CULTIVATE YOUR RELATIONSHIP WITH GOD

What are you doing to cultivate your relationship with God? You and I must give thought to this. We should revisit the question. We cultivate our hobbies with new equipment and training. We cultivate friendships with shared meals and sports events. Christian belief consists of relationship with the living God is how we describe our faith. What are you doing to enrich the bond? It's a candid question, not meant to criticize. I ask it because I know firsthand how easily presumption becomes normative. We presume we are okay, we trust, we attend requisite meetings in our churches. It becomes routine. Relationship we would agree involves communication. Of course a relationship with someone who is unseen is different from others. You are confident that God hears you whether you speak to him aloud or silently. That's one aspect of communication. You are assured that God speaks through the Bible of course, and through His indwelling Spirit in you, and sometimes through expressions by other people. Granted, much about hearing God speak in these ways borders on the subjective. But let's kick that aside and get back to the question. What are you doing, or what can you do to cultivate this relationship that you say you have with the Creator God who spoke the universe into existence, who approved the perfection that characterized all of his creation, who provided salvation through the sacrificial atoning death of his incarnated son Jesus? It's a question. I am not going to answer it for you. We gravitate to articles that advise us about three steps to this or five key spiritual exercises. Fine, maybe they can inspire you, but what are 'you' now going to do to cultivate your relationship with God?

CHRISTIANITY

Let me tell you what it is not and then what it is.

Christian faith is not primarily about the sacrifice that believers make for Jesus in order to become Christian, but rather about the sacrifice that he made for us. Christianity is not about intensified devotion, trying even harder, doing better and being better, proving ourselves. No, no. Its essence is not doing something for Jesus but rather it is Jesus accomplishing something in us. His sacrifice once, and his ongoing work in us now. That is something that people find attractive because that is not religion. It is relationship. This is not about performance with respect to a faith system that legislates morality. A heavy-handed condemnation has resulted from that model and people have walked away from Jesus when they should have walked away from that specific model of Christian expression. Jesus' proclamation was good news. It was good news to good people and to bad people, to free people and prisoners, to healthy and diseased people, to sighted people and blind people. It was good in the first century and it is still good today because is about God's mercy to every last one of us, each of whom is naturally undeserving. Yet we are invited into relationship through faith in Jesus, Son of God, Lamb, Saviour, King, and endorsed a member of God's family.

PERSONAL PIETY

How is personal piety expressed? I didn't even ask how should it be expressed. That would have inferred a prescriptive formula or instruction, perhaps even an edict. The church has historically been effective at stating expectations of those who practice Christian faith, using measurables such as frequency of church attendance, generous financial contributions, willing service, consistent Bible reading and prayer. The accent on 'personal' piety may diminish in such cultures to become 'corporate' piety. The church must remind itself that it is not fashioned after an Old Testament model with regulations for dress code, diets, relationships, contracts, and benevolence and with harsh penalties for wrongdoing. Christ's arrival transitioned God's people into a family that enjoys the privilege of calling God, 'Father.' Personal piety pertains primarily to relationship with Father.

A church comprised of believers eager to be authentic must articulate a definition for personal piety that distinguishes between authoritative and advisory recommendations. Such distinction contrasts posturing and sincerity. It's the difference between telling and showing, between ordering and mentoring. Genuine personal piety is principally private. By that I mean that if it is unaffected piety, it is real to God as well as the believer even when no one else observes the indicators. Observably, genuine piety affects relationships with others in every arena of life but that is the outcome rather than the motive. 

  

LOVING YOUR CHILDREN ENOUGH

Some parents care about their children's spiritual destiny.
What follows is a personal opinion, born from experience. If you profess to be a Christian and you are a parent of young children, the clearest indicator of your own theology and the authenticity of your confession of faith is the consistent effort you make to provide your own children with the indispensable information that enables them to have a relationship with the God of the universe, and the model your own life exhibits that this relationship is a priority for you. If they are hearing it from you and seeing it in you, your theology is on target. It matters that you love them and it’s rewarding that they love you, but they need to know that they are loved by God and that they are at home in his presence rather than disassociated. Be certain that they do not miss out on what should be their inheritance.

RETHINKING GODLINESS

One might expect that a former pastor and teacher now past his apportioned three score and ten years of life, would not only possess a superior understanding of godliness, but also would be living within a state of godliness. I concur with the expectation but I question that it can be assumed that a pastor or any Christian is living life that way because so much can be feigned, pretended. A senior often moves slowly, speaks infrequently, smiles tranquilly and perhaps conceals a world of hurt and trauma and fear and perhaps anger.

I admire writers but I am also weary of writers who multiply titles with trite formulaic approaches to subjects as profound as godliness. 10 disciplines of a godly man.  10 characteristics of a godly man. 10 steps to a godly life. I reject or strongly react against this methodic, mechanical spirituality. I refuse a suggestion that having accomplished the ten steps one receives a virtual graduation certificate. I prefer to understand the pursuit of godliness as a constant way of living in relationship with God.

I want to be a godly man. That is at least the starting point. If I am going to be godly, godlike, then I appreciate that I need to be with Him. I need to know him and let him know me in the sense of talking my life to him. Of course I understand that knowing God requires learning what he has told me about himself in scripture, and yes I know talking to him with regularity is prayer. I want to disassociate rules and guilt from my definition of godliness. That would seem to me an advancement, a superior understanding of godliness. I desire a steady and developing confident daily life of conscious interaction with God’s Spirit so that I know I am in step with him, and from that righteous centre-point I trust, think, act, talk, read, write and help others. I can then even try new things, step out in faith, surprise myself and be surprised by God. In the course of this everyday holiness, God’s attributes become evident in me and God is reflected in me and He is pleased.