The Gospel of Peace, A Relationship with God!

The Gospel of Peace

A Relationship with God

The ultimate goal of the Gospel is a loving, meaningful relationship with God.

Because we fail to realize what God desires, we spend much of our time and effort pursuing and entirely different goal than that which God desires.

What does God desire?

-         He 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 us this about. He dealt with the one thing that stood between us and Him: sin!

What did sin do?

-         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, or being involved with God.

In Genesis 3:8 (ISV) we see some insight into the way sin affected man’s relationship with God.

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 of man, initiated every aspect of Creation, initiated a relationship with man to start with, this day He initiated a visit with Adam.

But for the first time, 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.

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

What illusions about God do Adam and we have in common?

-         We rely on our abilities, not Gods.

-         We don’t think we are acceptable enough in God’s eyes.

-         We think we need to get holy enough.

-         We think God is judging us.

-         We fear God, because we think He’s judging us.

These fears along with others affect our behavior so dramatically that we cannot have a meaningful relationship with God.

Meaningful relationships are the product of love, trust, and personal involvement.

We need time with God in order to develop and experience love and trust. As we spend time with someone who is kind to us, we grow in our trust for him. But we will not spend time with someone if we do not realize that they accept us.

The one element that hinders a real relationship more than anything else is fear.

-         Fear breeds all sorts of negative emotions and actions.

-         Fear is the root of deceit.

-         You can’t be honest with someone you fear.

-         You can never be real with someone you fear.

You will be too busy trying to cover your faults to develop a relationship.

Because we are afraid of God, we don’t really believe how God feels about us. We have not allowed love to deliver us from the power of fear.

There is a 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 very first emotion Adam displayed after eating from the tree. It made him hide from God. It is fear that makes us turn to sinful actions instead of trusting God.

Fear and unbelief go hand in hand. So what is it that fear and unbelief cause us to do?

-         First of all, fear God.

-         Not trust God.

-         Not to go to God to receive strengthen and help in times of need.

-         We don’t believe He really will give us His promises He has made.

What do we fear?

-         That we are unacceptable to God.

-         That God does not approve of us.

-         That we don’t measure up.

-         God will find fault in us.

-         God will punish us.

-         We do not believe we are righteous.

What does fear prevent?

-         Prevents us from having an open, honest relationship with God.

-         It keeps us from all honest and open communication.

-         It destroys all possibility of knowing God.

-         Makes us emotionally unstable.

-         It brings all matters of torment into our lives.

There is an endless list of the negative effects of fear.

Some people say that we’re supposed to fear God. In the King James Version scriptures tell us to value of having the fear of God. But let’s take closer look at admonition to fear God.

First of all King James made the scholars change words in the bible so that he could try to get away with his very bad behavior and to control people.

First John 4:18 tells us, “Perfect love casts out fear.”

This means that fear and love cannot coexist. If I grow in the love of God, the fear of God will diminish in my life. I know God is love. I know God wants me to experience His love.

The word for 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 us to fear Him.

Just as today as in Jesus’ time leaders portray God as hard and judgmental. Just like today the church misrepresents Jesus. Jesus was merciful, approachable and open. He was relationship oriented.

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.

The Gospel of Peace, Experiencing the Peace of God

The Gospel of Peace

Experiencing the

“Peace of God”

·        There should be no fear of God in the heart of a believer.

·        There should be only a deep and powerful realization of being loved and accepted by God the Father, the Creator of the Universe.

·        When fear is in a person’s heart toward God:

-         The person in question does not really believe that God loves him with a perfect love.

-         That person is afraid of what God will do to him. He is afraid he will be hurt or rejected by God.

John 4:18 (The Living Bible) I need have no fear of someone who loves me perfectly; His perfect love for me eliminates all dread of what He might do to me. If I am afraid, it is for fear of what He might do to me, and shows that I am not fully convinced that He really loves me.

·        A  Christian who believes what Jesus did through His death, burial, and resurrection should have a life of confident acceptance that is permeated with peace.

·        There should be:

- No torment.

- No nagging sense of guilt and rejection.

- Only peace.

Every religion in the world offers peace to man.

Christianity is the only one, however, that delivers.

For we are not a people that is attempting to achieve a state or status that will give us peace; we are a people that has been made right  with God through the finished work or one Man, Christ Jesus.

Because of His finished work, we have been granted peace with God.

Religion is man’s attempt to find peace with God. Christianity, on the other hand, is man’s accepting peace with God through the Lord Jesus Christ.

Many people are awaiting judgment from an angry God.

Many times they have no idea what they could have done; they just have a sense of fear and impending judgment.

This is what the Bible calls condemnation, or the expectation of damnation and judgment. In Christ, though, we are free from condemnation!

 Fear seems to be the motivating factor in the lives of many Christians.

·        They have represented God so negatively that an entire world is turned off?

·        It has not been some force outside the church that has so destroyed the reputation of God.

·         It has not been some evil, demonic group.

·        Unfortunately, it has been the voices of well-meaning people within the church.

Isa 53:1 “Who has believed our message, and to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed?

When Isaiah prophesied about the great work of the cross, he also prophesied, “Who has believed our report?”

There is a report about God that is so good, so freeing, so loving, so kind, so merciful, and so generous that man refuses to believe it.

·        Those who reject this wonderful report either spend a lifetime trying to please God or ultimately walk away from God.

·        Most people are angry at God because of the unbelieving report they heard in church than for any other reason.

When men and women get their hands on religion, one of the first things they often do is turn it into an instrument for controlling other, either putting or keeping them in their place.

This control seems to have become the goal of the church.

Rather than setting people free with the good news about Jesus, they use it as a way to bring people under their control.

What you believe about righteousness is what you believe about how you relate to God.

If keeping the law is our basis for righteousness, then it is also the basis for receiving the promises of God.

·        It is the basis of getting our prayers answered.

·         It is the basis of God’s protection.

·        If keeping the law is the basis of righteousness, then our ability to have peace is determined by our ability to keep the law.

·        Ultimately, keeping the law becomes our basis for salvation.

While proclaiming belief in Jesus as the way of salvation in one breath, we have totally excluded Jesus in the next breath.

 In experience, however, we look to our performance to provide everything that Jesus died to provide.

Intellectually and theologically, Jesus is still the center of our faith, but emotionally and functionally, we have become the center of our faith.

Romans 8:5-8 (The Message Bible) Those who think they can do it on their own end up obsessed with measuring their own moral muscle but never get around to exercising it in real life. Those who trust God’s action in them fine that God’s Spirit is in them—living and breathing God! Obsession with self in these matters is a dead end; attention to God leads us out into the open, into a spacious, free life. Focusing on the self is the opposite of focusing on God, ends up thinking more about self than God. That person ignores who God is and what He is doing. And God isn’t pleased at being ignored.

This self-obsession is not the product of a person who desires to reject God.

·        Rather, this is the person who is trying to please God by his own efforts.

·        This is the person who has ignorantly rejected the finished work of Jesus and has become obsessed with earning righteousness by his performance; thus he has an obsession with self.

In the book of Galatians, Paul pointed out the motivation of those who pervert the Gospel (Good News):

·        Control!

·        Leaders who don’t trust Jesus don’t believe the Gospel (Good News) will work by its own power.

·        Because they themselves do not believe in the power of the Gospel, they feel it is their job to control you, to “put you in your place.”

·        What makes this so undetectable is the motive.

·        Many of the most destructive forces in the church are people with good motives.

·        The most dangerous person is the one who has a deep passion to help people but who does not believe in the power of the Gospel (Good News) to produce change.

·        Instead of proclaiming the finished work of the Lord Jesus and entrusting the people to the work of the Holy Spirit, that person will resort to carnal methods of control.

·        When people are controlled, it appears that they have changed.

·        So the deep motive to help people justifies the desire to control.

The main tool for control is fear.

There are seven things fear does to you:

·        Fear will rob you of confidence.

·        It will restrict you.

·        It will make you angry.

·        It will make you emotionally unstable.

·        It  will strip you of the new identity you have in Jesus.

·        It will leave you stripped of the God-ordained dignity and worth that belong to you as a priest and a king.

·         It will make you feel the need for an intercessor.

The intercessor who will come between you and God will not be the Lord Jesus, however.

Instead, this intercessor will be someone who offers to show you the way—the formula.

It will be someone who will know all the rules and requirements for staying right with God.

God desires for you to know and experience His great love, acceptance, and peace.

But you must believe the report God gives about the finished work of Jesus.

It is a good report. It is a report of peace!