Love Your Enemies.....???

"Children, let us not love with word or with tongue, but in deed and truth."  1 John 3:18 [NASB]

While there is no doubt the majority of what Jesus said while on earth to the religious leaders of the day--the Pharisees & scribes, etc.--were radically bold statements of truth, the Sermon on the Mount recorded in the book of Matthew is unquestionably one of the most radically profound teachings Jesus gave during his ministry on earth.  It practically shred to pieces most of the law that the Jews, His own people, held so highly, and in turn exposed all mankind to the true heart of God behind His law.


Perhaps one of the most challenging of the commands given that day by Jesus can be found in Matthew 5:44...

"But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you..."

Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you...???

Wow, what a concept.  That is not the way we--meaning human beings, myself included--instinctively react to people who hate us or are mean to us. But that's what Jesus asks us to do.  Jesus asks us to put aside our own feelings and reach out in love toward those who persecute us, despise us and do all kinds of evil against us. 

[NASB] Matthew 5:7, 9-12 "Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy. (9) Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God. Blessed are those who have been persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when people insult you and persecute you, and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of Me. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward in heaven is great; for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you." ~ Jesus 

 To try to explain the kind of love Jesus is speaking of, here is an excerpt from an online devotional written by Michael Lane of Delve Christian Ministries...
 

  "The love of which Jesus speaks is not a feeling in any sense of the word. It is a decision resulting in action. It is a choice you make that has nothing whatsoever to do with how you feel, and quite often, occurs in spite of a feeling to the contrary. This kind of love judges the needs of a person but never the person themselves, and responds according to the gravity of the need, never the character of the person.

Understand that you must absolutely restrain whatever you feel for a person and treat them with as much compassion and kindness as you would show your own mother or child. This is the kind of love that Christ demands – not a feeling, but rather a spirit of service, selflessness and humility. It is the ability to give to others with no regard to what they can do to repay you, what they feel for you or what you feel for them.

It is, in fact the greatest kind of love. It is the kind of love that God demonstrated when He saved us while we were His enemies."

[TNIV] Romans 5:8  "But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us."

This kind of love, this decision to take action and reach out in love to those who hate us or hurt us or break our hearts, is far from the effortless acts of love we demonstrate toward our spouses and families.  It is a much more difficult and deliberate act of love.  One I know for a fact is impossible for us humans without the love of Christ in our own hearts.  Only once we have come to realize & begin to understand just how much our Father in heaven loves us are we capable of having and practicing that same kind of love toward our enemies.

I say this boldly because I personally know this to be true from my own life experiences.  For the past 4 years I have had to deal with someone I once considered my enemy on practically a daily basis.  My days hardly went by without an interruption or intrusion from this person which I thought, and was on occasion, absolutely unnecessary and a total nuisance.  My "BC Jami heart" had grown cold and my mind was filled w/evil thoughts of this person which reminded me just how much I could NOT stand them every time they did something I thought wasn't right.  I had even tried many times to explain my position to them, to no avail, which only led to fierce fighting between us. Neither one of us would listen to the other.

Even after I became a Christ Follower my heart did not immediately look at this person from a different point of view.  Only after having a conversation over lunch with a long time friend, who also lives in a similar situation, did I see where I was in the wrong.  I believe my Lord used this friend of mine, one who is not even a fellow sister in Christ yet, strategically to show me that I was not acting like the child of God I had become in this particular relationship.

On the way home from lunch with my friend I was replaying everything she had said, everything we had talked about in my mind when suddenly it dawned on me.  I could no longer treat this person who I had considered my enemy for years as if I hated them.  The Holy Spirit convicted me right then and there of my horribly unloving, selfish, prideful and sinful behavior towards this person in my life.  I prayed that day that the Spirit would bring me peace about this relationship and help guide me and teach me how I was supposed to treat this person regardless of how they treated me.  I surrendered my own will on the issue to the will of my Lord Jesus Christ and begged Him to help me to treat this person the way He would no matter what they did or said.

[NASB] Philippians 4:6-7  "Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus."

A genuine prayer is a powerful thing my friends. Since that day I have not felt hatred or contempt or even mild dislike towards this person that I once considered my enemy. My Lord has given me His Perfect Peace in this relationship and in doing so He has made me able to feel compassion for this person and their struggles. Because of my Lord and His love for me, I am now able to see when this person has a need that I can help them meet and I am compelled to respond by the Spirit within me! I am now able to practice the principle of loving my enemy by reaching out with the love of Christ and offering my help to them when they need it. Because of all this I now have a healthy relationship with the mother of my step-son and things that I never thought would be possible, like all of us going to J's birthday parties and sitting with her at his soccer games, and having her over to our home for a holiday, etc., have become a reality! Praise the LORD!!!!!

Now nobody misunderstand me, please. We by no means have a perfect relationship. Our situation is far from ideal and more complex than I would like...but you cannot love someone unless you are able to accept them for who they are, faults and baggage included, and before I met my husband this woman had his son. There is nothing I can do to change that. The only thing I can do is choose to accept that she will be a part of my life as long as he is a part of my life, or not. I knew that before I married my husband, and still I chose to walk down the aisle.

Choosing to love my husband meant loving his son as well--which I do more than I ever thought possible--but it also meant learning to treat the mother of his son with love and respect.  As a Christ follower I also had to learn how to treat her in a way that honors my Lord and Savior who went to the cross and sacrificed His perfect and blameless life for mine and everyone else's who was God, His Father's enemy.

"This kind of love can be hard and uncomfortable, but it is the most important love of all, for it is by this kind of love that others will know that Christ lives in you." ~Michael Lane, Delve Christian Ministries

 

Only the One who gave us the example of what love is, is qualified to teach us how to love our enemies.  I will forever be grateful that He knew how to love those who persecuted and despised Him, who treated Him with contempt and disregarded Him and said all kinds of evil against Him.

[NASB] Luke 6:27-36  “But I say to you who hear, love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. Whoever hits you on the cheek, offer him the other also; and whoever takes away your coat, do not withhold your shirt from him either. Give to everyone who asks of you, and whoever takes away what is yours, do not demand it back. Treat others the same way you want them to treat you. If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. If you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners do the same. If you lend to those from whom you expect to receive, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners in order to receive back the same amount. But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return; and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High; for He Himself is kind to ungrateful and evil men. Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful." ~ Jesus

 

 

Cross references:

1. 1 John 3:18 : 1 John 2:1; 3:7
2. 1 John 3:18 : 2 John 1:1; 3 John 1:

Songs Speak

So, as I'm driving home from my Weight Watcher's meeting earlier today, a song came on one of the local Christian radio stations that I haven't heard before. All I could do was smile as I listened to the words of Francesca Battistelli's 'Motion of Mercy' for the first time. If I could put my testimony to music, this is what it would be...enjoy! <3  : ]

Motion of Mercy

I was poor, I was weak.
I was the definition of the

spiritually bankrupt condition.
So in need of help...

I was unsatisfied,
hungry and thirsty
when You rushed
to my side, so unworthy,
still You gave yourself away…

[Chorus]
That’s the motion of mercy
changing the way and the why we are.
That’s the motion of mercy
moving my heart.

Now I’m filled by a love
that calls me to action.
I was empty before,

now I’m drawn to compassion,
and to give myself away...

[Chorus]
That’s the motion of mercy
changing the way and the why we are.
That’s the motion of mercy
moving my heart.

Living for the lost .
Loving ‘til it hurts,
no matter what the cost
like You loved me first.
That’s the motion of mercy.

God give me strength to give something for nothing ,
I wanna be a glimpse of the Kingdom that’s coming soon...

[Chorus]
That’s the motion of mercy
changing the way and the why we are.
That’s the motion of mercy
moving my heart.

Living for the lost.
Loving ‘til it hurts,
no matter what the cost
like You loved me first.
That’s the motion of mercy

moving my heart!

To give yourself away...

To give it all away...

That's the motion of mercy.

Until my next post...

Psalm 5: 7-8 &11 (NIV) "But I, by your great mercy, will come into your house; in reverence will I bow down toward your holy temple. Lead me, O LORD, in your righteousness, because of my enemies—make straight your way before me. But let all who take refuge in you be glad; let them ever sing for joy. Spread your protection over them, that those who love your name may rejoice in you."

My Life BC - Before Christ

Up until now, most of what I've shared here has been Christ in me. The spiritual truths that I've come to realize through my relationship with Jesus, and the wisdom I've received from the Holy Spirit through my study of God's word. Not that I have become an authority on spiritual matters, and not because I am holy by any measure, for the only holiness in me comes from Christ and I still have a long road ahead of me in my walk with the Lord. But the things I have shared have been the things I have been led by the Spirit to share. That along with sharing how my life has been changed since I accepted the incredible gift of God's grace is the purpose of this forum for me.

Today though, I want to share a little of what I was like before Christ. Those of you who are close to me already know, but I want those of you who don't know me as well, to be able to see just how awesome a work the Lord has done and is doing in my life.

At the time that I accepted Christ, I was 28, divorced and had a live-in boyfriend. I was pretty much a sinner's sinner. I had lived my life on my own terms from the age of 18. I left home shortly after graduating high school and was married by 19. Pretty early on I thought I had life figured out. I was in love. What I thought was love anyway. The only thing I knew as love, I guess, so I got married. I was old enough to make my own decisions, so I did.

Six years later I'm back at my parents home, separated from my husband. I'm emotionally crushed, disappointed in myself, ashamed, and trying to pick up the pieces. It's difficult for me to even think about my life back then, not because I can't remember, but because I remember all of it. I remember every shameful, awful, degrading detail. I didn't have a whole lot of respect for myself at that point in my life, and I ended up living in a very dark place for about a year and a half. I did whatever I could to numb the pain. I sought comfort anywhere I could find it, and that usually meant any guy's arms who would give me the time of day.

I'm not proud of the way I lived back then, so please don't mistake what I'm about to say. In those days, the days that I lived BC, (before I knew Christ), I did what made Me feel good. I lived for myself and sought out what I thought would make Me happy. Back then, I didn't think there was anything wrong with what I was doing. I thought what I was doing was how you got over heart-break. Only now, that I know my Savior and His love for me, do I see how ignorant and foolish I was back then.

Those of you who really know me know that the 'BC Jami' would never, ever admit the things that I've just admitted. Not even to herself, much less here in such a public way where the whole world-wide-web can see! That fact alone is proof of the incredible transforming work Christ is doing in my life!!


2 Corinthians 3:17-18 "Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit." 

As a new believer, it took me a little while to understand what the above verse meant. But even though I didn't understand it at first, the Lord still spoke to me through His Spirit about certain areas of my life. Now when I say that the Lord "spoke to me" I don't mean I actually heard Him whisper things in my ear. The Holy Spirit that lives inside all believers has a way of teaching us about the things of God.

The best way I can describe what my encounters w/the Holy Spirit have been like would be to compare it with what people identify as one's conscience. Thoughts will come to me, sometimes out of the blue, and sometimes when I am seeking the Lord's wisdom and guidance on a particular issue. But how I know they are not my own, or even of my own mind, is that they aren't usually things I would think of on my own. At least at first they weren't. As I grow in my faith my mind is becoming more and more like the mind of Christ, (See 1 Corinthians 2), so when the Spirit speaks to me now it doesn't seem as strange as when I was a new believer. 

2 Corinthians 4:1-2 and 5-6 "Therefore, since through God’s mercy we have this ministry, we do not lose heart. Rather, we have renounced secret and shameful ways; we do not use deception, nor do we distort the word of God. On the contrary, by setting forth the truth plainly we commend ourselves to everyone’s conscience in the sight of God. For what we preach is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake. For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,^" made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God’s glory displayed in the face of Christ." (NIV)

The first area of my life where the Holy Spirit "shined the light of the knowledge of God" on was my relationship w/my boyfriend. As I mentioned earlier, I was living w/my now husband, then boyfriend, at the time of my salvation. Sin was and had been a pretty big part of my life. It always had been, but 'BC Jami' never really thought of it like that. Before I came to the Truth I never really understood what sin meant. I'd heard others say "we are all sinners", but I honestly had no idea what it was that made us 'all sinners'.

I honestly didn't have any comprehension of what sin was, just of what I thought was right and wrong. What I didn't know back then, in my BC life, was that there are things that are right, and there are things that are wrong, but it's not up to us to determine such things. We were not created to decide for ourselves right from wrong. Things are either right or wrong, and because they are, God says so.

 (NIV) Genesis 2:15-17 "The LORD God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. And the LORD God commanded the man, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will certainly die.”

The Lord God didn't command Adam not to eat from the tree to scare him into doing what He said. God told Adam not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good & evil because He wanted Adam to choose HIM to be his teacher of what is good and what is evil. God wanted Adam to choose Him, as his creator, to be the source he came to to learn about such things. God wanted Adam, who He created in His own image, to depend on HIM to be the sustainer of his life. God knew before he even created Adam, what Adam would do, and still he wanted Adam to choose to put HIM before himself. But it had to be Adam's choice...

(NASB) Genesis 3:4-5 "The serpent said to the woman, “You surely will not die! For God knows that in the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

So one day, a few weeks after I accepted Christ and the gift of salvation, I'm doing a load of laundry when a thought occurs to me. "Paul and I really need to abstain from having sex until we're married."

'What? Where did that come from?' I thought to myself..."You know Jami." came the reply from somewhere inside me, "You know that this is right." I stopped what I was doing for a moment and thought about what had just happened.

I reflected upon my life prior to becoming a believer, and I came to the realization that 'BC Jami' would never have thought twice about sleeping with her boyfriend. She wouldn't have thought there was anything wrong with it. After all, the two of us had spoken about marriage and even decided we would marry one day. I knew I didn't want to be with anyone else and neither did he. But for me to have the thought that it was wrong for me to be sleeping with the man I was living with, who I had decided I would one day marry, that had to be coming from someone other than me. I didn't know much about being a new believer, but I knew that the Jami I knew, the Jami I had been my entire life, would not have had that kind of thought on her own.

(NIV) 2 Corinthians 5:17-19 "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men’s sins against them."

When I surrendered my life to God and accepted Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior, the Jami that I was, 'BC Jami', was replaced with a brand 'New Jami'. The scripture above states that is what happens to those who are "in Christ", and that it's from God himself who "reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation".


(NIV) John 1:29 "The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, “Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!"

2 Corinthians 5:21 "God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God." (NIV)

It was only through Jesus and his work on the cross that God could reconcile the world to himself. Only by providing a perfect sacrifice without spot or blemish could he "take away the sins of the world", like John says. In doing so, God made a way for all of us who believe not only to be forgiven and our sin removed, but also to become "the righteousness of God."

2 Corinthians 5:15 "And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again." (NIV)

Our Heavenly Father desires for us to live for something greater than ourselves-He desires for us to live for HIM!

I like how Mark Hall, (lead singer of Casting Crowns), put it in his book, The Well.....

"Our human nature makes us see him-[Jesus]-as useful to us instead of Lord over us. We see him as the fixer and the sprinkler of blessings. We want him to come join us and bless what we're doing when what He longs to do is transform our hearts and minds." [pg. 25]

"Jesus is not going to come join our lives. Jesus wants to become our lives. He is going to say, "I want to be Lord of it all. I want to run this thing. But if you insist, I'll step out of the way & let you run it." [pg. 103]

"You have never slipped God's mind. Even if you haven't thought of him since the last time you walked through a church door, he has been walking with you, watching you, talking to you. God has been trying his best to catch your eye because He pursues YOU." [pgs. 60-61]


"God made us in his image. He gave us a mind, will, and emotions. He gave us the freedom to make decisions and choose whether to obey him or betray him. He wants us to desire him, pursue him, love him. He does not want robots. He had to make us alive when we were spiritually dead, but now that we're alive, He wants our allegiance, our trust, and our love." [pg. 120]

John 14:23-24 (NKJV) Jesus answered and said to him, “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our home with him. He who does not love Me does not keep My words; and the word which you hear is not Mine but the Father’s who sent Me."

Like Adam, we all have a choice to make. We get to decide what kind of relationship we're going to have with God, if any. We get to decide if we're going to accept who Jesus was and what he did for all of us, or not. We get to decide.

I've come to realize that much of a believer's walk is an act of will. We can have faith, but true faith demands action. Our faith is only made complete when we step out and follow Jesus' lead. We have to decide to take action when He speaks to us. We have to decide to obey. When we decide to obey and follow Jesus' lead in our lives, we find out just how true our faith is.

So later that same night I told Paul what I had experienced while doing the laundry. I told him I thought it would be best if we waited to be intimate with one another until after we were married. I told him I wanted to do this in response to what I felt the Lord telling me was the right thing for us to do. He was more understanding and supportive of this decision than I expected and seemed genuinely pleased that I was choosing to follow the lead of my Lord as I felt directed to. This was in May of 2010.

At the end of June he proposed to me in front of my family and about half a dozen of our closest friends, at a surprise birthday dinner that he had planned for me. I was incredibly touched by the effort he put forth to make my birthday so special. It was the most thoughtful, romantic thing anyone had ever done for me. I accepted of course, and we were married in November 2010.

If I had it to do all over again I wouldn't change a thing. Our first night as husband and wife was totally worth the wait! ; ]

(NKJV) Song of Solomon 6:3 "I am my beloved’s, and my beloved is mine." 

Until my next post...


(NASB) Psalm 9:1-2 "I will give thanks to the LORD with all my heart; I will tell of all Your wonders. I will be glad and exult in You; I will sing praise to Your name, O Most High."

My King

The first time I realized how awesome a savior my King was, I was reading a book, and no, it wasn't the bible!  It was shortly after I accepted Christ. I remember thinking, 'Wow, Jesus is all these things & more and he still wants a relationship w/me?' I felt so unworthy. But then I thought, 'Who am I to question God's love?'. God's love just is...and what's even more amazing about God's love is that it's the same for all of us--for every single solitary person on the planet! He loves us all exactly the same no matter who we are, or what we've done, or how much we don't deserve it.

What person do you know that you can honestly say that about?!?!? Do you know anyone who would give up their one & only Son because of the love they have for someone else? I don't. People don't naturally love like that, only God does. The bible tells us that as believers, we are to love one another.

1 John 4:7-8...Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. (NIV)

1 John 4:10-11...This is love: not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. (NIV)

  But do we honestly make a habit of loving others as our Lord Jesus Christ did? I know I haven't. Not always anyway, but I'm learning to. You see, the most incredible thing about Christ living in you, is that as your faith grows you start to uncover just who He is & what He is all about. You discover that one day when you weren't even aware of it, He placed compassion in your heart where before there was none. He deposits empathy where once you were full of apathy. Where unforgiveness used to reign over you keeping you in bondage, he breaks the chains with His perfect absolution and mercy.

How do I know these things? How can I claim this about Him? I tell you these things because this is what my Lord has done for me. He has been transforming me from the inside out, to become more and more like Him from the moment I surrendered my life to God and accepted His awesome grace in Christ Jesus. Sounds impossible you say...? Well, with man it is. There's no way any counseling or self-help book could do for me what my Savior has done, that's for sure!

(NKJV) Matthew 19:26...But Jesus looked at them and said to them, “With men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.”

There was a time in my life when I never thought I'd be able to forgive...anyone.....ever. Being sexually abused as an adolescence by someone I loved, who was supposed to love me kinda poisoned me as far as the whole trusting others thing went. Once I did let someone in though, the moment you betrayed my trust, that was it. We were through. No second chances, no making up. I'd burn that bridge so fast believing that there was NO way that person would ever be able to hurt me again. Little did I know that unforgiveness  works to turn your heart bitter toward others.

As I have learned from my Pastor at church..."Unforgiveness in any relationship will effect every relationship."--P. Troy Gramling of Potential Church. You see, there was no way anything I could do would be able to cure my broken heart, only Christ can! He is capable of everything I have mentioned tonight and MORE! I wonder, do you know Him?




I personally believe that if all of us who claim to be Christians would seek to live out our lives as Jesus lived His, the world would be blinded by the light and love of our Savior King and so many more who are lost would come to the Truth and be saved from the web of lies that the world has spun around them!


Until my next post...

(NIV) Ephesians 3:16-19...I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, ¹⁷ so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, ¹⁸ may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, ¹⁹ and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.

Religion vs. Relationship

I touched briefly on this topic in my last post, but ever since then I've been feeling the Spirit in me nudging me to delve deeper into "religion vs. relationship", to fully explain the truths He has shared with me and that have been revealed to me through the seeking of God's Word and studying the scriptures. 

In order to see the difference between the two, lets define them. Here's the definition of 'Religion' according to the Merriam-Webster online dictionary...

"Religion: (1a) the service and worship of God or the supernatural; (b) commitment or devotion to religious faith or observance. (2) a personal set or institutionalized system of religious attitudes, beliefs, and practices; a cause, principle, or system of beliefs held to with ardor and faith."

Here's what Wikipedia had to say about Religion...

"Religion is a collection of cultural systems, belief systems, and worldviews that establishes symbols that relate humanity to spirituality and, sometimes, to moral values.^[1] Many religions have narratives, symbols, traditions and sacred histories that are intended to give meaning to life or to explain the origin of life or the universe. They tend to derive morality, ethics, religious laws or a preferred lifestyle from their ideas about the cosmos and human nature."

From the definitions above, 'Religion' is defined as something we humans practice in order to please God; to try to gain his favor or approval in our lives. There's a problem with that though. God cannot approve of the spiritually dead. God only accepts what is holy, and there is only one of us who ever lived a perfectly holy and blameless life, His Son, Jesus Christ.

(NIV) Romans 3:10- "As it is written: “There is no one righteous, not even one;"

(NIV) Romans 3:23- "for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,"  


If you are not in Christ, you are in Adam and are spiritually dead. As I pointed out in my last post, we are all born into the world spiritually dead because of Adam & Eve and their betrayal  in the Garden of Eden.

Bob George explains it this way in his book Classic Christianity. "From God's point of view there are only two kind of people in this world: those who are in Adam, and those who are in Christ. To be "in" somebody might sound strange, but put simply, it means that they are your family head. The two family heads in this world are Adam & Jesus Christ." 


When we are in Christ, God sees us as totally acceptable and righteous in His sight-not because of what we do, because of what Christ has done for us. Without Christ none of us can be counted as holy or blameless in God's sight, and nothing we do, including serving a religion, can change that fact.

Now let's define relationship. The Merriam-Webster online dictionary says...

Relationship- (1) the state of being related or interrelated; (2) the relation connecting or binding participants in a relationship; Kinship. (3) a romantic or passionate attachment.

Dictionary.com says...

Relationship- 1. a connection, association, or involvement. 2. connection between persons by blood or marriage. 3. an emotional or other connection between people.

From these short definitions, a relationship sounds like much more than a religion. It is defined as a deeper, more personal connection between persons. You see, God longs to have a real connection with us. That was His plan from the creation of the world!

I like what Mark Hall, (lead singer of Casting Crowns), wrote in his book The Well..."Have you ever sensed God trying to break through, saying 'I am NOT a book. I am a Person who wants to know YOU!' ?"
 

God didn't just send Jesus to us to help get us out of hell, he also sent him to get Himself out of heaven & into US! The real goal of the Christian life is to get to KNOW CHRIST, and the motivation for such is the love & grace of God shown to us by him sending his Son to die on the cross for us. It is our Heavenly Father's desire for us as believers, to "express our faith through love".

Jesus told us so in John 13:35-- "All men will know that you are my disciples if you love one another".

As believers, and beloved children of God, we are called to live according to the same pattern as our Lord Jesus Christ. When "we receive God's love & become channels of that love to others, we can walk in the assurance that we are fulfilling the highest purpose of God in our daily lives."--Bob George Classic Christianity.

The sad thing is, many Christians today seem to miss the fact that a relationship w/Christ is more than just accepting him & receiving salvation. Once we come to know the Truth, we are called to a way of life where God sits above all and works through us to accomplish his perfect will on earth.

"As Christians, the God who created this universe lives in us & wants to use our bodies every day of our lives to show His love and grace to the world around us! God lives in you and wants to produce fruit through you that will endure for eternity!"--Bob George Classic Christianity

That is so much more than a religion! Yet many of us in the faith treat our relationship w/Christ as such, completely missing out on what God intended for us to experience as his children & heirs of the promise. Wake up brothers and sisters of faith, life is too short to miss the REAL thing!

We know that religion cannot deliver what it promises, for if it could Christ died for nothing. I don't know about you, but I don't believe for one second that God would send his One & Only Son, whom He loves above all else, to die on the cross in vain. Religion cannot deliver what it promises. Religion will never get you a relationship with the one true God, because there is never enough that we can do on our own to "earn" God's favor.

The only one who has God's favor is Christ, and the only way we can be made acceptable in God's sight is by accepting Him. It was God's plan all along, from before Satan defied Him, to make a way for the world to be reconciled to Him and restore the lives of men. Religion, with all its traditions, rituals, customs, well-meaning beliefs & moral ethics, cannot do that for you friends--only Christ can.

(NKJV) John 14:6-- Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me."

"God has not called us to change our lives, but to experience the 'exchanged life'. We give Christ all that we are-spiritually dead, guilty sinners--and Christ gives us all that He is--resurrected life, forgiveness, righteousness, love & acceptance." Bob George Classic Christianity