The Faith Relationship
Little children can sometimes teach us valuable lessons. Besides stimulating virtues like patience and self-control, they can also lead us to insights we might otherwise miss. Under normal circumstances, very young children demonstrate remarkable faith in their parents. They believe what mom and dad say. They trust them to provide for their needs. Though the little ones can’t express it, they have faith in their parents’ goodwill toward them leading to actions which are in the child’s best interests.
As we grow older, we don’t approach faith with the simplicity of a child, and with some justification. We learn that our parents are fallible. Even when they try to do what’s best for us they make mistakes, and sometimes they don’t do what’s best for us. We become jaded and cynical. People don’t follow through on promises. They let us down. We stop trusting people as we once did. We resort to propositions, principles, rules, conventions and social structures in our relationships instead of simply trusting others.
That is our loss, because we have the tendency to carry that over into the spiritual realm. The apostle Paul had fallen into this trap. Several times in his letters he wrote about his rigid legalism and its resulting spiritual pride. When he became a follower of Jesus, everything changed for him. He replaced rule-keeping with a relationship. He wrote: “I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” (Galatians 2:20)
Here Paul emphasizes that he lived “by faith in the Son of God." In ninety percent of all the New Testament references to faith in something, the “something” is either God or the Lord Jesus Christ - both persons. In the other ten percent of references, the “something” is either “the name of Jesus,” “His blood,” or “the power of God.” No biblical reference speaks of faith in anything else at all.
God made us to have a relationship with Him. He knows that because of sin we can’t be the kind of people He originally made us to be, so He dealt with our sin by the death of the Lord Jesus Christ on the cross. The divine judgment that would have justly fallen on us for our sin fell on Jesus. He died in our place. Now, the process of restoration can begin. Through a renewed relationship with God we can become all that He intended for us to be. We can enjoy intimacy with Him instead of fearing his righteous anger.
One of the greatest advantages of a relationship over rule-keeping is that it is ever so much more fulfilling to have a relationship with a person. A relationship with a person grows and develops. It becomes deeper as you go along. The joy of discovery marks your getting to know the other person more and discovering new things about them. I can honestly say, that of all the things that have shaped who I am today, my relationship with God through the Lord Jesus Christ is the greatest single factor.
If you know that you need to begin a relationship with God, do so today by going to the place where all followers of Jesus find spiritual life and get started on their journey. Go to the foot of the cross, leave your sin behind, and begin to walk with God.
Ron Hughes
© July 2007
