The most important relationship you can have in your life is a relationship with God. Yet there are many wrong doctrines and beliefs that can hinder that relationship. In 1982 I took a class called, “Power for Abundant Living” that literally changed my life. As I learned the truth from God’s Word, I began to learn more about who God is and His wonderful nature. I learned that He was loving and kind, not wrathful, and that He wanted to share His great love and goodness with people. My relationship with Him was pure and completely free of any religious obligations and expectations. We did life together and He did many wonderful things for me personally. I rarely thought of sin or that there was anything deficient about me. I was truly living in God’s grace. Then, after some time, things began to change. Suddenly there were new rules being introduced and obligations and compulsions. What I once considered a free gift from God became a “strings attached” relationship. The focus subtly shifted from everything about God to everything about me; what I was doing and shouldn’t be doing and what I wasn’t doing that I should be doing. I didn’t see it at the time but the doctrine was being changed from grace to legalism. What I once believed God gave me in the gift of holy spirit eventually became something I needed to earn or maintain. And, as you may expect, my relationship with God went right down the tubes. I was no longer happy to commune with God as my Father, but rather was fulfilling obligations with someone perpetually judging my shortcomings and failures. I now understand that without my full awareness I was being taught wrong doctrine and things that no longer lined up with God’s Word. I had been talked out of the grace of God. To know God is to love Him. There can be no downside to a healthy relationship with God. But, once error gets involved, our relationship with God changes from being all about Him and what He does to all about us and what we do. Grace is replaced with sin consciousness and religious works and as always happens when error is involved, life begins to suck. I lived in perpetual fear and worry consumed with self most of my days. That is until God brought me back to His grace and the freedom and simplicity involved in our relationship. If your relationship with God is the most important relationship you can have in your life, what has happened to hinder or diminish your relationship with Him? What false doctrines have you been taught that reduce life with God to one of sin consciousness and worry about not measuring up. What lies have you been told that diminish God to the role of morality police as if He is not already thoroughly familiar with human behavior. These are all doctrines and commandments of men, inspired by evil, that serve only to weaken your relationship with God and severely limit your ability to receive anything from Him. A relationship with God in your most important relationship in life and that is the crux of the matter.
Think about how you view God and the things you think are most important to Him. I vividly recall a marketing meeting in Pennsylvania spent watching a Temple basketball game and drinking beers. Things were going along beautifully and were truly enjoyable until I mentioned that I was part of a Christian fellowship. That statement immediately triggered in our potential clients worries over the language they were using or how many beers we had. The fun times ended immediately and so did our potential business. Can you imagine God not being able to handle a few swear words men made up or counting the number of beers we drank? Yet this is what people think of God. They have been taught to associate God with their sins or potential sins as if that’s all a relationship with God is about. In reality, God did away with sin and its consequences in the life of believers by sending His son to die for all of our sins and their consequences. If Jesus died for your sins and you believe in him then there is no longer any reason to be under the bondage of sin. God will not judge you. God solved the sin problem for us because we could not do it on our own. He solved the sin problem so that we could have a relationship with Him and turn our focus and allegiance to Him. You will never enjoy your most important relationship with Him as long as you believe you are still an unworthy sinner in His sight. You won’t go to Him for the help or the healing you need. In fact, chances are you will tend to avoid Him altogether because the mention of His name will serve only to remind you of your shortcomings. Not being critical of you at all. The reason you think that way is because of the damnable teachers and preachers that taught you things that do not agree with the Word of God or else were applicable to some other administration before our Lord paid the price. Been there, hated that.
God and His ways are so much bigger than we are. God is pure love and He does not do things that are not love. God is light and in Him is no darkness at all. Any darkness you may have experienced in your life, internally or externally, does not come from God. That includes the voice in your head that is forever pointing out what might be wrong about you. Some declare that the holy spirit is convicting them. How do you convict someone whose sins have been paid for? God does not judge you! Jesus came into the world not to condemn the world but to save it by giving his life for it. A man that only ever did good and healed ALL that came to him, did that for you to solve your sin problem forever. He took away the separation between you and God so you could be free to live your life and enjoy it with God. So many things people think God is so concerned about don’t concern Him at all. He is God and knows all. Conversely, so many things man thinks God doesn’t care about are very important to Him. You can’t go by what people say. You have to go by what the Word says. Remembering the doctrine keeps the enemy out of your hair. Otherwise you’ll end up spending your whole life explaining yourself to God and asking for His forgiveness over things He already forgave you for in the life if His son. You will be reduced to misery and slavery and find no help when you need it most. This is how many people live. They have been scared away from God like Adam hiding in the garden. And why was he hiding? Because sin introduced fear into his life, something that never existed before the fall. Well, it’s the same sin and sin nature that defeats us to this day. Yet God in His mercy and grace made a way for us to live above it. Been there, loved that.
God is our very source of life and desires that we live our lives to the fullest extent possible. He wants us to be happy. He is not asking to sacrifice all enjoyments to please Him or anything that makes us and our behavior the focus. (More beer please.) He simply wants us to learn about who He is and live love with one another. He desires that we learn about what His son did for us and accept the free gift of righteousness that He gave to us. Isn’t that what you would expect from the best Daddy ever? So, while you are still here living life, learn about who God really is. Learn about His power and ability to fix or restore anything that has ever been broken in your life. Learn of His kindness and endless love that He has extended to all mankind. Get yourself born again (Romans 10:9-10) and start focusing on your most important relationship. That is the whole crux of the matter.
Just some good thoughts.
Discover more from
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.