Relationship with God

I only have a few minutes to write, so in this blog i will only barely touch on the subject, but this is what it is all about.  Following Jesus is about a personal relationship with God (and of course that means relationship with God the Father, relationship with God the Son and relationship with God the Holy Spirit).

A personal relationship with God, just like relationship with another person, is a complicated thing.  Mainly however, you have to spend time with them.  One of the awesome things about God is that whenever He speaks to us He is also telling us that He loves us.  And when God  tells us He loves us that is the ultimate experience of being loved.   So the most important part of this relationship with Him (but remember it is still a complicated thing just like relationship with people) is loving Him and receiving His love.

Something we see all the time in today's world is two people together and one is talking on the cell phone.  Those two people are not (most likely) spending quality time together.  Myself, when the other person is talking on the cell phone, would mostly rather not be with the other person at all.  Similarly when we claim to be hanging out with God, but have other stuff on our mind and are not focused on God at all, need to realize that it doesn't count.  For example if we are sitting in a worship service and thinking about lunch - that's not relationship with God, and we may be mostly missing out on one of the most awesome things this life offers us.  If we arrive at the Bible study late and can't possibly catch up with the group on what they are learning about God - it doesn't really count.

Clearly it's not that simple; we can also have relationship with more than one person at a time.  We can have a group of people having a group relationship and God CAN be included in a group.  One example can be a group worship experience - and loving God as a member of a group can be really, really, powerful.  But we need to realize that the flesh can give us fake and religious experiences that also make us feel good.  We need to be wary and think about spiritual principles . . but am getting off on a rabbit trail.

 Group relationship with God. We can also have this going on in types of situations that we very rarely do spontaneously.  If in your life it happens regularly - thank God for this blessing.  When we get together with our friends we can move the conversation to spiritual matters and end up in spontaneous prayer, bible study and or singing to God.  If God is truly the center for each of the people in the group then this should be a very natural process.  We can give the other people in the group a precious gift if we do our part to include God.

One of the things that we can do to spend time with God, when alone with Him (or not), is to sing, chant or quote a song to God which is significantly meaningful to us about our relationship with God.  This can get us into the situation where we are loving God and being loved by Him.

Questions:  What are your favorite ways to spend time alone with God?  What are your favorite songs (or other) that bring you into God's presence and into relationship with Him?

Loving the Things of the World

When asked which of the commandments is the most important Jesus responded basically that we should love God with ALL of our heart, soul and mind.  (Mat 22:37-38). If in some dark alley a gun was pointed at you and you were told to give up ALL your money, you would understand with no problem at all that ALL means every bit of cash and probably your credit cards as well.  When God tells us to love Him with ALL our heart we understand we our to feel good about Him on Sundays and 2 or 3 other times during the week when we think about Him.  If you know a fisherman or a car mechanic you know that they will talk about fishing or fixing cars for hours on end with no problem at all.  You try to have a conversation with most Christians about the Bible and it is typical for them to very much prefer other topics.  For all of the time i have spent sitting in "fellowship" and eating with Christians, i have pretty much no peer example of how to have a casual group conversation about the Bible.  Casual conversation where people talk about a particular topic from the Bible with Bible in hand and different people suggesting different verses and viewpoints is something we very, VERY, rarely do. 

When God asks us to love Him with ALL of our heart we seem to think that those things that truly have our affection, like spectator sports or big houses or fishing or whatever we choose do with our discretionary time, we seem to think that those things are subcategories of loving God.  Is that a reasonable hypotheses?   "If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him."  I think that when John wrote this there were actually things that we are not supposed to love.  I would say that one way to decide if our affections are things that God does not want us to love is to ask ourselves if they are getting in the way of doing what God HAS told us to love. 

For example our eternal salvation is implicated in Jesus' story about the sheep and the goats.
     "For I was hungry, and you gave Me something to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave 
     Me something to drink; I was a stranger, and you invited Me in; naked, and you 
     clothed Me; I was sick, and you visited Me; I was in prison, and you came to Me."
He was talking here about loving people.  Therefore loving people in this way is a subcategory of loving God.  If you or I spend more time with things like spectator sports than we do with type of loving God, then we are clearly loving the things of the world more than we do God.  Jesus clearly tied this to eternal salvation!!!  This is really important!!!

Christianity in many ways teaches us it is not "just alright" to love the things of the world, but actually teaches that God wants us to love some of them.  But this train of thought can take us to many topics.

Here is the bottom line for now.   We need to take a serious look at where our heart is.  We don't decide this by what makes us feel warm and fuzzy, but rather what do we think about, talk about, and spend time and money on.  Are those things truly subcategories of loving God?  If not, it is very possibly idolatry.  It probably fits fine with Christianity, but it does not fit with following Jesus.

Loving the things of the world

The primary place where true followers of Jesus separate from Christians, the way that i am understanding things, is in the love of the world.  Both groups claim to love God totally, but Christianity became polluted very early with a concept that amounts to thinking that loving certain parts of the world are actually subsets of loving God.  One of the first and one of the primary places for this is in loving the state.  The love of the world among  Christians has changed the way that their faith is taught, so that their teachings enable one to continue to love the things of the world.

Definition of "Christian"

There are many definitions of the word "Christian" in use out there.  Probably most people do not think about what it is they are saying when they use the word.  For many it simply means a generally good person, and that is a reasonable definition if the definition is understood.  For a lot of church type people it refers to people that are following Jesus.  They take that definition from the idea that in the book of acts the Greek version of Christian was applied to Jesus' followers meaning that they were little copies of Jesus.  That definition is an in house definition. The main modern usage, which I will use for this blog, has to do with the historical and Christian churches.  My definition of a "Christian"  is someone who has the basic beliefs and culture of members of typical Christian churches.

The problem with the "basic beliefs and culture" is that Christianity basically only pretends to love God with "all of their hearts, soul, mind and strength."  We are told to not love the things of the world as part of the New Testament job description.  Christianity has evolved its culture and much of its teaching and tradition to continue to love the things of the world. 

Followers of Jesus on the other hand need to consider carefully all of the scripture passages that include the idea of enduring to the end.  Several examples are Revelation 2:7, 12:11 and 22:12

"To him who overcomes, I will give the right to eat from the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God." 2:7 (the same message repeated to each of the seven churches.)

"And they overcame him because of the blood of the Lamb and because of the word of their testimony, and they did not love their life even when faced with death." 12:11

“Behold, I am coming quickly, and My reward is with Me, to render to every man according to what he has done."  22:12 (In context - this verse is sandwiched between verses talking about some people going to hell and others heaven.  It is hard to rationalize this as talking about levels of rewards in heaven.)

Followers of Jesus strive to actually follow their Lord, not just claim to follow Him.

Very First Blog - Getting Started

Hello.  I am brand new to blogging, and there will probably be a bit of a learning curve in getting the hang of this.  The basic reason that I am doing a blog is that I believe strongly we need to follow Jesus with everything we have and everything we are - we need to love God with all of our heart, soul, strength and mind.  The problem is that this should be done in community, and the place that community has traditionally been done - the Christian church, is broken.  I have attempted to fit in to the Christian church for decades and have failed.  I believe that I have thought through these problems more than a lot of other people have and thus have some valuable insight that can help a lot of other people that are also struggling to follow Jesus in community.  I pray that we can learn together how to Love Jesus and follow him in ways that would bring praise to Him.