What happens after the honeymoon?

I started this little rant with a simulated argument between to people.  About studying the Bible.  It kind of branched off from there into a “no, I’m not legalistic about it”, that then naturally brought me into explaining what my faith is founded upon, now, well, now I’m back to the beginning again, starting back into the original thought again.

We, people who claim Christ as their Savior, should have this relationship with Him.  Right?  That’s great, but where do we go after the honeymoon?

I’ve been married for 13 years now.  If I lived with her, the daily living stuff, with the same knowledge and understanding of her I had when at our wedding it would be horrible.  The fact that I’ve learned about my wife, and things that are particular to her, and her in return to me, is what makes our marriage, it’s what makes our relationship.

How do we build this relationship with our God?  How do we grow in the Grace of God?

This is the typical thing people are told to do when they claim the gift.  “Thank you for coming today, now go and grow!”  There’s some well dressed person telling them to do this, and do that.  There are tons of those Christianese phrases out there about how to be a Christian but few of them actually get down to business.

But how do we continue our lives after our initial plea for help and the subsequent rescue?  How do we live our lives for Him each day?  How do we seek after Him when we are in need?  How do we give Him our worries?  How do we exalt Him in everything we do?  How do we resist temptations?  How do we find joy in the middle of this trial we call life?

These are what we really need answers too.

Is it though attending church?  Is it through singing worship songs?  Is it through studying self-help books?  Is through experiencing a foot washing?  Is it through watching other good Christians, good godly people as examples?  Giving money faithfully?  Working in the Children’s ministry?  Volunteering time?

Well, maybe.  God can use any circumstance to show Himself and His Will to you, He really can. God has used horrible movies to speak to my heart.  It’s not something that happens all the time. When it happens through these types of things it isn’t normally part of the program.  It’s normally when God brings something to my attention that shows me His take on the subject.  I’m at church unwillingly and get convicted.  I’m singing songs and I realize my poor attitude earlier that day. The self-help book makes me realize how lazy I am, and how productive God was. I realize it’s shallow of me to not like feet.  I see other people walking the walk and it inspires me to.  Again, this is all about me, and my failures, and my shortcomings, me me me

Well, what do we do then?  What should I do?  How should we go about living our lives?  If you can’t count on these things, the normal, acceptable, expected things, to teach me how to live my life as part of God’s family, as one of His sons, how do you know, how do you have confidence in what you’re doing?

These are some of the questions I’ve had in my mind at times; both before and after being what other people would call a “good Christian”  These questions have to be asked by others out there.  The people I sit with at church.  The people I work with.  The people I see when driving down the street.

You see, like so many others, I often would forget what actually happened when I got saved.  I would lose site of the whole point.  I thought being able to call myself a Christian was the whole thing.  But that’s silly.  That’s just a club really.  In reality it’s got nothing to do with being a “Christian”.  It’s bigger than that.  It’s all about Jesus Christ being my personal savior, and my personal God, and my friend, my father and my King.  It is supposed to be more than just a membership to a club.

It’s about the relationship

It’s because life and death, eternal life and death, are decided upon whether or not we have a relationship with Jesus Christ, and Him as our Savior.

Ephesians 1:4-8
4 Long ago, even before he made the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in his eyes. 5 His unchanging plan has always been to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ. And this gave him great pleasure.
6 So we praise God for the wonderful kindness he has poured out on us because we belong to his dearly loved Son. 7 He is so rich in kindness that he purchased our freedom through the blood of his Son, and our sins are forgiven. 8 He has showered his kindness on us, along with all wisdom and understanding.

The Bible says that we are adopted into the family of God.  If we are in His family; if we have been adopted as children of God; if we wake up each day and live our lives for God and to bring Him glory we have salvation.  If we’ve confessed with our hearts and our mouths that we are sinners, and as such are worthy death, that we believe Jesus is the true and only Son of God, that He came to this world to die a perfect death paying the price for our sin, if we confess our sins and ask Him to forgive us, to come into our lives and save us from our selves, we have salvation.

It’s the relationship that gives it meaning.

The fool that uses the argument mentioned earlier spent the entire time talking about himself, and what he’s done, and what he can do, and what he should do.  In reality, it has nothing to do with the individual’s ability, productivity or history.  It’s about what Jesus did.  That’s what makes it something.  That’s what makes it church.  That’s what makes it a relationship.  It all comes down to what Jesus did.  Everything from the beginning to time until the end of us all points to the culmination point at which Jesus died for us.

Is He our Lord?  Is He our Father?  Are we in His family?  Have we accepted the adoption process and are we now calling ourselves sons and daughters of God?

If so, if He’s our Savior and our King, then why aren’t we trying to learn about Him?

This learning process is a natural thing.  When we join a club, a team, a company, anything new, we learn about what it is we’re now associated with.  When I joined the Army, they taught me all about it.  I didn’t really get a choice.  When I signed up with the phone company, same thing.  But, as funny as it seems, the choice to join Christ didn’t automatically lead me to learning about Him.  It was a growing process.  I went from a milk feeder, to wanting meat, and in that process I began to learn about Christ, about God, about who He is and how He operates.  This didn’t come from the music, the people, the building, the clothing, the regimine, or anything else.  This came from studying God’s Word.  It’s Him.  He is the Word.  This is one of the greatest mysteries in the world today.