this. When you spend time with someone who is kind to you then you start to grow in your trust for that person right?

If the relationship is positive then you become drawn to it. It is like food for the soul. It is good tasting and you want to eat it again. Soon it becomes your favorite thing to eat!

But look at the other side of this, if you spend time with someone who is not good to you then soon or later you will distance yourself from that person becasue they do not accept you right?

Fear breeds all sorts of negative emotions and actions. It is the root of all deceit! You can never really be honest with someone when you fear what he will do to you or how he will respond to you.

Bottom line is you can never be real! You become busy trying to cover up the real you and how you think in order to develop a relationship.

Same goes for our relationship with God. Adam starting running from God and so have we because we are afraid of God!

We don’t really believe how God feels about us. Fear and unbelief go hand and hand. And because we are afraid of God we do not trust him! And because we do not trust him we do not come to him.

Fear of God will prevent us from coming to Him and most of all it will destroy the possibillity of knowing God.

What’s worse is the religious leaders of Jesus day had completely misrepresented God. They had portrayed God as hard and judgmental. They had perverted the meaning and purpose of the law. They had put God completely out of reach of the people.

Jesus came and properly represented God to the world. Jesus was the exact representation of God! Jesus was and is very approachable! He is merciful,he was and is still open to us, and he was then and still is to this very day relationship oriented!

Even today some of the churches distort the true meaningful relationship God the Father really desires from us, just like the Jewish leaders did back in the day… and that has caused people to run from the only one who truly loves them. Jesus showed us God so that we could have the boldness to enter into a meaningful relationship with Him.

God desires us! Just the way we are….It is the power of the Holy Spirit living in and through us to bring us into a close fellowship with God! Apart from me you can do nothing! Jesus made this statement so that we could understand that it was not us it was him workng it out in and through us! He just wants our hearts!

He wants us to be real with him and with eachother! Be transparent so that others can see Christ in and through us. It is God who persued us and is still persuing us to this very day!

Some material was from the book entitled “The Gospel of Peace” By:Dr. James B Richards. A very profound thought provoking powerful book I very much recommend! It will inspire you to press into God and seek a real meaningful relationship with him. Be Blessed!

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