A Foundational Thought
It has been a very long while since I put anything on here. The reason for this is that I have been working on piecing together a more complete project – a book on Ecclesiastes. I might post a chapter or two of it on here someday soon, but for now I have writer’s block on that subject. To try and relieve the blockage (Terrible imagery, I know), I wanted to write this little thought.
A lot is said about growing in your relationship with Christ. This is the absolute essential of Christian life. It is also the greatest privilege and honor of being a Christian. The thing is that for all the talk about growing in that relationship, very little seems to be said about how that is practically done. I remember little hands going up in Sunday School to give the big three answers to the question of how to grow closer to God – read your Bible, pray, and don’t sin. It’s strange that these answers still sufficed in middle school and high school small groups. It gets stranger still that there has been little expansion to them in college and adulthood. Maybe I’m alone in overanalyzing the question, but it seems to me that these three things are actually products of a healthy relationship with Christ more so than they are the cause. In other words, if my relationship with God is weak and flabby, I am not going to have a desire to read my Bible, pray, or obey His law. That is not to say that we shouldn’t do these things, I am just being honest about my personal experience.
I think we, or at least I, need to start thinking about practical ways to grow closer to the living God who loves us. Here’s one thought I had recently.
You’ve just sinned. Or perhaps, more accurately, you have just decided to admit that you sinned. With full knowledge of God’s eternal forgiveness you fall on your face (literally or figuratively) and begin apologizing and confessing to Him as you beat yourself up like an angry bully. It is at this moment that you realize you have been here before, maybe dozens of times, probably hundreds. The guilt of the one sin turns into the guilt of years of sin and crushes you.
From here it can go two ways.
1. You feel unworthy to keep praying. You look at your Bible across the room, afraid if you touch it, you will burn your fingers (Briefly thinking that you’d probably deserve it). Your relationship with God goes nowhere, because you feel like all you do is break His heart.
This option is guilt. It doesn’t come from God. It comes from the old nature, the one that is self-absorbed. Its fruits are more sin, more guilt, and the rejection of a good life because you think you don’t deserve one.
2. You realize that the first place you go when you’re in trouble with sin is to God. If not the first, then the ultimate or highest. Then recognize that God is your refuge from sin. You instinctively run from sin back to Him. He is the person who you look to for rest and peace of mind.
You will be tempted to feel bad about this, because you know you should actually come to Him before you go astray. However, this is redemption. This realization that God is our refuge from evil is the foundation of a relationship with God. Do not feel bad about using God as your escape from sin; revel in it. Know that feeling and remember it. Now the foundation is set and ready for the next building block.
Paul says in Philippians 3:12 on the subject of a perfect relationship with God, “Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own.” We must understand that just like with any relationship, there is no one, two, or even three things we can do to make it perfect. It is a lifelong process of realization and building. When we fail, we need to take hold of that failure and figure out how to turn it into a building block. The same goes for when we succeed. Remember that everything from the worst sin to the greatest good deed can be used to build on the foundation of redemption and bring us closer to God.
I want to hear your thoughts and suggestions for practically growing in our relationship with God.
Great thoughts man. I think we can easily apply the same principle you mentioned to prayer. If you rarely pray, you don’t feel like you’re deserving when the time comes and actually do want to pray. It can turn into a viscious cycle if you continue to deny yourself of that relationship God wants to have with us through prayer. Thank God for that new desire He puts in us.