How Should We Relate with Our Lord? – by Rene Milner

So we have been wrestling this last couple of weeks with our relationship with Jesus. It seems that the church today puts a tremendous focus on this “relationship”. As we listened to explanations about the Kingdom of God and how it is as if the seed sprouts and grows not because of the man but indeed, despite him, it seemed to beg the question, was our activity, our striving even needed for the Kingdom of God to grow? If not, what does that mean for our relationship with Jesus? When we tell someone they must have a personal relationship with Jesus, what are we really saying?

We think of our relationship with others in our life like our parents, our children or our friends. Relationship here would be seen as sharing feelings for each other, giving or taking, having conversation and even rebuking or correcting each other. Is it proper to apply this kind of understanding in the context of our relationship with God? The fear would be that by doing this we could be missing the point and relating to God in an irreverent manner. It is true that we often talk about walking and talking with Jesus. We ask of Him. He speaks to us in His word. It would seem from these concepts that this truly does fit our paradigm of a relationship.

Let me suggest to you that there are many kinds of relationship. We can have a relationship with a friend that we know intimately or a relationship with a police officer that we hardly know at all. The one may make my life more pleasant while the other may make my life possible. The depth of my understanding of them or walking with them does not affect their ability to have significant impact on my life. Put in this way, does my relationship with Jesus determine my salvation? Yes, and No.

The dictionary definition of relationship is; “a connection, association or involvement with another”. In that way, my connection with Christ and His blood sacrifice is my salvation. That was done by Him more than 2000 years ago. I might as well have been asleep when it happened. It happened long before I chose to agree with it. After I have become aware of what God has done in my life, what should my relationship with Him look like? It could be said it should be no different than it was before, or even no different than it was 1999 years ago. The point being, my relationship with Him is that I am the undeserving recipient of His marvelous grace. My relationship with God is by definition, how I relate to Him. I relate to my earthly father by being His obedient son, I relate to my son by being his sacrificial father, I relate to my employer by being their faithful employee. I relate to the all-powerful creator and ruler of everything in all time and space by being His willingly insignificant recipient of His grace. No amount of getting to know Him, preparing my heart, or trying to love Him more will change that. The relationship is defined by the position and not by the performance. To have a personal relationship with Jesus then is to personally come to understand His position as supreme and all powerful (truly beyond human understanding) and my position as infinitely insignificant and weak. This then is how I relate to Him. When I first begin to understand this relationship and its meaning it causes me to have eyes and ears to begin to see God in a proper perspective. From this the seed grows, the vine stretches forth and the fruit develops.