RELATIONSHIP-GOD
We will never
know abundant life until the unseen and eternal realm is home to us in our
everyday experience. Until then, we will be living according to appearances,
and appearances will never lead us deeper into the life of God. Only faith
will. God wants to bring us to the point where we say, "I live by what God
says about the things in my life-situations, people, and myself."
Then we see as He sees. We discern that situations are not as they appear to
be, but that God's absolutes are operating in the realm of appearances. We are
at rest in the unseen and eternal realm, and we experience His fullness within
us.
The Rest of the Gospel, One Press, 2000, p.
33.
The
great danger facing all of us is not that we shall make an absolute failure of
life, nor that we shall fall into outright viciousness, nor that we shall be
terribly unhappy, nor that we shall feel that life has no meaning at all – not
these things. The danger is that we may fail to perceive life’s greatest
meaning, fall short of its highest good, miss its deepest and most abiding
happiness, be unable to tender the most needed service, be unconscious of life
ablaze with the light of the Presence of God – and be content to have it so –
that is the danger: that some day we may wake up and find that always we have
been busy with husks and trappings of life and have really missed life itself.
For life without God, to one who has known the richness and joy of life with
Him, is unthinkable, impossible. That is what one prays one’s friends may be
spared – satisfaction with a life that falls short of the best, that has in it
no tingle or thrill that comes from a friendship with the Father.
Phillips Brooks
It is
impossible for a believer, no matter what his experience, to keep right with
God if he will not take the trouble to spend time with God. Spend plenty of
time with him; let other things go, but don't neglect Him.
J. Oswald Sanders
What do we do
if we want to grow in our relationship with God? We should do the same things
we would do with any other relationship: look for ways to spend time together,
talk with each other, make plans to bless each other,
do things for each other, focus on each other’s desires, try to get to know
each other more, honor each other, serve each other, and enjoy each other.
Karl Graustein
Growing Up Christian, P&R, 2005, p. 206. Used by Permission.
Perhaps the
most blessed characteristic of this Christian experience of fellowship with God
is its inalienability. It cannot be lost... When I realize that some joy will
never come to an end, that realization in itself is a joy and accentuates the
original joy, just as thinking that a present joy will come to an end is a
disturbance and that disturbance detracts from the present joy itself.
John Gerstner
Theology for Everyman, Moody, 1965, Chapter 8.
It is possible, in our pursuit
of intimacy with God, to:
1.
Allow our familiarity to
degenerate into flippancy.
2.
Fail to remember
His transcendence by placing extreme emphasis on His immanence.
3.
Lose sight of His holiness.
4.
Overemphasize the subjective
fruit to the exclusion of the objective foundation.
5.
Fail to come to Him on His
terms.
6.
Lose sight of the distinction
between Creator and creature.
Sam
Storms
Excerpted from: Dangers of Intimacy, November 8, 2006, www.enjoyinggodministries.com.
Used by Permission.