In your yearning for the spiritual, are you yearning for increased relationships or greater connectedness? Now I am aware of the many varieties of ‘connectedness’ that are on offer from our ‘spiritually thirsty’ world but the one true spirituality that actually delivers for all eternity is greater connectedness with the God of the Bible.
Here are a few reasons:
- The God of the bible is a ‘connected God’. In and of himself, he is Trinitarian, that is, One God, three persons, Father, Son and Spirit – all in perfect relationship. That is why Jesus can say if you know me you know the Father. John 1:14 says, the word (God) became flesh and dwelt among us. Because God is relational in and of himself, the bible says, “God is love”. Love is a relational word. So we are not saying he is just loving we are saying in his essential nature, God is relational, he is love.
- Our perfectly connected God also knows all about our ‘needs for connectedness’, not just with others or the world we live in but more importantly with him. But the reality of our world is that we are not well connected with him. In fact if we were honest with ourselves or faced the reality of what God’s word says, all of us have a broken (disconnected) relationship with him.
- God has a wonderful solution to our problem of disconnection. The good news of the Bible is that God offers us, free of charge, a ‘reconnection’ with him. That is the sole purpose for Jesus death and resurrection. It is an incredible reflection of God’s loving concern for us that he would go to such lengths to reconnect us with him.
- God is not just concerned that we are reconnected with him, he is also deeply concerned about our connection with others. God seriously understands our need to connect. So much of the bible relates to how our restored relationship with God enables us to relate well to others. Whether they are the closest relationship we have with another human (such as our marriage) or the relationship with have with our employer. God’s word is indeed wonderful as he instructs us on the sort of living that builds and restores good relationships rather than breaking them down.
Can I encourage you to regularly read the word of God so that you might be reminded daily of what God has done to reconnect you to him, through the forgiveness of your sin which is only possible because of the death and resurrection of Jesus?
It also does us well to be regular readers of God’s word so that we know how to connect well with others. However we do not just want to be readers of it but also people who put it into practice (see James 1:22).