The Advent of Relationship – December 24, 2013

Suggested Reading: 1 John 1 and 1 John 5:11-12

God designed and created us as relational beings; at our core we are relational. In the Garden of Eden, humanity and divinity were in perfect fellowship – no division, no confusion, no distance, perfect unbroken relationship. This is what we were made for. Our hearts long for it, our bodies were made for it, our minds were created for this end.

But we lost it. Like a vase shattered beyond repair, we broke relationship and this broke the world. But the divine potter was on the case. He had a plan and was working His plan out through the ages, to remake the world, to make all things new.

At just the right time, He sent His Son into the world not to condemn the world but to save the world through Him.

The birth of Christ was the dawning of a new age in humanity’s relationship with God. In Christ, God and man were together again, in unbroken and perfect relationship. As He lived and grew and learned, Jesus lived the perfect life, a human life in perfect unity with the Father. He always did exactly what the Father wanted and lived in perfect trust in the Father. It was not without struggle, as we see in the Garden of Gethsemane, but it was a life of perfect obedience – a full life, an abundant life, a relational life.

In Christ, the God who was with us in Spirit was now one of us. God always saw and understood us, but in Jesus Christ, we can see and understand God in new ways. We hear His voice and see His actions lived out on our plane of existence. So, the life of Christ is both a perfect human life model for us, and a demonstration of the Divine to us. He left the Spirit with us, so that even now, although we see through a glass darkly, He lives in us. We know He is always with us and will never forsake us.

We look back on the coming of Christ with awe and affection, and we look forward to the coming of Christ with hope and expectation. From the Garden of Eden, through the Garden of Gethsemane, to the garden of God in the new heaven and new earth, it has always been about relationship.

We were designed for relationship with God. As it was in the beginning, so it will always be. Christ in us the hope of glory.

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Questions:

In what ways are you intentionally cultivating and enjoying your relationship with God?

How does your relationship with God change you and your relationships with others?