A Relationship with God

A Relationship with God

The ultimate goal of the Gospel is a loving, meaningful relationship with God. Until people understand this goal, they will pervert the process. Because we fail to realize what God desires, we spend much of our time and effort pursuing an entirely different goal than that which God desires.

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

Gen 3:8 When they heard the voice of the LORD God as he was walking in the garden during the breeze of the day, the man and his wife concealed themselves from the presence of the LORD God among the trees of the garden.

Just as God had initiated this whole plan for man, just as He had initiated every aspect of Creation, just as He had initiated a relationship with man to start with, man didn’t respond. He hid from God. 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.

Gen 3:9 So the LORD God called out to the man, asking him, "Where are you?"

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 called for judgment. That assumption is perpetuated in fearful man to this day.

Unfortunately, this fear of God is not experienced exclusively among the lost. Even after people are saved, they have reservations about intimacy with God. Among believers, there is a lack of confidence concerning God’s desire to be intimate with us. There is a low-level, nagging fear in most people. They do not really believe that they are acceptable to God.

We have the illusion we are trying to get holy enough to have involvement with God. But our attempt to be made acceptable is like Adam’s. Adam, like us, missed the point. If God did not want to fellowship with Adam, He would not have come to the Garden looking for him.

Our fears, like Adam’s, affect our behavior so dramatically that we cannot have meaningful involvement with God. We do not accept the reality that God pursued us in Jesus. He made us acceptable. He wants a relationship so much that He has done everything to make this relationship possible.

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

We need time with God in order to develop and experience these factors. When you spend time with someone who is kind to you, you grow in your trust for him. All positive involvement is part of developing the relationship. However, you will not spend time with someone if you do not realize that he accepts you. You will never have the opportunity to experience God until the issue of peace is resolved.

There is a real possibility that the sin nature is not necessarily a nature that just craves sin. There is every indication that the essence of the sin nature is fear. Fear was the first emotion mankind displayed after Adam ate of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. It was fear that made Adam hide from God. It is fear that makes us turn to sinful actions instead of trusting God.

Fear and unbelief go hand in hand. Where is there is one, there is always the other. Because we do not trust Him, we do not come to Him to receive strengthen and help in our time of need, or that He will really give us the promises He has made, because we are afraid.

What do we fear? We are afraid that we are unacceptable to God, that He does not approve of us, that we don’t measure up, and that He will find fault in us and punish us and that we do not believe that we are righteous.

Some might say, “I thought you were supposed to fear God.” In the King James Version, numerous scriptures tell us the value of having fear of God. Let’s take a closer look at the admonition to fear God.

On the one hand, you have scriptures that tell you to fear God. On the other, God often begins speaking with the words “Fear not.” When there are obvious contradictions like this, I have found that there is usually something I am not understanding.

Actually, the word of fear in the Old Testament is better understood as “awe, respect, and love that produces worship.” We should have an awe of God that produces worship, not fear, God does not want you to be afraid of Him.

Jesus showed us God so that we could have boldness to enter into a meaningful relationship with Him. God desires our presence. He desires our hearts. He wants a relationship with us.