The personal nature of God has always been something I've thought deeply about. It's also something many people get confused about—and for good reason. Our world has become so mixed up around our relationship with God, what God means, and who God is.
This journey of reading the Bible, getting closer to God—it's all about establishing a personal relationship with our Creator.
He's yearning for us and always has been. Everything we do—reading Scripture, attending church, praying, serving others, connecting in community—these practices are meant to establish that deep personal connection with the One who made us.
Doing vs. Being
There's a lot of busyness in the world today. This busy-ness can become part of that performative aspect of faith where we find ourselves constantly doing, but not giving ourselves a chance to simply be—which is where we truly find connection with God. If we don't slow down, if we don't take time to find stillness, it becomes incredibly difficult to connect with our Creator.
Jesus tells us: "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light."
What He's talking about is profound. When we come to God and give Him our struggles, our challenges, and everything we're facing—when we hand Him the yoke—we allow ourselves to learn from God. Jesus, being God incarnate, knows how burdened and weary we are. This weariness often results from constant doing, constant busyness.
When we don't rely on our Creator, we stay busy. We struggle to find stillness, and we never allow ourselves to discover that connection to God that resides within.
But when we allow our Creator to take that burden and we rest with Him, we begin to feel the difference. This personal nature of God is something we experience. It's something we feel. When we let that burden be light, we find rest and nourishment for our souls.
Genuine Action vs. Performance
It's easy to believe that if we're busy, if we're constantly doing, we must be doing what's right. And yes, we are in the world to serve, to bring God to others, to teach. If we're following Christ, part of our calling is to share the ways and wisdom of God, to share the salvation that is Jesus, and to help others realize this truth.
But we must slow down and find stillness. We need to make time to be with God, to really experience His presence so that our doing can be inspired by the Holy Spirit and what God envisions for us.
The danger comes when we get caught up in busyness. We start making all our decisions ourselves, thinking we have to do everything on our own strength. That's problematic—and it's what the world has taught us. Our world is filled with self-worship, self-centeredness, with doing what the self determines.
There is some goodness in healing and nurturing ourselves, especially if we grew up in environments where that wasn't natural or taught. But what's happening now is that many people are wounded, and we've become so self-absorbed that we only think about ourselves. This self-focus is detrimental to our wellbeing and our souls.
The Greatest Commandment
In Matthew 22:34-40, we find this exchange:
Hearing that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, the Pharisees got together. One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question: "Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?"
Jesus replied: "'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments."
Jesus is telling us right there that the most important law is that we love God with all our heart, soul, and mind. And the second is to love our neighbor as ourselves. To love God and to love our neighbor—to be of service, to be kind, to be caring—to give our life to our Creator.
Giving your whole heart, mind, and soul to God is challenging. There will be sacrifices. The Pharisees were rule-followers. They knew the law, they followed the rules and laws given to them, but in their hearts, they were just going through motions. They were checking boxes, following what they thought they had to do based on routine commands.
It's so easy to fall into following rules instead of following God. That's why Jesus says the most important commandment is to love the Lord with all our heart, soul, and mind—to give our entire life to Him so He can guide us. Not to arbitrarily follow rules, because it ultimately comes down to our heart.
Routines mean nothing without a genuine love for God. It's easy to slip into performance mode without really feeling and experiencing God and the love He has for us. This is why a personal relationship is so critical. Without it, religion becomes performance instead of genuine love. It becomes about following rules, not following God.
The Temple Within
In 1 Corinthians 3:16-23, Paul tells us:
Don't you know that you yourselves are God's temple and that God's Spirit dwells in your midst? If anyone destroys God's temple, God will destroy that person; for God's temple is sacred, and you together are that temple.
Do not deceive yourselves. If any of you think you are wise by the standards of this age, you should become fools so that you may become wise. For the wisdom of this world is foolishness in God's sight. As it is written: "He catches the wise in their craftiness"; and again, "The Lord knows that the thoughts of the wise are futile."
So then, no more boasting about human leaders! All things are yours, whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or the present or the future—all are yours, and you are of Christ, and Christ is of God.
This passage reminds us that God is within us. Our bodies are temples, and we are the living temple of God. His spirit dwells in our midst—He's among us, within us, always with us. Yet we turn away from Him. We follow human leaders. We become arrogant and prideful, thinking we know better, that we don't need God.
Paul encourages us to "become fools so that you may become wise." This means shedding the wisdom of this age so we can become truly wise in God's ways. He dwells within us and will lead us, guide us, and show us the way.
A Changed Heart
Our relationship with God is defined by our hearts—by our inner world. Without Him, life is challenging, empty, full of sorrow. With God, life is still hard. We still face hardships, sadness, sorrow, and loss. This isn't some naive, toxic positivity. It's something we experience.
I'm relatively new to committing my life to Christ, to reading the Bible regularly, to attending church. But I have always intuitively felt God in my life, even when I didn't recognize it. He carried me through difficult moments. Jesus has always been there. It was my own arrogance and foolishness to think otherwise.
When we genuinely connect with God, it changes us from within. We start to think differently, live differently, make different decisions. Our habits change as God works on us from within. But often we push Him away because we don't want that change.
We cling to our habits, to what's comfortable, to this world, to our pride and arrogance—believing we know better than our Creator.
We must humble ourselves, repent for our mistakes and sins. No Christian is perfect. No Christian will ever be perfect. There was only one perfect man who walked this earth—Jesus Christ. Everyone else is flawed.
All of us.
Including the people we idolize in this world.
Our relationship with God is the most loving partnership we can have. It's glorious. He sits in our heart. He's with us. He truly changes us, but we have to call to Him. We have to open our hearts, humble ourselves, repent for our mistakes, be honest about the things we've done, and be genuine in our desire to learn, grow, and change.
Without this genuine connection, we will lose ourselves in the world. We won't find the fulfillment we seek. Life without God is empty, and He is calling us forward. God seeks us. He awaits us. We are the ones who turn away.
Life is different with God in it. Even though it's hard, it's wonderful—the peace, love, kindness, care, meaning, purpose. Being able to give Him our problems and allow Him to lead our life is transformative.
It's hard to let go of control and surrender your life to God. Surrendering the ego and allowing God to lead us requires patience, commitment, trust, and surrender. It's not easy, but it's the most fulfilling decision we can make.
Nothing the world offers can give us what God does. We can search everywhere, but we will not find what God has for us. Only He can provide that sanctuary, that quenching of our soul's thirst.
Prayer
Heavenly Father, we pray that you will come into our lives and hearts, that you will show us your ways. For those struggling with their relationship with you, I pray that you will open their hearts and show them the way. Help us understand that fear of the Lord is a wonderful thing—not living in fear, but honoring and respecting you.
We know that without you, we are limited and separate. We pray that you'll soften our hearts, open our minds, and teach us your ways so we may follow Christ and model his teachings. May you sweep across the world and move into the hearts of all who are open and ready for you. In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
Amen.
Finding God within us is so different from empty gestures and routine rule-following. God knows our heart. We can't hide it from Him—and that's a glorious thing. All that is will be known, all that is is known and will be seen. And that's a wonderful truth to embrace.
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