3. God Comes Into Personal Relationships With People
Our Creator seeks personal relationships with us
The God who designed the starry heavens, who created the universe, comes into personal relationships with people.
Deep in the mind and heart of every individual, God has revealed knowledge of His existence. He is “the true Light which gives light to every man” (John 1:9).
The Bible asserts that our Creator seeks personal relationships with us.
- Abraham “was called the friend of God” (James 2:23).
- “The Lord spoke to Moses . . . as a man speaks to his friend” (Exodus 33:11).
- Jesus promised those who follow Him: “You are My friends” (John 15:14).
And God will enter into a personal relationship with you and become your Friend.
Plato’s man?
About 2,500 years ago, a group of Greek philosophers discussed the question, “What is the briefest possible definition of man?”
Plato suggested: “Man is a two-legged animal.”
Another philosopher, however, exposed this definition’s limitations by fetching a rooster. He held it up and said, “Behold Plato’s man!”
They pondered in silence for a few moments until one of the thinkers exclaimed, “I have it! Man is a religious animal.”
Humanity is incurably religious
That’s it in a nutshell.
Humanity is incurably religious. We alone feel a sense of need for a Higher Power.
All of us, whether atheistic or devout, have wrestled with the idea of God.
We’re distinguished from animals by our imagination and reason, and by our will to choose right or wrong. No animal ever builds an altar for worship.
Yet everywhere you find men and women, you find them worshipping. Deep within every human heart is a desire to worship, a consciousness of God.
A desire for a companionship
God has placed within all of us a desire to come into companionship with Him.
When we respond to our longing and find God, there is no longer a doubt about His existence and our need. A Christian believes in God because he or she has met Him and has discovered that He satisfies the heart’s deepest needs.
The God whom Christians have joyfully found to exist gives us a new perspective, new meaning, new motives, new purposes, and new joys.
God doesn’t promise a life free from trouble and conflict, but He does assure us that He will guide and sustain us if we come into a personal relationship with Him.
And millions of Christians will testify that they would give up everything rather than go back to a life without God.
This is the greatest wonder of all
This is the greatest wonder of all — that the Almighty God who designed all creatures and created and sustains the galaxies also desires a personal relationship with every man and woman, boy and girl.
David marveled at this when he wrote:
“When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers, the moon and the stars, which You have ordained, what is man that You are mindful of him?”.
Our Creator is “mindful” of each one of us.
He takes as personal an interest in you as if you were the only being He had created. He says:
“Yes, I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore with lovingkindness, I have drawn you”.
Jeremiah 31:3
Now, it’s only reasonable that a personal God would want to reveal Himself to His created beings just as a father desires that his children know him.
And God reveals Himself to us in the Bible.
Lesson 2 will give evidence that the Bible is a reliable Book given to us by the God who created us.