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God is relationship

Before I started going to my home church, I truly believed that my relationship with Jesus was personal. It was no one else's business. It was between me and God. I cringe when I think about what my old myspace description of my faith was. "I don't have a religion, I have a relationship with Jesus." Sounds great doesn't it? Wasn't true at all. I thought it was. I even wore a cross around my neck. And as long as I could tell people that my relationship with God was my own, I didn't have to be accountable for how fake it was.
Fast forward to around 2015 when I started going to church again. The pastor sure seemed focused on relationships. Always pushing small groups and open homes. I approached it like jumping into a freezing pool. One tiny bit at a time. That was until I served for the first time at VBS. Then I realized something, I loved these people! Then I wanted to just cannonball right into everything. I have a small group now. I also consider my family another small group. I've noticed that when we are open, and see each other in our struggles and triumphs, we are encouraged on our walk, instead of discouraged because we can't measure up to the image everyone around us is putting off.
Jesus didn't even do it alone. He was all about having relationships. He came down to reconcile us to God, to mend that relationship. When Jesus was asked about the greatest commandment, He said "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it" You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets." (Matthew 22:37-40)
One naturally flows out of the other. If we don't have a good relationship with the Father, our relationships with other people are not going to be right either. We simply cannot love our neighbor as ourselves, if we don't love God with all our heart and all our soul and all our mind. When we follow the first commandment, loving other people comes naturally. We start to see people from Jesus' perspective.
I went to a concert recently and got to see the very talented Mercy Me. With them was the band Tenth Ave North. I was actually really excited to see them because I love their song "I have this Hope." The lead singer was talking between songs and he said something that hit me like a ton of bricks. He said God was 3 in 1. He was the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. God IS relationship. How incredible! I have never heard it said like that before. If you still aren't sure how relationships could possibly be everything, look again at God.
He literally IS relationship, and He came to mend His relationship with His creation. When you look at it in that perspective, what else could possibly matter more than relationships? Relationship with God and relationship with people, is our very purpose.

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