What is My Relationship with God?

It is easy to venture forth down a path for the truth and end up using the wrong criteria to validate your relationship with God.  When you feel as though you are wandering through a desert season in your life, it is tempting to look around for signs of life that are as intangible as an amoeba.  It is there but your senses say otherwise.  It is the same with God.  Sometimes he keeps us in the dark for purposes that extend past the boundaries of our immediate thinking but nonetheless, this will happen and you may feel as though you have been forsaken.

What is Relationship?
If I was going through a tough time, for instance, I might look at my dream journal as a means to verify that my relationship is alive and kicking.  The only problem is that Pharaoh and Nebuchadnezzar also received dreams but there was no indication that they were walking with him in relationship.  So that got thrown out the window and I was back to the drawing board.

Then there was that strange passage in Matthew 7:21-23: “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.  Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?’  Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you.  Away from me, you evildoers!’

How in the world could you cast out demons, prophesy and perform miracles if you were not walking with God?  At first glance, it would seem unfathomable but being sensitive in your spirit/soul might still allow this to occur.  That is why Paul said in 1 Corinthians 13:1-3, “If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal.  If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.  If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.”

Paul would not have juxtaposed ‘nothing’ next to the ‘something’ of spiritual gifts if it were not possible to exercise them apart from God.  That is why he stated that you ‘are nothing’ and ‘gain nothing’ in relationship to God, because love is the fruit we should be looking for to verify our relationship with God for God is love (1 Jn.4:16).  His nature should dwell as the displacement of our own character.

If you still need further proof, then let’s take a look at Samson.  He has a sexual relationship with a prostitute and then with no indication that the Spirit of God left him, he tears loose the gates of the city and carries them all the way to the top of Hebron (Jdg.16:1-3)!  As a young naïve student in college, I was so amazed at this theological conundrum because I could not reconcile sin and the Spirit of God working hand in hand.  Logic certainly has its limits, at least where it is misapplied.  James told the church in regards to sin, “Can both fresh water and salt water flow from the same spring?” (Jas.3:11), not because this was merely  fundamentally incompatible or impossible but because it was and it should not have been.  Even the Anti-Christ will perform signs and wonders (Rev.13:13).  This most certainly should not be construed as the litmus test for his relationship with God.

To take this a step further, Solomon was given the gift of wisdom and he walked away from the Lord.  Even the gift of teaching will not guarantee that you have a relationship with God.  Theological giants tend to cast themselves in the image of God as do laymen dwarves.  In an effort to appease my own fears, I can remember thinking, “If I was Solomon, I would have asked for the gift of faith because with great faith, how could anyone wander away from God?  Right?”  Remember what Paul said, “…if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.” (1Cor.13:2, italics mine) You can still move mountains with great faith and yet lack love.  There is no sense in having the former if it dominates the latter.

I am not trying to provide a context in which to nullify the importance of the spiritual gifts, only that they do not validate relationship.  Jesus knew this all too well when, “The seventy-two returned with joy and said, “Lord, even the demons submit to us in your name.”  He replied, “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven.  I have given you authority to trample on snakes and scorpions and to overcome all the power of the enemy; nothing will harm you.  However, do not rejoice that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.” (Lk.10:17-20)

This verse has been mistakenly used as a proof text to avoid the casting out of demons in our modern day culture but nowhere in this scripture does Jesus tell them to avoid this or otherwise he would not have sent them out to do this from the get-go.  He is only bringing them back into balance.  Their identity should never be molded into their supernatural abilities but in their relationship with God, thus, the “written in heaven” reference.  God first, then giftings.  Relationship always precedes giftings.

The Essence of Relationship
So what does it mean to be in a relationship with God?  Jesus repeatedly said that it was his only desire to do the will of the Father.  Just as Moses would follow the cloud by day and the fire by night, so would Jesus seek the presence of God as his fathering guide.  Every little boy sees their father as their hero.  Wherever he goes, they want to follow.  This tells us something so important about the internal make-up of the child: it gravitates towards similar likings.  We reflect the nature of the God we serve by the genetic/spiritual/psychological characteristics that we bear.  Have you ever had someone tell you that, “You sound just like your father?”  It is because you bear witness to the DNA that has been coded into the fabric of your bodily complexities.

DNA contains the essence of life on the biological level.  Just as it is reflective of the reality of living in our physical side so can it be said of our spiritual side.  Christ spoke of this when he said, “…I am the way and the truth and the life.  No one comes to the Father except through me.” (Jn.14:6, italics mine) When life invades our spirit through the Holy Spirit, it feels as though we have been rejuvenated and any form of decrepit lifelessness crumbles in its presence.  We become the embodiment of the charge, “…Be fruitful, and multiply…” (Ge.1:28).

It was John Eldredge in his book, Wild at Heart, who said, “Our sexuality offers a parable of amazing depth when it comes to being masculine and feminine.  The man comes to offer his strength and the woman invites the man into herself, an act that requires courage and vulnerability and selflessness for both of them.  Notice first that if the man will not rise to the occasion, nothing will happen.  He must move; his strength must swell before he can enter her.  But neither will the love consummate if the woman does not open herself in stunning vulnerability.  When both are living as they were meant to live, the man enters his woman and offers her his strength.  He spills himself there, in her, for her; she draws him in, embraces and envelopes him.”

When I first read Eldredge’s take on this subject matter, I was trying to understand exactly what he meant when he said “strength.”  It seemed as though his descriptive analysis was on the far side of the metaphorical scale and I was failing to grasp the abstract poetic adjective because I could not anchor it in the concrete.  I thought it was a wonderful description and had actually thought of this myself but only as a spiritual act as it related to the intimate relationship between the Bride and the Bridegroom (see the entire book of the Song of Songs).  Something was missing but I did not know what.

All I could think of was, “What is my strength when I offer it to my wife and what is God’s strength when he offers it to me?”  If you are strong, it might relate to a myriad of subjects.  Initially, when I think of someone as strong, I think of this in terms of physical strength but certainly that doesn’t relate to sexuality nor does God make me physically stronger.  Strength may also indicate how intellectual you are but I cannot see an impartation of intellectual assent in sexuality nor do I see this within the confines of intimacy with God.  It could also mean that your strength lies within your artistic abilities but I cannot see this in either marriage to spouse or marriage to God.

The truth of the matter is that all of us are different and while each of us might be more talented in one or the other or even several, we cannot claim a mutual exclusivity.  You might be more intellectual than me and I might be more artistic than you but neither verifies a superior relationship with God.  If any of these were true, then the Body of Christ would be 1) the most intellectually dominating group on the planet 2) the strongest physical specimens since Samson and 3) so artistic that Van Gough would have been jealous.  While it is possible for God to grant a spiritual empowerment to any of these, they do not form the essence of what it means to be in a relationship with Him.

A Lesson in Sexuality
So what is the essence of relationship with him?  Just for the record, Eldredge almost painted the whole picture but I believe he left out one key element: life.  When a man and woman come together within the covenantal confines of marriage, there is an exchange of life.  The Greek word for seed is σπερμά (sperma) which is where we get our English word sperm and its usage can be found in 1 John 3:9: “No one who is born of God will continue to sin, because God’s seed remains in him; he cannot go on sinning, because he has been born of God” (italics mine). We find in this passage all of the effectual elements of having an intimate relationship with God/spouse.

The man spills the seed of life in the woman just as God spilled the seed of life in our own hearts by the Holy Spirit when we made a covenantal promise to him.  From this seed of life is birthed a newborn baby just as God births new life in us spiritually on an ever increasing basis for renewing our hearts from the “be fruitful and multiply” charge.  There you have it, just as the physical DNA of any father is imparted to the mother for the life of the newborn so it is with God.  He impregnates us with a spiritual DNA that verifies the paternal characteristics that reside within our own hearts for our redemption, healing and greater depth of knowledge of Him.

The life and consequently, the fruit that we bear from it are at the core of relationship otherwise, there is nothing to relate to and we no longer bear witness to being a relative.  That is why 2 Peter 1:5-8 says, “For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; and to godliness, brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness, love.  For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

It should be the goal of any marriage whether to spouse or to God that we know him intimately through the spiritual/analogous pattern of sexuality that has been given to us.  Accumulating mere data should never be the goal.  It is sad to say but it seems as though the church has done just that.  They have memorized a biological profile on their Spouse.

The only problem with this is that anyone can memorize information on anyone else’s spouse.  What then would make them unique in your relationship?  And what can we say of those who are forgetful and cannot memorize information? Are they less spiritual?  Depth of knowing does not equate to a memorization of facts, it is much more than that.  It alters our nature with a welcome intrusion of life for the redemption, repair and restoration of the heart.  Data alone cannot do this.

Even the atheists can memorize theological data.  Our relationship with God is intimately bound to our pregnancy of spiritual regeneration, the offspring (fruit) that we bear and how we cultivate that offspring so that it is a genuine representation of our spiritually paternal character resident in the Father.

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