Tuesday, April 10, 2018

My "2X4 Repeatedly to the Head" Moment

Have you ever felt that God was trying to tell you something? I am not talking about a vague whisper or a gentle tap on the shoulder. I am talking about every time you read something or every conversation you have tends to lead to the same place. I am talking about verses popping out of the pages of scripture that you have read before but missed this message. I am talking about every day, situations come up into which this nugget of truth that God has laid before you speaks volumes. That is where I am at right now. God has a message for me and unfortunately, it takes a 2X4 repeatedly to my head for me to understand it:

His desire is for each of us to fall in love with him.

We use all sorts of other terms: follow him, choose life, turn to him, become a disciple, ask Jesus into our heart, believe on Jesus, be born again, etc. As an analytical person, I got lost in the mechanics of the gospel and how to lead someone to make a decision. While those are important, they also miss the real goal of why God put us on this earth. God wants to share his love with us and he wants us to love him back.

Most of my Christian life has been focused on knowing God and serving God. A song that I learned when in a singing group illustrates most of my life as a Christian: "I'll obey and serve you. I'll obey to show I love you. I'll obey my life is in your hands. For it's the way to prove my love when feelings go away. If it costs me everything, I'll obey." There are times when we all need to sing this song. My problem was there were few times that I had those "feelings" in the first place. Maybe it was because I grew up in a Christian home and was saved at a young age. I do not remember much of anything before then and since it was when I was young, I am not sure how much change was evident in my life. Thus, the emotions surrounding that event were muted and they have been so since.

Time and time again, God has been opening up my heart to feel God's love for me and relish that relationship rather than just going through the motions of the things that I should be doing. Spiritual disciplines have been the things we do to get closer to God. While that is true, it is more of the dates we take with God to foster our relationship with him.

My Bible reading has me in Leviticus, which may be a surprising place to see God's love and care for his people but it is there. The different offerings are ways that God provides for us to come back to God after we mess up. Even in what is being offered, God shows care in that 1) it needs to be something of value to show the importance of our relationship with God but 2) he allows a graduated scale to be used to determine what should be given based on the situation of the person offering the sacrifice. God is less interested in what we do and more interested in how and why because a relationship is what he wants with us.

God pointed out through a friend that our relationship with our kids and with our spouse is an illustration of our relationship with God. What did I do to fall in love with my wife? Am I doing that with God? What do I want from my relationship with my sons? That is what God wants from us!

How are you helping your love relationship with God to grow today? What are you doing to spend more time with him to just enjoy being with him? God loves you and wants to show it to you.

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