“In the beginning God….”
From the very first words in the Bible God is an undeniable fact. The Bible doesn’t try to explain God to us, nor does it leave any room for doubt – there is a God and He is our creator. How should we relate to this all-powerful, all-knowing, all-present, all-seeing God? Surely, He is too far above us for us to relate to Him. Well, the Bible goes on to tell us that He wants to relate to us and He wants us to relate to Him. Jesus is His ultimate message to us that He wants a relationship with us. I think that the Bible gives us some specific ways that we can relate to God as we know Him in Jesus. Matthew 22:37-38: “Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. 38. This is the first and great commandment.” This is Jesus’ answer to the lawyer who wanted to know what the greatest commandment was. Jesus said that we are to love God with our total being. According to 1 John 4:9: “We love (God) because He first loved us.” Our love for God is borne of our knowledge that He loves us so much that He sent His Son Jesus to save us. We need to constantly ask ourselves whether or not we really love God. Do we really love and appreciate Him, or do we just say that we love Him because we know that we are supposed to? Take this test: Do you love Him more than your most treasured possession? What would you be willing to sacrifice because of your love for God? In the book of Acts, many of those early Christians sold all that they had in order for the gospel to go forth and for the people of God to have sustenance. To do this, they really had to love God. Read Matthew 22:37-38 again and ask yourself if this is how you love God. Proverbs 1:7: “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge: but fools despise wisdom and instruction.”We can look at this in two ways: (1) We can be afraid of Him because of His immense power. (2) We can hold Him in deep reverence and awe for the great God that He is and for all that He has done for us. Both of these are applicable, but neither of them stands alone. It is not enough to just be scared of God. Those who ignore Him and shun His great love for them should be afraid, but we who believe in Him through Jesus should hold Him in such reverence and awe that we would not disobey Him or demean Him in any way. We know that even when He disciplines us, He does it because He loves us. Paul gave the reason for moral laxity in His day, and it applies to our day as well in Romans 3:18: “There is no fear of God before their eyes.” Don’t be one of them! Psalm 100:2a: “Serve the Lord with gladness…” How do we show our love and reverential awe for God? We do it by serving Him. Serving God can mean any number of things, in fact there is no end to all that it can mean. It can mean we have to leave everything behind and go somewhere else in the world, or it can mean to simply do acts of kindness in the name of Jesus to people who need that kindness. Serving the Lord is not complicated. We do not have to have special training to do it. We can just do what we think that Jesus would do as we go through life. There are areas of service that need special training, but that should not keep us from serving God daily. Every Christian is a servant of God; therefore, you are a servant of God. Seek ways to serve Him in your daily life and through your church. You will find ample ways to do that. Of course, there are other elements that we could discuss about how we are to relate to God, such as worship, but these three things: love, fear and service, are things that the Bible clearly tells us are of utmost importance in our lives. Therefore make up your mind and heart that you will love, fear and serve the Lord. Bro. Joe
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AuthorDr. Joe Beauchamp is the author of this blog and website. Categories
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