Relationship With God

God created us for a life with Him that is full and good -- an abundant life.  So what happened and why have we not experienced that?  God offers us a life of a freely chosen loving relationship with Him that is anchored in our trust in His care for us.  God, who knows everything, gave us a choice to operate within His loving knowledge or choose to try to navigate each day on our own.  God knew that with our limited knowledge of ongoing consequences of our choices, we’d end up in disaster without Him.  But, love has to be freely chosen and so God gave us a choice.  The foundation of trouble and addiction in our lives is the consequences of our failure to trust our life choices to the direction of this all-wise, all-loving God.  We always bring pain and disaster into our lives when we attempt to live life on our own terms.

God knew the knowledge of good and evil that was awakened in humans by their disobedience would bring them shame, fear, pain, suffering, broken bodies and broken hearts.  God cared so much about that suffering that He sent His beloved Son to die for the destructive sins of every human being.  His desire is that we would be free from sinful rebellion and live in love, joy, and peace both in this world and in the world to come. 

For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your ancestors, but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect. (1 Peter 1:18-19 NIV)

What hinders us experiencing this loving relationship with God?  Most often it is our unwillingness to rebuild our system of beliefs on God’s word about His love and ability to guide our life path with great care.  We continue to believe that no one cares for us as much as we deserve. We believe we have to manage our own care if we are to have a good life.

We may talk about God’s unconditional love for us but until we actually believe Him and do what His word says, we are only relating facts about Him – facts we don’t completely believe.  We will never experience a life-changing relationship with God until  we change our behaviour to match his guidance.   But don’t just listen to God’s word. You must do what it says. Otherwise, you are only fooling yourselves. He leads the humble in doing right, teaching them his way. (James 1:22; Psalm 25:9 NLT)

Today, let’s determine to allow God to teach us His ways and see the difference it will make in our relationship with Him.

©2015 Partners in Hope