Ecclesiastes 4: 9 - 12 NKJV
I've had more than a few conversations with a friend lately about relationships and just how they shape us as people. Now, this all came about due to a few strained and failed relationships in his own circle of friends and family so perhaps he was trying to learn from that experience. Whatever his motivation, it certainly led to more than a few conversations including more than a few about our most precious relationship of all. That relationship we have with the man Christ Jesus. Now, there may be others out there who bristle at the fact that we, as sinners, could indeed share a relationship with one so holy as Jesus, but we are told more than a few times that we indeed share a deep relationship with Him. The apostle Paul recognized this when he wrote that it was indeed Christ who now took importance in his life {Galations 2:20}. It was this scripture, penned by Paul, that first introduced me into my own relationship with Christ. It was also this passage which I have introduced to others that they might experience the very same relationship with Him. Before being introduced to my relationship with Christ, Jesus was nothing more than one I'd read good things about. Here I was, trying my best to not live in sin here on eartth while Jesus sat at the right hand of the Father ready to admonish me when I fell. Boy did I fall! In fact, I spent more time asking God for forgiveness than I did celebrating that freedom which Jesus died to give to me. The epiphany for me came one Christmas season as I sat in church gazing at the wooden cross inside the church. As the pastor related to all who were listening that Jesus gave Himself that our sins would be clean, a bell went off inside me. What had I been asking forgiveness for all this time? I realized that I didn't really know Jesus on a personal level.
9In this the love of God was manifested toward us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him. 10In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. 11Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.
1 John 4: 9 - 11 NKJV
We all know that guy who we work with who everyone greets each day yet never takes the time to ge to know. Well, for too many of us, Jesus is that guy. We know of Him through what we have been taught, yet we seldom venture into that relationship territory with Him. Indeed, this was the extent of the relationship I had with my friend for the longest time. I would see him each day yet never took the time to get to know him. It wasn't until I started working with him that I began to learn more about him. I believe that we can say the same thing about our own relationship with Christ Jesus, we may never enter into a closer relationship with Him until we realize just who He truly is. If we see Jesus as I once did, as only a Holy spiritual being watching over our every move then we may never enjoy that freedom of a relationship with Him. This belief system seperates Christ from our own lives, and that is simply a false teaching. We all remember Pauls thoughts on Jesus in His own life. It was no longer he who lived, but Christ who lived in him. So it is with us today. If we continue to see Jesus as being seperated from our own lives, then that is where He will remain. However, that doesn't make this the truth of Christ, only that we refuse to recognize it. How is it that we can have a relationship with someone we don't know? This is the million dollar question. We can talk all day about getting closer to Jesus and becoming more like Him, but in the end we're missing the boat. For we are ALREADY like Him. We were created in His likeness and it is Jesus Himself who shares each and every day with us. Of course, we could be like that guy who walks into work each day yet never gets to know those around him. Don't be that guy.
20“I do not pray for these alone, but also for those who will believe in Me through their word; 21“that they all may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You; that they also may be one in Us, that the world may believe that You sent Me. 22“And the glory which You gave Me I have given them, that they may be one just as We are one: 23“I in them, and You in Me; that they may be made perfect in one, and that the world may know that You have sent Me, and have loved them as You have loved Me. 24“Father, I desire that they also whom You gave Me may be with Me where I am, that they may behold My glory which You have given Me; for You loved Me before the foundation of the world.25“O righteous Father! The world has not known You, but I have known You; and these have known that You sent Me. 26“And I have declared to them Your name, and will declare it, that the love with which You loved Me may be in them, and I in them.”
John 17: 20 - 26 NKJV
~Scott~
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