A Relationship Gauge

Do you want to have a relationship with God? More than that, do you want to have a close, meaningful relationship with God? If you do, there are some things you need to do. You see, like any relationship, a good one doesn't just happen. A lot of people say 'relationships take work', but that isn't true. A crummy, no good relationship doesn't take a lot of a work. A relationship that is one-sided doesn't take a lot of work on one person's side of the coin. But a good relationship, ah yes. Good relationships take work. And so, to have a good relationship with God (and not just a One-sided one), you must work at it. Fortunately for all of us, Scripture tells us exactly what we need to do in order to dwell with God on His holy hill.

"LORD, who may abide in Your tabernacle? Who may dwell in Your holy hill? He who walks uprightly, and works righteousness, and speaks the truth in his heart; he who does not backbite with his tongue, nor does evil to his neighbor, nor does he take up a reproach against his friend; in whose eyes a vile person is despised, but he honors those who fear the LORD; he who swears to his own hurt and does not change, he who does not put out his money at usury, nor does he take a bribe against the innocent. He who does these things shall never be moved." Psalm 15

First, we should note that this psalm is describing someone who is already in the relationship with God, and so in New Testament speak we mean that this person has been baptized and is enjoying a covenant relationship with God. But like all relationships, things can fall apart. This list provides a checklist of sorts, things to make sure we do (or don't do) to keep ourselves close to God.

Now, what do all of these things mean? Let's quickly look at just a few.

"He who walks uprightly" - Hold on, it's about to get technical in here. The word literally means "complete, perfect, full" or "without blemish". This is a person who doesn't walk in sin, but instead walks in a way that is perfect, blameless. In 1 John 1:7, we see that Jesus' blood will cleanse us if we walk in the light, thus making us perfect and blameless before God. If we will confess the sins we do commit (v. 9), we will be forgiven. Thus, to walk uprightly means to stay away from sin, but when we do sin, we confess that sin to our heavenly Father, who craves that intimacy with us and is faithful to forgive us to ensure that our relationship stays close.

"He speaks the truth in his heart" - Basically, this means you are who you say you are. You don't live a hypocritical life, or put on some sort of front. We know that God sees our hearts (since He formed our innermost parts!), and He can see if we mean the things that we say and do. He knows if our faith is genuine. He knows if we went to worship Him because we love Him, or if we simply went because people would look down on us if we didn't. If your heart doesn't reveal that truth that you proclaim, your relationship with God isn't real.

"He does not backbite with his tongue" - Ephesians 4:29 says, "Let no corrupt word proceed out of your mouth, but what is good for necessary edification, that it may impart grace to the hearers." If the words that we speak aren't kind, our heart isn't loving. If our heart isn't loving, how much contact have we had with the God of love? You see, God is love, and when we approach His throne in prayer, we ought the leave the throne room changed. Our hearts ought to be more loving, more forgiving, gentler and kinder. Because of the love and mercy God above has extended to our lowly existence, we should graciously love and forgive those around us. But if we backbite and tear down and destroy, we aren't behaving like God, nor are we behaving like we are in a relationship with Him.

"In whose eyes a vile person is despised, but he honors those who fear the LORD" - Question: what do your friends say about you? Are your best friends Christians? Are your role models Christians?  Are the people you talk about the most Christians? You see, if we live our lives praising and admiring those who are evil and wicked, are we living a life that is in a close relationship with the perfect and sinless God of heaven? 2 John 10-11 tell us that we are not to greet those who abide in false teachings and trespasses, because if we support them, we are sharing in their evil deeds. What do the people in our lives say about us? That we honor and uphold truth, or that we condone wickedness? If you want to be close to God, you must resist anything and everything and everyone that has the Devil's fingerprints all over it.

While we could talk about every single phrase within this psalm, we won't for time's sake. Instead, let's focus one final thought on the last line of the psalm:

"he who does these things shall never be moved". You see, when my relationship with God starts to slip, starts to suffer, guess whose fault it is? Well it isn't God's. God never moves. He is always watching for and anticipating our return, just like the father in the story of the prodigal son (Luke 15). He is always there, ready to receive us when we draw near to Him (James 4:8). That means that when our relationship starts to drift, it is my fault. I am the one who moves. And yet, if I will do all of the things that Psalm 15 mentions--if I will keep myself from sin, and walk uprightly in the light of Christ--I will not be moved. I will not wander away from God. Because as long as I am trying my best, God will keep me there, in the hollow of His hand.

How blessed we are to have a Father who is so merciful and forgiving and welcoming. How blessed we are to have a Father who is always ready to keep our relationship alive, even when we abandon Him for days, weeks, and years.

If your relationship with God is suffering, move back to Him. Draw near to Him again. Do your best to implement Psalm 15 in your life. Keep yourself from backbiting, from hypocrisy, and from hurting others. Keep yourself on the righteous path, confessing your shortcomings to the forgiving Father. Whatever sin stands in your way (and it is always sin that separates us), remove it. Cling to God again; He will not resist. He never resists.

Thanks be to God that He loves us enough to welcome us back into the fold every single time.

A Daily Recitation

Recently, while reading through Psalms, I discovered a beautiful verse that I'd somehow overlooked previously. Today, I want to share with you a verse of a psalm that I hope to implement into my daily meditation and prayer in hopes that you will join me.

In July of 2011, I married the man of my dreams. That evening, Robert and I stood before a crowd of people and vowed to honor, cherish, and love each other until death parts us. Would our relationship be what it needed to be if we did not implement those vows into our daily lives? Of course not! Saying something one time doesn't make it stick; instead, we must daily admonish each other and daily proclaim our love and devotion to one another. That's what makes our relationship close.

In the same way, it is so fitting for us to renew, day by day, our commitment to our Lord and Maker. That is why I love this verse, because it does just that.

"I will love You, O LORD, My Strength." Psalm 18:1

How simple and easy. No frills, no fuss; just a pledge of love and devotion from the created to the mighty Creator.

Join me, won't you, in making this verse a part of your daily life. It isn't enough to be baptized once for the remission of our sins and then never proclaim to our God that we love Him! Instead, we must daily tell our Strength that we adore Him. Much like a marriage relationship would suffer if 'I love you's' weren't spoken, so our relationship with our God will suffer should we not purposefully communicate our love to Him.

It is so easy to get caught up in asking God for what we need. It is so easy to beg God to heal the sick and and keep us safe. It is so easy to beg for forgiveness and focus on ourselves. Purpose, today and every day, to dedicate at least a few moments of your day to recite these words, and tell your God how much you love Him. And don't only tell Him you do, promise you will always. Promise to stay committed. Promise to stay true.

Promise that you will love Him, today and forevermore.

How Can God...

If you type in the phrase 'How can God' into Google, the drop down gives you a glimpse into what our society's heart looks like. The top three answers that Google provides are (in this order): how can God help me, how can God use me, and how can God forgive me.

Truly these are some great questions, and ones that we have probably all considered at some point. No doubt we have all been in a situation where we needed help, and we wondered how that help could be administered to us. When we are grieving over the loss of a loved one, burdened by the financial stresses in our lives, or struggling with an illness of our own, we often wonder how God can help us.

The Psalms are replete with cries of help to the God of the universe. Should you ever find yourself in a situation where you need God's help, please remember these verses:

"Let all those who seek You rejoice and be glad in You; Let such as love Your salvation say continually, 'The LORD be magnified!' But I am poor and needy; Yet the LORD things upon me. You are my Help and my Deliverer; do not delay, O my God." Psalm 40:16-17

While we may hurt in this present life and find ourselves in troublesome situations, our God and Father has salvation. If we will trust in Him, He will deliver. He is faithful to save!

There may be times, though, when we feel strong and confident in God's promises, and yet we feel aimless and without purpose, so we ask ourselves how God can use us.

Jesus said in Matthew 28:19-20, "Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you." Should you ever question your purpose in life, or where exactly your focus should be, look only to these words of Jesus. He has given us a specific purpose: to teach others the way of salvation and bring them to Him. Each and every child of God should be out teaching other people how they can become a child of God. And if you aren't a child of God? Please read this post on how to get into the body of Christ!

Finally, the question of how can God forgive me. This is a question that I have personally asked time and time again. How is it that God can forgive all of my sins? How is it that God will remember none of my sins anymore? How is it that God won't get tired of me coming and asking for forgiveness for the same old sins? And yet, the Bible tells us that we can be confident that when we ask, He is faithful and just to forgive us (1 John 1:9).

I love the book of 1 Corinthians, and this passage may be one of the reasons why:

"Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you. But you were washed, but your were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God." (6:9-11; emp mine)

Regardless of how many sins within this list you are guilty of, there is a way to overcome, and that way is by being washed in the blood of Jesus. These Corinthians had been homosexuals and thieves and drunkards and adulterers, and yet they weren't anymore. What changed? First, they quit practicing those things (repentance). Next, they were washed (baptized) clean of all of those past sins.

God can and will forgive you. How? Because He loves you so much. So much that He gave His only Son to die a cruel and painful death for you (John 3:16). How blessed we are to have such a God that will hear our cries when we need help, who will give us purpose and direction in life, and will forgive us of all of our sins so long as we confess them, turn away from them, and are washed in His Son's precious, cleansing blood.

A Month of Thanks: Hope and the Old Testament

In the very worldly sense of the word, November is a month of hope. We sit around, hoping someone makes our favorite dish at Thanksgiving--hoping that our candidate is picked for President--hoping that we get what we put on our Christmas list. Really, we're wishing. We're crossing our fingers and thinking that maybe, if we're lucky, our wish will come true.

Biblical hope isn't a wish; it is an expectation.  Psalm 119:166 says, "Lord, I hope for Your salvation, and I do Your commandments." The psalmist isn't wishing for salvation. On the contrary, the psalmist is confident in the salvation that God has promised to the faithful. Why is he doing the commandments of God? Because he knows that God will give eternal life to the one who keeps His commands. Again let me emphasize that biblical hope isn't a wish--it's an expectation. 

Proverbs 10:28 tells us this: "The hope of the righteous will be gladness, but the expectation of the wicked will perish." When we die, if we're been faithful to God, our hope will be realized and we will be glad. We will have attained our salvation and we will be eternally joyful. On the other hand, if we are not faithful to the Lord, we cannot have such an expectation. The wicked will perish. If you are choosing to live outside of God's commandments, you are choosing to expect (hope for) torment when you die. 

I know that I've been pulling our 'hope' verses from the Old Testament, so let's use one from the New, shall we? Romans 15:4 tells us, "For whatever things were written before were written for our learning, that we through the patience and comfort of the Scriptures might have hope." The reason that we still use (and love) the Old Testament today is not because its laws and precepts are binding, but because we can draw lessons and hope from the text. I, for one, fall more in love with God when I read about Him in the Old Testament. When I see, through the minor prophets, His love for His people and His pleading for them to return to Him. And, as we see in Romans, one of the reasons we can even have hope (an expectation to live with God one day) is because of what the Old Testament teaches us about His love for us and His plan for us. 

So today, I am thankful for the Old Testament. I am thankful for the stories of old and their relevance to my life today. I am thankful for the psalms and their comfort; for the proverbs and their wisdom. I am thankful for the account of the life of David and his beautiful heart, and the account of Abraham and his faithfulness. I am thankful that I can read about God's love for His chosen people, and realize that He's chosen me (1 Pet. 2:9). 

However, I am also thankful for the hope that the Old Testament provides. I am thankful for all of the promises God has made to us that He has already fulfilled, such as the promise to send a Savior to heal mankind once and for all. And, because He has made good on some of His "big" promises already, I can be all the more confident that He will deliver me when this life is over. 

We can go to heaven and we can know that we are going. We, like the psalmist, can have a hope in God's salvation. Ephesians 2:12 says, "that at that time you were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world." If you are without Christ, you are without hope. If you don't have this kind of hope...this kind of assurance in your soul's final abode...talk to me. I'd love to share with you how I know and how you can, too. 

When You're Hurting

All of us have been through something that hurt our hearts. Perhaps it was a crushing break-up, a messy divorce (and aren't they all?), the loss of a loved one, or a disappointment that cut deep. Whatever your hurt, we have a great Comforter in our Heavenly Father.

I recently did a scripture dissection of Philippians 2:14-15, and I'd like to do something similar with Psalm 34:17-19. The Bible says,

"The righteous cry out and the Lord hears, and delivers them out of all their troubles. The LORD is near to those who have a broken heart, and saves such as have a contrite spirit. Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the LORD delivers him out of them all."

As a child of God, you have certain privileges. When we cry out to God during our darkest hour, He...

• Hears - Hebrews 4 tells us that we have a High Priest that allows us to come before the throne of God boldly because He (our High Priest) experienced being human and can therefore intercede on our behalf. Romans 8:26 tells us that the Spirit will make intercession for us when we don't even know what we should go before the throne of God with! 1 Peter 5:7 tells us we can cast ALL of our cares on God. These are great privileges made possible through Jesus and His blood! 

• Delivers - 1 Corinthians 10:13 tells us that God will make a way of escape in every single temptation. Deliverance from our trials is always there, we simply have to look for it. In another, more lasting way, Joel prophesied that deliverance would come in Jerusalem, and we know that the fulfillment of that prophecy was the establishment of the church in Acts 2. Thus we know that God will give us a home in heaven free from all troubles if we will take advantage of the deliverance available through the church. 

• Is Near - There aren't a lot of verses more comforting to me than James 4:8. If we draw near to God, He draws near to us. When we cry out and long for closeness with our Father, He draws near to us. 

• Saves - Somtimes I think that because we are so familiar with John 3:16 we don't let it soak in. But think about it slowly right now: For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. There are so many things in this verse that are incredible. First, God gave His Son. That is huge. And why did He do it? He obviously didn't have to. No, He did it because He doesn't want us to perish. God wants us all to be saved (1 Tim. 2:3-4). He is an all-powerful, almighty being that doesn't need us at all, but He loves us and therefore wants us to be in heaven with Him. When things are going wrong in every possible way, know that you are lobes so much by the only One that matters. Know that He sacrificed for you so that you don't have to perish. 

Nothing this life has to offer is more than we can bear. Heaven will make everything--every hurt, every struggle, every trial, every heartache--worth it. But know this: God has made it possible, but the choice is ours. When we're hurting, we can either turn to God or blame Him. 

God Will Get You Through It

I recently heard my husband talking to someone about different things that were going on in that person's life. Let me tell you, that person had been through a lot of stuff. Toward the end of the conversation, Robert said, "You sure have been through a lot of things, but God brought you through every one of those things, and He'll bring you through this, too."

Isn't it great to be able to have such confidence in our God? David wrote,

"Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; for You are with me."

David wasn't camped out in the shadow of death, he was going through it. He wasn't sitting down in the middle of the valley, asking God why he was there. He wasn't asking God where He was throughout all of it, because David knew: God was there, and God was getting him through it.

Our lives are the same. When we are in the middle of a crisis, God is there, and He is helping us get through it....one day at a time. A few months ago, I was in the middle of one of those 'valley of death' moments. I felt like everything in my life was crashing down around me. You know what, though? That was probably one of the biggest moments in my life when I knew God was there, wrapping His hands around me and guiding me through it. And now, on the other side of that, I know that was the case.

Being a child of God means you live a blessed life. Because I am a child of the Almighty King's, I am able to go through life without fear, because God is there. I am able to face any and all uncertainties this life has to offer, because I am His. I know that His words are true, and He has promised that He will never leave me or forsake me (Heb. 13:5). Sure, there will be times when I am faced with trials. But when those trials and those 'valley of death' moments arise, I can be assured of at least two things:

One, God thinks I'm strong enough (1 Cor. 10:13) and two, God is by my side (Psalm 23:4).