Posted on by intentional4christ

Religion vs Relationship

So two weeks ago, I had a conversation with my pastor that started with the statement “I am very angry with God”. And after about a 15- 20 minute rant about why I was angry, she prayed with me and I went on my rather morose way! And for the past two weeks I have been thinking, “well I put that out there, God and so now its your move” and for the past two weeks I have been wondering how both God and I will get past my confession and back into relationship. Yesterday as I was getting ready for church, I heard a sermon playing on the TV from a preacher I had never heard before and he started by saying, “people are the angriest they have ever been” and that piqued my interest and then God in his special way managed to speak to me through all my anger. So here is what I learned:

  • Lesson #1- Look underneath the anger
    • The preacher in a very dramatic reenactment described Naaman’s journey to healing from leprosy (2 Kings 5:1-8:15) . When Elisha had asked Naaman to get cleansed in the Jordan river his immediate reaction was anger. One would think that for someone who had travelled all the way for healing, he would have been more excited that he did not have to do something so arduous but no…Naaman turned away in anger. Now Naaman was a highly regarded and valiant soldier, a man’s man and his current state was a far cry from the success he had achieved in life. There was a great chasm between what Naaman’s expectations of the life of valiant soldier should look like and his current experience. And this chasm was filled with anger and rage. As the preacher said, success has a way of sedating us to think that we do not deserve any form of suffering and perhaps this was the state of mind of Naaman who expressed anger at the instructions to go and wash in the Jordan river. Two weeks ago, in unburdening about why I was so angry with God, I had shared with my pastor how I felt God could not be trusted. I was angry because I have spent a greater part of my life in service to God in one way or another and did not feel that God was treating me fairly with the adversity and unanswered prayers I have recently encountered. And guess what? I am not alone! Many Christians are asking God questions like, “why did I lose my loved one?” “why did I get Covid?” “why did you not prevent my marriage from falling apart?” “why didn’t the healing come when I prayed?”… and so on and so forth. As the preacher said so astutely, our everyday success has a way of sedating us into thinking that we do not deserve our suffering and the truth of that statement hit me hard. I have asked myself if my whole relationship with God had been built on the notion of reciprocity – that because of the things I have done in service of God that somehow I deserve God to give me everything I ask for. Two weeks ago, my pastor suggested that I reflect on what I have anchored my faith to- whether my faith and trust in God was tethered to the fact that my whole family has been serving Him faithfully and so felt like God owed us something for our service. I have spent the past few weeks thinking about this and have uncovered something really valuable which I share in lesson #2.
  • Lesson #2- What is your faith anchored to?
    • In exploring why I have been so angry, I have ruminated on what my trust is anchored in and came to the conclusion that my pastor was on to something. Over the years, I have built my faith and trust in Jesus based on the things He has done for me. The answered prayers for provision and providence, the many times of deliverance from accidents and ill health, the times I have experienced God’s grace have served to increase and grow my faith in God and in His abilities. However, my faith has not been anchored to more than that. For example, instead of building my faith around the fact that God is a healer which is His character, His essence, I have built faith around his acts of healing- so not on who He is, but what He does. And while God’s many acts helps to build faith, anchoring my faith on His actions alone is not a sustainable way to develop trust in a relationship. So in keeping with this example, during those times when God chooses not to heal me or my loved ones, my faith gets shaken because there is a gap between my expectations and my experience. In reality, whether or not God chooses to heal in a particular instance does not, and should not change the fact that He is a healer. In many ways, I have become like the Israelites of old who sought God for his mighty acts and so that was all God was to them. However, this was not the case with Moses. Even though Moses got introduced to God through his acts (the burning bush), he grew in relationship to the point where he knew God and communed with Him as friend with friend not because of what God could do, but because of who he is. Think about this:

He revealed his character to Moses and his deeds to the people of Israel (Psalm 103:7 NLT).

Psalm 103:7 NLT

So through all my anger, God managed to reach at the crux of what was bothering me and not only that, He has brought me into a place of deeper relationship with Him- just like He did for Naaman. When God got through to Naaman past all his anger, He not only brought healing to the leprosy but also healed his heart. This year I have experienced new dimensions of God and I find that the more I lean into it, the more it feels like my life is falling apart. And the more my life falls apart, the more it falls into place. So before I sign off, I leave you with this thought: Religion says God I did this so now it is your turn to do that but Relationship says God I trust you. so which one do you have? Religion or Relationship?

Yours Truly

P.s. here is the sermon I listened to: https://elevationchurch.org/sermons/the-cost-of-going-off/

Posted on by intentional4christ

A Relational God

In the past couple weeks I have been listening very closely to God about what it means to have a relationship with him. God has been speaking with me regarding this and it all starts in a garden. For those of you who missed last week’s post, this is coming from my realization that I do not know what it means to be in relationship with God so I asked God to teach me. I do so with the understanding that in order to persevere in my faith , I need to see clearly who Jesus is, and what he has done for me. So, let’s go to the garden…

In the beginning, God created humanity to have a relationship with Him. The full embodiment of the Godhead created Adam and Eve to be in the image and likeness of God and gave them creative power and dominion over everything (Gen 1: 26-30). God made humanity different from the angels- who are God’s messengers that do His bidding. He created beings who were a little lower than the angels and crowned them with glory (Heb 2:7- 8) and filled them with many of His abilities and attributes so that he could relate with them on a different level- not as servants like He would the angels but as friends. He made humans with the ability to create beings in their own image and likeness like God had done; to call things into existence by speaking just like God had done; to have power over created things like God does; and He gave man the ability to take care of things, and to nurture and cultivate things just like God can. He even topped it all by giving humans the ultimate key to relationship with Him: CHOICE. (Relationship is all about choice- you choose who you want to be in relationship with and how much you want to give to that relationship. You choose whether people you meet will become strangers, acquaintances, friends, lovers, etc. The only thing man did not choose was to be created- because that choice lay in the hands of the Creator and that still remains true today for us as humans with the the ability to procreate, children do not choose to be born, that choice lay in the hands of the parents, the creators- but I digress). So on a daily basis, God came down and spent time in fellowship with Adam and Eve in the garden He made for them. Until one day, Adam and Eve chose to no longer be in relationship with God and chose disobedience over obedience; and the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil which is death over life. And that day, everything else broke. Humans still had everything that God had bestowed upon them in creation- the ability to create, nurture, to have dominion and to bring into existence things that are spoken- but what had changed was that because Adam and Eve chose death- everything that humans have created and done since then is tainted by the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil and the internal struggle of good and evil was reproduced in every human after that day.

In the meanwhile, humans were created by God, for relationship with God and God’s plan is to reconcile and restore humans back to that original place of relationship in the garden where God would come down and dwell with his creation and He promises to do this in the fullness of time:

Then I saw “a new heaven and a new earth,” for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God.  ‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death’ or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”

Revelations 21:1-4 NIV

However, in order for humans to return to this place of relationship with God, they had to make a choice to reject the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil which is death and choose life. But how? Humans have tried for many millennia to find their way back into relationship with God but cannot on their own because everything we do comes from the nature and likeness of Adam and Eve which is not the same as the nature and likeness of God. For us to get back in relationship with God, our nature and likeness must be changed back to the way it was in the beginning because the only way to be in that kind of relationship with God as Adam and Eve had in the garden is to be in the image and likeness of God as it was in the beginning.

God had to remove the option of death so that the only choice left to make was life for anyone who is ready to make that choice. The only way to do that was to take on death itself by dying. In order to do this, God had to assume the human nature with its struggles between good and evil (which is death) and life. God in human form as Jesus (also known as Emmanuel which means God among us and with us), chose life for all, just as Adam and Eve had chosen death for all. He did so by being the sacrifice of death in the choice of life and death so that as many people who want to be reconciled to God no longer had the option between death and life- only life. This is what we call being ‘born again’- it is the act of choosing life over death and by so doing, taking on the image and likeness of God so that you can go back to being in relationship just as you were created to be.

But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels, now crowned with glory and honor because He suffered death, so that by the grace of God He might taste death for everyone. In bringing many sons [and daughters] to glory, it was fitting for God, for whom and through whom all things exist, to make the author of their salvation perfect through suffering. For both the One who sanctifies and those who are sanctified are of the same family. So Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers. 

Hebrews 2: 9-11NIV

So in last week’s post, I admitted that I did not understand how God can keep forgiving over and over again and when His love would run out. There is still a mystery there but that does not negate or diminish the fact that Jesus revealed the depth of God’s love for humankind by taking our place and dying for us. It is this love, this yearning to restore relationship that is activated every time I pray for forgiveness of sin and choose life- even if it is 1000 times per day! This is why God can forgive me unconditionally because every time I renounce sin, I am choosing a relationship with Him and I am choosing life and that is all He desires- that no one perish but that all come to choose life, even everlasting life. He wants a Revelations 21 ending for everyone of His creation- to be back in relationship with Him forever as was intended in the beginning. And this is the simple gospel.

Yours Truly

Posted on by intentional4christ · 1 Comment

How will you bow?

Lets start with an exercise: Think about your best image of God. Who is He? What is He like? How would you describe Him to a 3-year old? For the past few weeks I have been reading the book of Job and although this will be at least the third time I have read this book, I am seeing it from such a new perspective. Job talks about God’s superiority and sovereignty in ways that are both awe-inspiring but can also leave you feeling very helpless before this powerful God. He says things like:

“To God belong wisdom and power; counsel and understanding are his. What he tears down cannot be rebuilt; those he imprisons cannot be released. If he holds back the waters, there is drought; if he lets them loose, they devastate the land. To him belong strength and insight; both deceived and deceiver are his. He leads rulers away stripped and makes fools of judges. He takes off the shackles put on by king and ties a loincloth around their waist. He leads priests away stripped and overthrows officials long established. He silences the lips of trusted advisers and takes away the discernment of elders. He pours contempt on nobles and disarms the mighty. He reveals the deep things of darkness and brings utter darkness into the light. He makes nations great, and destroys them; he enlarges nations, and disperses them. He deprives the leaders of the earth of their reason; he makes them wander in a trackless waste. They grope in darkness with no light; he makes them stagger like drunkards.” Job 12:13-35 NIV.

Job and his friends described the God-man relationship in a manner where God is this inapproachable powerful being. They described God by his deeds; the things they had seen or heard or imagined Him do. Similarly, the Israelites’ perspectives of God versus that of Moses were very different. The Israelites looked to God for things: the meeting of their physical needs of food, water, shelter; protection from their enemies; healing from diseases and so on and so forth. The Israelites only knew God for his deeds but Moses’ relationship was different. He actually knew God for who he truly was.

He revealed his character to Moses and his deeds to the people of Israel.

Psalm 103:7 NLT

Job’s characterizations of his relationship with God so far (up until Job 12 that is) is nothing compared to our modern-day- live-under-grace characterizations. While everything Job says about God’s nature is truth, God still invites us by virtue of grace into relationship where we can know him for who He truly is . Unfortunately instead of grace giving us the advantage of a deeper relationship where we can know God beyond our needs, many of us relegate God to the position of all powerful being who we call upon when we cannot figure out things for ourselves. This genie-in -the-bottle mentality pedaled as the essence of Christianity and preached as the “prosperity” gospel (although many of us will not deign to admit that we treat God this way) only serves to rob us of having a deeper connection to our amazing God.

This week in church the pastor made a statement that inspired this post. Now for some mental exercise:

Come back to your image of who God is and picture this: You are standing before God at the end of your time here on earth and then in enters Jesus in all his majestic splendor. In accordance with the scripture says that “…at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth…Phil 2: 10ESV” you WILL bow, but how will you bow? Will you bow in reverent worship and recognition of the great King with whom you had formed a relationship with while you walked the earth? Will you bow in excitement that you’ve finally made it across the other side of eternity and you can finally get to see the full image of God who had been showing glimpses of himself to you all through your journey on earth? Will it be like meeting a date for the first time after years of zoom calls and facetiming? OR will you bow in abject terror of this God because your “genie” turned out to be nothing like you imagined? Will your knees buckle at the realization that you missed out on the great opportunity earth afforded you to get to know God and now you are in the presence of a stranger? Would you bow in shame, pleadingly asking for mercy?

So here’s the question of the week: How will you bow?

Yours Truly

P.S. The food box is going great! I will do a post about it in a few weeks but for those of you eager to hear about it: it has inspired something within the community and people have anonymously thrown in cans of food. Thanks to all who have donated so far and to all who have encouraged me through prayer and kind words. Together, we are on mission for God!