The other day, while listening to a friend describe their walk with God, I started to wonder about the church and people like Richard Dawkins, the atheist who calls on his followers to “mock religion”, but refers to himself as a “cultural Christian”
He likes the law and the order and the structure of the Faith System… but doesn’t want the commitment.
This was tickling my brain… because in James 2 verse 19, James proclaims:
“You can believe all you want that there is one true God, that’s wonderful! But even the demons know this and tremble with fear before him, yet they’re unchanged—they remain demons.”
Those are both extremes…
But I was wondering about the stalkers in the church. Like real-life stalkers, they know everything about God, about doctrine, about the bible. The quote verses, they give biblical advice but the one thing they are short of…
They have just not yet met Jesus.
The knowledge is just academic, not entwined with the heart. They visit Church. They have their kids in Sunday School. They are probably part of a small group… They do all the motions, and make the right noises, but… it is just … lacking.
But do you know what is the big problem with a stalker? _They_ think they are in a relationship!
Are we “Jesus”-stalkers?
When God speaks about marriage in Genesis, Matthew refers to the relationship in such deep terms:
“… a man will leave his father and mother and be united with his wife, and the two will become one body. So there are not two, but one.”
(Matthew 19:5-6 NCV)
We are the bride, God yearns for an unbreakable relationship with us!
”Before I formed you in the womb I knew you,
before you were born I set you apart”
(Jeremiah 1:5)
God sings songs about us. God is madly in love with us. He shouts joyfully about us!
“The Lord your God is in your midst; he is a warrior who can deliver. He takes great delight in you; he renews you by his love; He shouts for joy over you.”
(Zephania 3:17 NLV)
My point is that God wants a relationship with me.
He… pursues… me…
He rejoices over me, and He wants our hearts to be intertwined. Merged and melded together that you cannot separate where I end and God begins.
Can you fathom the idea? God the Father wants a relationship… with me?!
”I will give them a heart to know me, that I am the Lord. They will be my people, and I will be their God, for they will return to me with all their heart.“
(Jeremiah 24:7)
Not a quick coffee on a Friday, or a bible study on a Wednesday. He wants it all. He wants marriage. The walks on the beach and the fights about the toothpaste. The late nights and sick kids. The work stress and the birthday parties.
We have Faith, and we have a religion… but above and beyond it all, God is asking for a love relationship that is stronger than a father loving a son or daughter and more intimate than a husband loving his wife… more fiercely passionate than a lioness defending her cubs, and more dedicated to each other than brothers on the battlefield.
“I love them that love me: and they that in the morning early watch for me, shall find me.”
(Proverbs 8:17 DRB)
Where is your relationship with God? Maybe just close your eyes for a moment and speak to the lover of your soul…
