The Power of Relationship
July 14, 2009 6 Comments
Nathan told David the things God had revealed to him. Following the words of Nathan we are told in 2 Samuel 7:18 “King David went in and sat before the Lord.” What an awesome thought! Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could have the same type relationship with God. What a benefit it would be to our lives if we could go in and sit before the Lord!
As we consider the previous thoughts I want to pose a few questions. Is it possible for us to have a similar relationship with God as David enjoyed? What would prevent us from enjoying such a relationship with the God? I realize that David was under a different covenant than we enjoy. Yet, is our covenant less powerful that that of David’s day? Is our position with God inferior to that enjoyed by David?
Perhaps the reason we fail to have the blessings David enjoyed is because we seek the wrong things. It occurs to me that many today seek to know God based on one’s understanding of Scripture. We imply that in order to grow in our ability to please God we must grow in our ability to know God’s Word. Please do not misunderstand. I believe we ought to search the Scriptures. My concern is the placing of our acceptability before God on how well we understand and keep the rules of Scripture. When this becomes our rule of acceptability, salvation no longer rests with Jesus. Salvation now rests on my ability to understand Scripture and make application of that understanding to my daily living. If this is the case, where does Jesus fit?
Jesus died that man might be reconciled to God. We often stress the fact that Jesus died that we might “go to heaven.” The fact that we will one day be in heaven is a by-product of Jesus death. The purpose of Jesus death was that God and man might be reconciled. The fact that must be understood is that God created man so that fellowship could exist between God and man. Scripture is given so that man can know the way to that fellowship. God has allowed us access to His Word so that we could enjoy the richness of fellowship with God.
Perhaps we need to seek opportunity to do as David did. Maybe we need to develop a relationship with God that would allow us to do as David when he went in and “sat before the Lord.”
Who Told You That 
Dell, Your thoughts in this post are exactly what we need to hear. It took me a long time to see the distinction you have made. Trusting in Jesus alone is the only way to have his peace, and the only message that will bring peace to others. It is our pride that relentlessly seekd to substitute
knowlwdge of the scriptures for trust in the Lord who gave them to us.
Wayne,
I am afraid we are emphasizing the wrong things. Instead of emphasizing perfect understanding and adherence to Scripture we need to emphasize the relationship Jesus died to re-establish with God. Thanks for your thoughts.
You totally lost me in paragraph 3.
The Word needs to become a transforming message by the Spirit of God to make us spiritual people…it is a spiritual teacher — it is not simply a rule book that we have to get right. The Word is not a check list to measure whether we have our religion right — Jesus is the standard and we need to get our relationship right by surrendering to Him — then religion “gets right.” It is amazing how so many have been misled in relationship to this…albeit, unwittingly most of the time. Keep preaching the truth in love, brother — I also need to hear it. Thanks!
Judy, I don’t know your background but if it is similar to mine I can understand your misunderstanding. I grew up in a fellowship that held Scripture in very high esteem. The emphasis was on knowing and understanding Scripture rather than building a relationship with God. It was almost as if we made Scripture a fourth part of the God head. As a result we knew many things about Scripture but often did not know Jesus. The point is Scripture allows us insight into how to be reconciled back to God and how to build relationship with Him. One of the problems with the Pharasees was that they searched the Scriptures because they thought by them they might attain eternal life. As they depended on their search of the Scriptures for righteousness they missed Jesus. I hope his helps. Thanks.
You put thoughts together so they are so easy to understand….if we will turn loose of our preconcieved ideas! Or maybe I should say pre-taught ideas.
I am reading the Bible through this year. I am still in the Old Testament. The thing I am seeing over and over is how much God ALWAYS wanted a close personal relationship with the Israelites. It was all about depending on Him.
Thanks, Dell