keep it simple

God keeps reminding me of the simplicity of this relationship. if you think about it, its really so easy...but i tend to complicate things and overthink and overanalyze. see, i'm a thinker. if you know me at all you know that i think more than i speak. this has its good and bad side. fortunately, i don't end up doing many things that are too stupid, because i think before i do. but when it comes to my relationship with Christ, it would almost be better to quit thinking altogether...because in the world's eyes it will never make sense. since i've been born into the world, i still have a little of that lingering world view, which causes me to rationalize, plan, organize, replan, etc.

anyways, simplicity. yes, God has been showing me how simple it is to know him. it pretty much boils down into one thing, from which everything stems. and, since Jesus did, i'll throw in the second one too, because it is true (but i have found that without the first it is useless).


"Hearing that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, the Pharisees got together. One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question: 'Teacher, which is the greatest commandemt in the Law?'
"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. And the second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself. All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.'"


alright, so, predictable bible reference...yeah. but seriously, it is this simple. first (and, like i said earlier, it is first for a reason), love God! that's the whole purpose for God creating us right? i mean, God created us for a relationship with him, and he wants our love, so he lets us have the choice to love him or not love him. he sends his only Son Jesus Christ to come and rescue us so that we can have an even more intimate relationship with him than before. Christ suffers for us and pays the price for every little thing we have done wrong. we love God because he loved us first, and he has loved us with a perfect love. God just wants a little something back in return...and not out of obligation or duty, but LOVE. he's given it all for us, and now he's calling us to give it all for him. He's constantly trying to impress us, just begging for us to pay attention to him. he's written us a huge love letter, shows us his glory in creation, causes circumstances to work out for our good, and on and on and on...God is passionately in love with us, and he wants us to enter into that love with him and find the one and only true joy upon this earth. its what we were created for.

so, great...love. what does that actually look like!? i mean, come on...all this language of beatiful and things that we all want to aspire to, but what does that actually mean?

the way i have had to think about this has been through my relationships with other people. because God has created us in his own image, there's a lot of things to learn about God from the things around us. when i think of relationships, the first thing i think about of course is a dating"relationship." as a guy, i tend to shy away from this sort of stuff, but there really is a ton to learn from relationships in life. see, if you are attracted to someone, there is one thing above all other things that you want more than anything else. you just want to be with them. you want to spend time with them, to talk to them, to have a good time with them. you'll even do things that aren't necessarily fun, but since you are with this person, it makes it really good. it is the same with God. more than anything else, we should only desire to be with Him. what does loving God really look like? first of all, we must seek after his presence, striving to be with him and to know him. it is important to emphasize that doing things isn't first on this list. think about it, you don't spend all of your time going about running errands for a person that you love. you'll do it because you love them, but the thing you most desire is to be with that person. in our culture, we tend to put more emphasis on the outward appearance and what you "do." you're alright if you look ok from the outside. unfortunately that mindset has started to drift into the church atmosphere. more emphasis is placed on what you are doing for God rather than how close you really are to God. from the outside you could look like the best christian in the world, but on the inside you could be really really messed up with no true relationship with God. its like the pharisees. "Man looks at the outside appearance, but God looks at the heart." God is more concerned with your relationship with him than anything else, even the good works that you could possibly be doing.

this is where the second part of what Jesus had to say comes in. "love your neighbor as yourself." this, along with the other command sums up the entire bible. someone i heard once called it the cliff's notes of the bible. and, since i'm a lazy high schooler, i like it. anyways...this command is second because it is a natural response to obeying the first. if we are loving God with all we have got, our actions will follow. over and over again in scripture, God talks about how if we remain in him, he will bear the fruit within us. in philippians 2:13, paul says "for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose." galatians 5:5 says "But by faith we eagerly await through the Spirit the righteousness for which we hope." its all about God. it all hinges upon his grace. think about it. God created us for a relationship with him. that's the most important thing, that we would love him. just as in a friendship, when you spend time with someone and are around them pretty consistently, you start to develop some of their habits. some of them rubs off on you. the same goes with God. as we spend time with God, he starts to rub off on us, and we then are transformed into people who not only love God passionately, but out of that outpouring of love, our love for God and his love in us overflows onto the people we come in contact with on a daily basis.

let me leave with a verse which i have heard called the most succint representation of the gospel of Christ from john 17:3 -

"Now this is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent."