The Fundamental Question

A difference between the follower of Jesus and the religious Christian is the primary question they ask. The follower of Jesus asks, “How is my relationship with God?” The religious Christian asks, “Am I going to heaven or hell?”

The fundamental question asked determines the focus of ones life. The follower of Jesus goes on tweaking their life to get their relationship with God right. They want to live as close to God as possible. The religious Christian rejoices that they don't have to worry about hell and just plain goes on with their life.

The reward for seeking to live as close to God as possible is a life lived in God's presence. Of course this means we ask God to show us the things in our lives that screw up our relationship with Him, and we ask Him to help us get rid of those barriers. There is nothing better than a life lived close to God, and the decisions we make to draw closer to Him and the actions we take to follow through with those decisions all bring us closer to Jesus.

The starting place for living close to God is the Cross of Jesus.  Jesus died  on the Cross so that we could have a right relationship with Him.  He died to forgive us for our rebellion against Him, and we need to continually ask Him to forgive us for our new rebellion.

There are also rewards for the religious Christian who stops with confirmation (frequently a false comfort) that they are on the way to heaven. The religious experience that they have can be a genuine strength to help them live life. They can stop worrying about spiritual things and go about their life confident that everything is going to work out. Romans 8:28 can comfort with a false comfort, but to do that one has to ignore half of the verse and the context of the verse. Look at the whole verse in context:

Rom 8:28 & 29. “And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose. For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brethren”

The religious Christian stops reading the verse with, “And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God.” They believe that this talks about them as they confuse their gratefulness to God for rubber stamping their ticket out of hell for actually loving God. They will then have some funky understanding of how their circumstances work out.

The follower of Jesus understands that the highest priority of God for their life is that God wants to make His followers more and more like Jesus. The fact that He will definitely accomplish this for those who truly follow Him is awesome. We want very much to be changed to be like Jesus, and whatever is going on with our circumstances, we can rejoice that we will be more like Jesus when God gets us through it. We also know that whatever happens, there is no possibility that those circumstances will separate us from the love of God (look at the rest of the chapter.)

How is it between you and God today? How is it between you and God right now?