Relationships

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While Ryan is out on vacation, we will have guest bloggers writing here at JustOneMore.info.  This week’s guest blogger is Searching. Searching is a regular commenter here at JustOneMore and recently became a member at CrossPoint!

First, allow me to say what a tremendous honor it is for me that Ryan would ask this humble servant to fill in for him this week while he takes some much deserved time off. My prayer is that all that is written here brings glory to God and supports the leadership Ryan has established through this blog.

Do you ever stop long enough to look at the relationships that fill your life?

We begin life building a relationship with our parents and siblings. We add friends as we grow. As we go to school we have teachers, Sunday school teachers and coaches. We continue to grow and search for that one person to spend our lives with in marriage. Before long children arrive and many relationships form through those years.

Add in doctors, pastors, etc. as we travel through life. Some people pass through our lives briefly and touch our hearts. Others last for our entire lives. Our lives are indeed replete with relationships; in fact most of what we define as life is all about relationships.

The bible has much to say about relationships. It begins in the first chapter of Genesis and continues through the end of Revelation. The bible is all about relationships. And the most important relationship we are capable of is with the one who created us. It’s also the one relationship every human is born in need of and is unfulfilled until he develops it through salvation in Jesus Christ. And what most people do not realize is that every single aspect of their lives emanates from their understanding of God’s glory and relationship with Him through Christ.  The entire bible is also a story of God’s redemption of man through the sacrifice of His son.

After God creates the earth He creates man and woman and begins a loving relationship with them. When man sins, he is placed in the world outside of the garden and God begins the redemptive work that would lead to the cross, the grave and the resurrection. If we examine our lives closely we will find that everything about us begins and ends with God. We are created in His image.

There are three parts to us, body, soul and spirit. It is in our spirits that we fellowship and come to know God and yet we seem to develop the spiritual part of ourselves the least. Why do you suppose that is? Is it fear? Could it be that we lack the faith? Perhaps we just can’t see, touch, smell, hear or taste spiritual things and so they elude us. Ryan has said (I will repeat this often in my blogs) that the most important thing about every human being is their understanding of who God is and what kind of relationship they have with Him.

If our relationship with God is strong, we have the strength, wisdom and perspective to deal with any adversity life can throw at us. If our relationship with God is weak we seem to be devastated by anything that comes along. Don’t misunderstand, even when we have our relationship with God secure and strong, adversity, trials and tribulations will still attack us, but the difference is the tools we have to handle them. It changes us from the inside and that changes our approach and our perspective on everything outside.

How does one develop and strengthen their relationship with God? First one must decide that it is the most important thing in their lives. Second, that decision will lead to an insatiable desire to study God’s word; seek out a place to be fed from the Word; get involved in what God is doing in the world through serving Him by serving His creation; and intentionally seeking His voice which comes to us through Holy Spirit.

We literally change the way we think as we get closer and closer to God. Read your bible through every year as CrossPoint is doing. The more time we spend reading the Word the more opportunity Holy Spirit has to teach us. Ask your leaders about books and other materials that will guide you. The one thing we have to understand is that one will only get out of a relationship what one puts into it first. We have our responsibility in this to seek (or search!) and God is always faithful to honor our effort.

So seek God, grow in your spirit, know God and love God.

So then, what do you think?

Soli Deo Gloria!