A Real, Personal, Practical Relationship

Memory verse: Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment (Matthew 22:37-38)

The relationship God wants to have with you will be real and personal. Some people ask, “can a person actually have a real, personal, and practical relationship with God?” They seem to think God is far off and unconcerned about their day-to-day living. This is not the God we see in Scriptures.

From Genesis to Revelation we see God relating to people in real, personal, intimate, and practical ways. God had wonderful fellowship with Adam and Eve, walking in the garden with them. When they sinned, God pursued them to restore the love relationship. He met a practical need by providing clothing to cover their nakedness.

Hagar fled for her life after Sarai used, mistreated, and abused her. At a time when she had reached the end of her resources, when she had nowhere else to turn, when all hope was gone, when everyone else had forsaken her, God came to Hagar. In her relationship with God, she learned that God saw her, knew her needs, and would lovingly provide for her. God is extremely personal.

Solomon’s father, David, had been a man who sought the Lord with his whole heart. Solomon had a heritage of faith and obedience to follow. He had the opportunity to ask and receive anything he wanted from God. Solomon demonstrated his love for God’s people by asking for a discerning heart. God granted his request and gave him wealth and fame as well. Solomon found his relationship with God to be very practical.

The disciples also had a real, personal, and practical relationship with Jesus, the Son of God. Jesus had chosen them to be with Him. What a joy it must have been to have such an intimate relationship with Jesus! When Jesus gave them a difficult assignment, He did not send them out helpless. He gave them authority they had never known before over evil spirits.

In some places of the world, obedience to the Lord results in imprisonment. This was Peter’s experience. In answer to prayer, the Lord miraculously delivered him. This was so dramatic, Peter first thought it was a dream. The praying Christians thought he was an angel. Soon they discovered the Lord’s deliverance was real. That deliverance probably saved Peter’s life.

In exile on the island of Patmos, John was spending the Lord’s Day in fellowship with God. During this time of fellowship in the Spirit, the revelation of Jesus Christ came to John to “show his servants what must soon take place” (Rev. 1:1). This message has challenged and encouraged churches from John’s day to now.

Do you sense, as you read the Scripture, God became real and personal to people? Do you see their relationships with God were practical? Was He also real and personal to Noah? to Abraham? to Moses? to Isaiah? Yes! Has God changed? No! What was true in the Old Testament also occurred during the time of Jesus’ life and ministry. It was the same after the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. Your life can also reflect a real, personal, and practical relationship as you respond to God’s work in your life.