The overall theme of the Bible could be described this way… God created mankind to have a deep relationship with them, however sin (Satan) drove God and mankind apart through selfishness, pride, etc. (1 John 2:16); the same things that destroy our relationships among each other today. From that point on, God made the initiative to help us change our way of thinking about ourselves all the time, by giving us some guidelines to help us out (the laws). However, we needed to be shown how to be selfless and compassionate towards others. Once Jesus came to earth to dwell among us, He would model what a good relationship with God would look like. Finally, Jesus made the ultimate sacrifice to save the ones God loved from the growing virus of sin, by giving us access to the anecdote to selfishness, pride, etc., and then our relationship could be restored. (John 3:16, Hebrews 7:27)
Perhaps that’s the extreme condensed version of the gospel, but like any relationship resolution, it takes mutual effort to make a relationship work. One side cannot do all the work and expect to have a loving relationship. That’s where our role in this relationship redeeming project comes in: We must accept His resolution, listen to him, and then get rid of pride and selfishness. (Matthew 17:5, 2 Thessalonians 1:8-9)
By listening to Him, it simply means when He has something to say, we actively listen to it and demonstrate that we respect Him by doing everything within our power to comply with His requests. (James 1:22) To help us out, He even gives us a tool (the Holy Spirit) to help see the blessing of His way of thinking, and to even convince us to act on those actions. (Romans 8:5, 2 Corinthians 1:22)
So the official beginning of the relationship rebuilding process would be our compliance in being born again to this renewed effort to make this relationship work. In the form of washing away our old lifestyle filled with selfishness, we are baptized. (Acts 22:16, 1 Peter 3:21) Without over-simplifying salvation, this is a snapshot of the process. We are simply trying to make a cosmic relationship work. The other side of this summary is the fact that if we’re not interested in making this relationship work, then God will “move on.” He won’t force you to be in this relationship with Him. However, since He created this entire physical realm in order to have a relationship with those He created, by rejecting the relationship resolution, we reject the reason we’re even physically here, and so you choose to be separated from God. Meaning if you choose not to fulfill a relationship with God, then you go where everything that has no purpose goes – the garbage. The catch is, God is eternal, and time means nothing to Him; therefore, nothing biodegrades in His garbage heap. (Matthew 13:37-43, Matthew 25:41-43)
This brings us to the main point. We must accept Christ in order to have our relationship with God restored. (John 14:6) Once we do, we got to get rid of the sin in our life. How? You may ask. That’s where that spiritual guidance from his instructions (the Bible), other people wanting that relationship to work (Christians), and recognizing selfishness when we see it (via the Holy Spirit), all of these things help us say NO to sin. (1 Corinthians 10:13) It’s not impossible to trust God; we’ve just got to want to do it. We won’t always see every trap, but like in any good relationship, God knows if we’re trying or not.
No comments:
Post a Comment