God created human beings and a relationship was created. Adam and Eve had interaction with God – then they made a choice to separate themselves from God through disobedience. God made provisions for them and sent them from the Garden of Eden. From the beginning of time, God’s desire was to be in a relationship with us, to make a provision for us to be with Him forever. Unlike Adam and Eve, we don’t have face to face interactions with God, but through His word, our prayer time, fellowship with other believers, and our circumstances we interact with God. We are able to worship God, please God, and walk with God, all through faith.
Our relationship with God requires faith. Hebrews 11:1 tells us “Now faith is the reality of what is hoped for, the proof of what is not seen.” (HCSB) Faith starts with our belief in God; acknowledging that He is God, the creator of all and the source of our life through Jesus Christ, His son; recognizing that we are sinners, disobedient and separated from Him; and confessing our sins to Him, asking for forgiveness and for our relationship with him to be active and alive.
Hebrews 11:6 says “Without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.” (NIV) Part of our relationship with God is pleasing Him – think about a child’s interaction with her parent – the child wants to please the parent, do what is right, and be close to the parent. The parent is pleased! We are a child of God and pleasing Him is part of our relationship with Him. Our faith is the means to God’s pleasure.
Our relationship with God is a walk, a walk of faith - the two go together – they don’t work independently.
My faith is being challenged – in a great way! I’m not wavering in my faith; I’m growing in my faith. I’m seeking God. Hebrews 11:6b tells us to “earnestly seek him”. Strong’s concordance defines seek as 1) to seek out, search for 2) to seek out i.e. investigate, scrutinize 3) to seek out for one’s self, beg, crave I like the last word from the 3rd definition ‘crave’. Do I crave God? Do I seek him, craving to being in a relationship with him? Do I crave interaction with him? Even more, do I earnestly or diligently crave him? Do I continually crave him? This is how my faith is being challenged!
I am working through Beth Moore’s, Believing God Bible study with a group of women. I am excited to learn more about truly believing God. I am confident that it’s going to challenge me, my behaviors, my actions, and my faith! I’ll keep you posted!
