I Used to Have a Relationship with God

 We give careful attention to spiritual formation because we have learned, from long experience, how easy it is to get interested in ideas of God and projects for God while at the same time losing interest in God alive, deadening our lives with the ideas and projects. It is the devil's work to get us worked up in thinking and acting for God and then subtly detach us from a relational obedience and adoration, substituting our selves, our god-pretentious egos, in the place originally occupied by God. -Eugene H. Peterson
Within Christendom there can be a tension between faith works and an intimate relationship with God. Some camps even seem to put these ideas at odds with each other; however, there should be both in our lives. Often times, many of us find ourselves on either side: works or relationship. Reality is, it should not be an either/or but a both/and situation for us. We should be in relationship and doing faith works.

Relational Intimacy with God

God desires nothing more for us than to be in an intimate loving relationship with Him. Jesus, when asked what the greatest commandment of the law was said, "Jesus replied: ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment'" (Matt 22:37-38). Similarly, the first of the ten commandments given at Mt. Sinai was, "You shall have no other gods before me" (Ex 20:3). Across the Old and New Testaments we see that God's desire is that we love and behold him first, before anything or anyone else. 

What then, does it mean to be in intimate relationship with God? Simply put, intimacy is about vulnerability and exchange between God and us. There has to be a bond, fused together by the Holy Spirit, between us and God, through Christ, by which we experience God in vulnerability and exchange our nature for the likeness of Christ in us (the Holy Spirit). Us being in intimacy with God means that we give him room into the interior parts of our life that no one sees; beyond what the psychologist understands, what the doctor can, or cannot, diagnose, and further than the peoples judgements. Intimacy with God is about letting God into the places where only a few, or no, person has been into your life. 

 Many of us live with an interior life that has several combination locks, passwords, and secret passages that no one has access to. We often put negative feelings, personal fears, and past mistakes down into these places. It is within these locked up (and open) places that God desires to be in intimacy with us, such that we would be vulnerable with him, exchange ourselves for himself, and love him above all else. 

 Intimacy functioning in our lives looks like us loving God with the external and internal parts of our lives. Intimacy has to be more than the dealings of our internal lives, it also consists of us producing faith works.

Works

I once heard an employer I worked for say to me, "I don't normally hire Christians because they do not work hard."

I was shocked in disbelief, because this should be the opposite! Christians should be the most hard working and productive people on the planet! Scripture is clear, "Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving" (Col 3:23-24). In fact, God has created and predetermined us for work, "For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do" (Eph 2:10). 

 We are made to work hard, and be productive. Jesus' parable of the talents represents this well as he gives each servant an amount to care for and rewards each based on the amount they produced (Matt 25:14-23). To the one who did not produce he called lazy and cast away (Matt 25:24-30). We want to be careful that our work is not busy, but productive. 

 The danger with works is that we can become so preoccupied with works that we begin to love the work more than God, as the quote above points out. This has never been more true in America, as many will identify themselves according to the work they perform. The danger here shows itself when working for God replaces intimacy with God. Although the two (works and intimacy) are meant to work in tandem, works was never meant to replace intimacy.

Work Hard, Love Well

The spirituality of our Christianity should consist of intimacy and works. While some put these ideas at odds with each other, we must learn to live with both in our lives. Simply loving God without works will never show the world the glory of God. Paradoxically, only working without loving God will only show the world a self-conjured image of God. Let us work hard and love well.



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