Seeking a Personal Relationship with God.

Intellectual accent is an important part of life.  Our world focuses on certain truths, even though most in our culture say all truth is relative, these truths are still necessary.  Knowledge is an important part of life that is important for our education, professions, and daily lives.  Yet, knowledge can only go so far in its search for somethings.  One of these things is search for God.

Don't get me wrong here, I am not saying that we should stop searching for knowledge of God.  But I do believe that there is something deeper.  A personal relationship takes us to a place before God that knowledge can never reach.  This is something that has been very hard for me to understand.  I am a very intellectual person and like to think through everything.  God does not want us to just know who He is, He wants us to have a relationship with Him.

Throughout the story of Scripture, God calls out to humanity.  God even goes as far to offer His Son Jesus Christ to save us from all our sins.  But what does all of this actually mean?  Does it mean that we can point to Scripture and say, "here is some proof?"  Can we do that for Jesus as well?  It is very easy to do that because we like to have something tangible to believe.  That is the whole basis for reason, it must be proven!

If we focus on trying to prove who God is, then that is when we make God this cognitive idea that we try to figure out.  That is not that God of the Bible!  God is characterized as a God of love (Pss. 81:1; 136:1; Hos. 3:1; Rom. 5:5; 1 Jn. 4:9, just to name a few).  God's very being is not something that can be poked or prodded.  Instead, we become humans working with God in more of a relational way.

John Wesley, the founder of Wesleyanism and the Methodist church, was a minister throughout his years in college.  He became a minister proclaiming the news of God.  Yet, it was not until after he was already a ministry that he felt something more.  Wesley searched to understand who God was, instead of trying to have a relationship with God.  After that, he felt his heart strangely warmed and became even more effective in his ministry and his preaching of holiness.
 
Wesley's preaching of holiness was a description of this life of growing in relationship with God.  Our relationship is not a static thing that once we merely accept who God is that we can call ourselves "Christian."  Holiness is more dependent on living in such a way that we give everything over to God daily.  By this, I mean that our lives are to follow the very example of Christ.  We are to read the Scriptures, pray for God's guidance and strength, and begin to understand God by living in the story of love.

This can even go a step further.  In Romans 5:5 the verse reads, "and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us."  This love is something that we only receive by accepting God into our hearts.  That love does not just remain empty either, but it compels us to go and love God and our neighbors.