IT’S ALL ABOUT RELATIONSHIP

Father has given us amazing and expensive gifts. We were separated from him, or so we have been taught, by our sin, so he – in the person of Jesus – died to eliminate that separation; he removed every conceivable barrier between us so that we could be with him.

As if that weren’t enough, he wrote us the most amazing love story: a book about his love with his children even when they wandered away, so that we could understand and therefore embrace the passion with which he loves us.

It seems that we have studied his Book his love story about us as if it were an instruction manual. (Why would a God of Love write an “instruction manual” for dutiful study and careful obedience?) The Bible is the most amazing, most powerful book ever written: in it are the words of Life, but it is the Life that is our goal, not the words.

We could discuss other gifts, also given to build relationship, which our quirky little species finds reason to focus on: manifestations of his presence with us (like feathers or laughter or peace) or gifts and callings (like healing the sick, or pastoring a flock of people). These are glorious gifts from the best Daddy in the universe, but they are merely the wrappings on the real gift: we get Him! God himself is the real gift.

Father’s goal is that we’d move past the barriers that Jesus, on the Cross, tore down and threw aside, and we’d come sit down with him, be with him.

My point is not to devalue either the Word of God or the Cross of Christ, not in the slightest! Rather, I would focus my attention on that which these point to, that which these open the way into.
The cross was conceived, in fact, all of creation was conceived, planned and carried out, because He, in his omniscience, was already in love with us! in his foreknowledge of his creation, God had fallen in love with us, and He was determined to do everything He could do to get to us, to find me and wrap His arms around us.

The greatest gift we’ve been given is God himself! Now here’s the freaky part: the greatest gift that he has is us: you and me. Not what we do, not what we know, not even our character or our quirky personality. We are his treasure, his inheritance.

We are his goal: relationship with us;, friendship with us, “having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will.” We get to be his family, his lover, his friends. He is our family and our lover and our friend.
It has also been said this way: “Long before he laid down earth’s foundations, he had us in mind, had settled on us as the focus of his love, to be made whole and holy by his love. Long, long ago he decided to adopt us into his family through Jesus Christ. (What pleasure he took in planning this!) He wanted us to enter into the celebration of his lavish gift-giving by the hand of his beloved Son.”
The goal is relationship. Not just relationship, family relationship: he has adopted us into his family as his own children, his heirs, much-loved. He has delegated the management of the family business (a little thing called Earth) to us. To us!

It would be a mistake to try to run the family business without input from the founder, our Father, of course. We must sit with him, understand his heart for the business, recognize the amazing resources that he’s placed at our disposal for the work. Some of that understanding can come from the book he wrote, of course, and perhaps the most powerful engine in the shop is the blood of his Only Begotten Son, on the Cross.

But the goal, the end of the matter, the reason all else exists, is relationship: that we would inherit him, and he would inherit us.
That’s the real gift, inside whatever wrappings, whatever else he gives us.

A POST BY MY GOOD FRIEND Al Mack

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