“Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. “Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and YOU WILL FIND REST FOR YOUR SOULS. “For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.” Mat 11:28-30
The flesh consistently makes Christianity into a system or a procedure as we depersonalize our relationship with Jesus Christ.
Many times, instead of engaging in a relationship with Christ, we substitute the following in its place:
– A “Christian” lifestyle.
– Attending meetings.
– Spending time with God becomes a chore or a task.
– Focusing on truth alone.
– Believing that “God is good with me”, as a license to neglect relationship with Him.
– Working for God instead of relationship with Him.
– We focus on “what I need to do better or more” instead of just coming to Him.
– We focus on Him fixing our problems or changing our situation instead of relationship.
We sometimes avoid God because:
– We are not understanding or believing the good news, applying it to ourselves, right now.
– We want to do want we want to do (independence).
Questions:
Are there any other examples you can think of in which we depersonalize our relationship with Christ?
What helps you come to Him during the moments of your day?
What keeps you coming back to Him?
We See Jesus. Behold who He is while in prayer and in worship. Come to Him and begin being with Him by seeing Him and becoming aware of Him first, not with your prayer list of needs.
Eph 1:18 – I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened, so that you will know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints,
Psa 42:7 “Deep calls to deep at the sound of Your waterfalls; All Your breakers and Your waves have rolled over me.”
Psa 131:2 “Surely I have composed and quieted my soul; Like a weaned child rests against his mother, My soul is like a weaned child within me.”
Psa 16:11 – “You will make known to me the path of life; In Your presence is fullness of joy; In Your right hand there are pleasures forever.”
2Co 3:16-18 but whenever a person turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away. 17 Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, [there] is liberty. 18 But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit.
Jhn 6:40 For this is the will of My Father, that everyone who beholds the Son and believes in Him will have eternal life, and I Myself will raise him up on the last day.”
Heb 12:2 fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.
Seeing Him heals us and changes us.