It’s Personal!

Has anyone ever let you down? And if you said something about it, did they dismiss your concern with a comment to the effect of, “Hey, nothing personal. That’s just the way it is.”

That comment has always bothered me. The way we interact with each other is personal. Life is personal. And when we allow ourselves to be vulnerable, only to be hurt—or worse, betrayed—the last thing we want to hear is, “It’s nothing personal.”

God created you and me to be relational. He created us for personal relationship with Him and with other people. But anything God creates for good, Satan works to corrupt for evil. And he starts with our most important relationship of all.

Has God Let You Down?

Have you ever felt as if God let you down? That if He really loved you, He would not have allowed certain events into your life? That if He really is God, children would not be tortured, adults would not be abused, and Satan wouldn’t appear as victorious as he seems to be?

Then there’s God’s people. How do we achieve intimacy with others? Do we even want to? After all, intimacy carries a price. It involves making ourselves vulnerable and breaking down walls we’ve built for protection, usually because we’ve been hurt in the past.

It’s bad enough when those who don’t claim to be Christians let us down. But when Christians disappoint or betray us, our instinctive response is to retreat into an emotional cave and board up the entrance. Perhaps even vow that we’ll never darken the doorstep of another church again.

Still, you and I were not created to be alone. We were created to be in fellowship with our heavenly Father. So why the disconnect?

I’ve always heard that if you want to be close to God, you have to spend time with Him – have a regular time of prayer, read the Bible, obey His Word, and spend time with His people. Is intimacy with God simply a matter of checking off boxes on a to-do list? Too many Christians do these things, and still have a lack of intimacy with the Lord.

It may be because all of these things—prayer, Bible-reading, living a moral life—while good, can become rituals. We go through the motions with our hands, but not our hearts. If you’re a Christian, your relationship with God is based on the salvation He offers in Jesus Christ. Christianity is not a religion about God. It is a relationship with God. But has your relationship stopped there?

Are you the same person you were the day you became a Christian? Are you closer to the Lord than you were last month? Last year? Last decade? If your answer is no, you’re not alone. Why aren’t some Christians as close to God as they want to be? A variety of reasons can include unconfessed sin, lack of spending time in His Word or in prayer, lack of discipleship, lack of accountability in a local church body.

We can add one more possible reason to that list . . .

An Inaccurate Understanding of Who God Is

People can have some strange ideas of who God is: ideas learned from parents, or from various religious traditions, but that’s not necessarily who God says He is. Even if you grew up attending Sunday School every week, you still might have trouble understanding what God has said about Himself. It doesn’t help that the names and attributes of God that brought comfort to countless generations are now often misunderstood in our culture.

Do we really understand the names and attributes God calls Himself? Even when we read familiar descriptions of God, such as God is love, what does that mean? If we want a more personal—a more intimate—relationship with God, it’s important to learn what God says about Himself and to also understand those descriptions in the context of what God intended, rather than what our culture now dictates.

When we learn what God says about Himself, and see how He relates to us is consistent with what He says, then our faith is affirmed and it’s easier for us to trust Him. Growing intimacy with the Lord is based on growing trust.

One reason Christians misunderstand who God is, and are therefore not as intimate with Him as they might desire, is that they often focus on one name or attribute of God to the exclusion of all others. For example, those who focus only on God’s characteristic of being loving, and end up with an anything-goes god who tolerates sin.

Others who focus on God’s holiness to the exclusion of all other characteristics create a fire-and-brimstone god who is unloving, unmerciful, & uncompassionate.

God is love and He is holy. He is merciful and He is just. He is all these things and more. To truly know Him—to be intimate with Him – we must learn ALL that He is – not just one or two characteristics that appeal to who we want Him to be.

You were created to be in personal, intimate fellowship with your Creator. How will you cultivate that intimacy this week?

* Helpful resource to know God better: Reflections on the Names of God: 180 Devotions to Know God More Fully