Something important stuck out to me again in a sermon last night: God takes our relationship with Him more seriously than we do.
From God’s first interactions with the first humans and on down history, God has always been more serious about this relationship than we have. He’s always wanted the best for us, always wanted to love us, always wanted us to love Him back, and He has never messed up or faltered along the way. Any time God makes a promise, He keeps it. Any time we mess up, He makes a way to fix it. We walk away from God all the time, but He has never walked away from us.
When Adam and Eve disobeyed the one rule God made because they thought the might be able to do better than what they already had with God, God didn’t get rid of them. Their relationship definitely had to change after what had happened, but God still wanted to love them.
When God made His covenant with Abraham, He took full responsibility for keeping it. Only God could uphold that promise. When Abraham and Sarah tried to fulfill it on their terms instead of God’s, instead of that making the agreement void, God still kept it.
When the children of Israel repeatedly strayed from God throughout the Old Testament, God always took them back when they repented. There was a time when He was so angry with them that He told Moses He would destroy them all and just make a great nation of Moses, which would still be within the terms of the covenant, but God let Moses convince Him otherwise because God still loved His people.
When Jesus’ disciples frequently misunderstood things He’d said or displayed racist tendencies, He didn’t quit on them, He continued to lovingly teach them the correct understanding and responses.
When Judas left the Last Supper to betray Jesus, Jesus knew Judas would do this to Him, but He showed him love right before he left anyway. Even when Judas actually betrayed Jesus, Jesus seemed sad and not angry.
When Jesus died on the cross, He wanted to forgive the people who put Him there. Some of them should have known who He was and never should have hated Him, but even then Jesus loved them.
When the Holy Spirit came to live in the early believers in Jesus Christ, they still had some learning to do. They made mistakes, but the Holy Spirit still helped them along. God even swept up the fiercest persecutor of the early Christians in love!
When the Holy Spirit comes to live in us as believers in Jesus Christ, He stays even when we ignore Him. He goes everywhere with us, whether we should be there or not.
God takes this relationship more seriously than we do. Even when we’re listening and obeying, sometimes we’re not taking this relationship as seriously as we should. But that doesn’t mean we can’t realize that and take it more seriously ourselves while we thank God for His faithfulness to us.
Related:
Relationship Status
Personal Relationship
Daily Relationship
Instructions and Relationship
Rules and Relationships
Spending Time with God
Cheating on God