Good morning! It’s one of my favorite days of the week – Sunday! If you have a home church, make it a priority to be there. If you are reading this and don’t have a home church, I encourage you to find one and be consistent in attending. Church is not what saves us, but the church is how we are equipped and sent out to do the work of Jesus! Attending church each week and actively participating in different ministries holds us accountable to each other, and encourages us to remain committed in our relationship with God!
When I was growing up, my parents would always take us to church. We would be there for Sunday School and the main Service each week. Not only did I go to church every week, but I also attended a Christian school throughout the week. In school we actually had ‘Bible’ as one of our subjects. So I was surrounded by Jesus – from memorizing scripture, hearing the stories in the Bible over and over, and attending chapel services at school – mostly everything I did included Jesus in some way or another.
I was saved as a young boy when I invited Jesus into my heart to be my Lord and Savior, but it has been a lifetime of learning what that committment actually means and how God wants me to BE TRANSFORMED. When you experience different things in your life, especially the hard things, the tendency seems to be – question God’s Word because if everything isn’t perfect, then God’s Word is not true.
This is so dangerous and completely wrong! There are times when God’s Word is not going to make much sense, but God’s thoughts are not our thoughts and His ways are higher than ours!
“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the Lord. As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.
Isaiah 55:8-9
This is where our faith must kick in – even though we don’t understand what God is doing or how He will work through the toughest of situations, we must trust Him, knowing how much He loves us!
The only way that we can do this is by experiencing the love of God for ourselves! And this is where we go back to being consistent in church – I am so thankful that my parents consistently put me in environments that encouraged me to grow!
I think about my son… we do not have him in a Christian school (although he has asked multiple times), but we have created an atmosphere in our home where we honor God in everything we say and do, we read our Bibles everyday, we talk about difficult topics, and we learn from each other how to live a life that honors God outside of our home!
This morning as I was reading the Bible, there were a couple verses that really stuck out to me regarding our relationship with God driving home two main points: 1) It has to be personal, and 2) It requires trust that He knows better!
It has to be personal
In John 4 when Jesus met the Samaritan woman at the well, she had a personal experience with Jesus that caused her to go and tell others! The others came running because of what the woman had told them about her interaction with Jesus, but after they heard Him speak for themselves, they no longer had to take her word for it – they knew it for themselves that He was the Messiah!
“They said to the woman, “We no longer believe just because of what you said; now we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this man really is the Savior of the world.”
John 4:42
Have you experienced the love of God for yourself? Or are you relying on someone else’s word? When we rely on someone else’s experience with God, we will be susceptible to turning from God during the difficult seasons in our lives.
It requires trust that He knows better
A couple chapters later in John 6, Jesus had just fed 5,000 people with five loaves and two fish. a crowd came looking for Him and He begins to tell them that He is the Bread of Life.
Then Jesus declared, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.”
John 6:35
Continuing on, Jesus begins to explain things that went against the Jewish culture and his disciples saw this as a difficult teaching for anyone to accept. What happens next is hard to read…
“From this time many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him.”
John 6:66
If we are not diligent in having a daily relationship with God and intentional in our desire to know Him and grow in, becoming more like Him, we will be opening the door for doubt and discouragement to creep in.
Think about a really close relationship you have with someone other than Jesus. If they tell you a truth about yourself that is hard to hear, yes, it will hurt, but you will not turn away from them if you know they are approaching you in love for your own benefit. It may take some time to process, but it will cause growth in your life if you respond to the hard truth.
The same is true in our relationship with God. Once we have experienced His love for us we can remain faithful when things don’t make sense because we know Him personally and trust that He knows better than we do!
Are you consistently putting yourself in an environment to grow – a place where you can be encouraged by others to continue to know God more and experience His love for yourself? If the answer is yes – great! If the answer is no – consider starting today by connecting to a local church and allow God an opportunity to reveal Himself to you!
Heavenly Father, thank You for the way You meet each one of us on a personal level. You may use others to draw us to You, but Your desire is that we would know You as an individual. As we grow in our knowledge of who You are and experience Your love for us, we begin to trust You more. And when we trust You more, we can walk through all seasons knowing that You are with us and will carry us through! In Jesus Name – AMEN!
Be Transformed 