Relationship

Pause:

Before you start reading this devotional, take a moment to stop what you’re doing, slow down and focus on Jesus. 

Pray and ask him to open your eyes to see as you read the scriptures, and to open your ears to hear as you wait on the leading of the Spirit.

Read:

Ephesians 1:3-6: “3 Blessed is the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavens in Christ. 4 For he chose us in him, before the foundation of the world, to be holy and blameless in love before him. 5 He predestined us to be adopted as sons through Jesus Christ for himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, 6 to the praise of his glorious grace that he lavished on us in the Beloved One.”

Going Deeper:

I’m a fan of the big questions. When I read Scripture, there is often a thought in my mind: what’s the ultimate purpose? Why did God create the world, and why has He done everything He’s done since then?

What do we say to this big question, for example: why did Jesus sacrifice himself? The answer that many of us know is straightforward: to pay for our sins. We may also say many other answers: for our forgiveness, so we can be in heaven for eternity, to show his power as the Son of God, etc. Yet, there is one answer that is above all of these, and that encompasses all of these. 

God did each of these things—creating us, sending Jesus, sacrificing and enduring everything—for one ultimate reason: relationship. God’s desire, “the good pleasure of his will,” is simple. He desires to know and relate to us in love, adopting us like a Father to a child. God existed in perfect love and relationship as the Trinity for eternity, and he desires to extend that perfect love and relationship to us. 

God sets us free from sin and continually warns us against it because sin inhibits deeper relationship with Him and hardens our hearts against Him. God asks us to share the gospel because He wants to offer a living relationship with Him to those who don’t yet have it. We read Scripture and pray in order to know God more deeply and communicate with Him in a relationship.

The Bible is not simply a book of good life principles and faith in Jesus is not simply a ticket to heaven. Jesus redeems us for relationship with God, and the Bible teaches us who God is and how we relate to Him. Heaven itself is just an eternity of knowing and enjoying God! 

Christians have said for many years that our purpose in life is to glorify God. And this is exactly true! What does glorifying God look like? To “glorify” is to worship or praise God—to notice his character and to declare how good He is. We cannot glorify God without getting to know Him, without relating to Him and seeing his character and goodness ourselves. As theologian John Piper is often quoted, “God is most glorified when we are most satisfied in him.” To glorify God is to know Him and to declare the goodness and beauty that you discover in Him.

What would it look like to view your day through this lens of relationship? What difficulties might be drawing you to God as you cry out to Him? What joys might be showing you new depths of God’s goodness and beauty? What invitations is God giving you toward knowing Him more deeply? What invitations is he asking you to extend to others that do not yet have that relationship?

May we continually remember that God adopted us “through Jesus Christ for himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace,” and that His great desire is for a relationship with his people—including you.

Pray:

Respond to God in prayer by speaking to Him about what stood out to you from this passage this morning.

Listen:

What is the Holy Spirit saying to you right now?

Apply:

What are you going to do in response to what God is saying to you from the text and by the Spirit?