This seems like a truly simple word; doesn’t it? But as we all know it is anything but simple. To begin to truly understand anything you have to begin by defining it. I already did this for you:

Relationship:
a connection, association, or involvement

As I was pastoring in Nebraska I would routinely say to the congregation that Christianity was a relationship not a religion. I said it so much in fact that I have a t-shirt that says it (at least I know that some of them were paying attention.) But what my t-shirt and the statement neglect to do is explain it in a way that makes sense and that is applicable to ones life.

I would like to start by looking at it backwards. So much of our lives here in America do not cultivate healthy relationships. We as a society have adopted such a consumerism type mentality that we are constantly focused on more, more, more. And we have adopted this to the detriment of our relationships. Let me provide an example for you from my own life: I have a cell phone that calls, rings, texts, messengers, Send pictures, receives pictures, tweets, updates, surfs and at one time in my life when I would go on a date with my beautiful wife we could barely exchange a sentence without a buzz, chime, chirp, or ring interrupting. Now, I am an unimportant individual in the grand scheme of things, true I serve a Glorious God and that gives me value. But I am not a heart surgeon or a Governor of State so why do I need to know instantly that my friend 5 states away just got a hot dog at His favorite hot dog stand. However, I am in no way knocking technology…matter of fact for those of you that follow my twitter I am tweeting that I am blogging right now (see what I mean! Look how far it has gone.) But what it did do is put a little bit of seperation between my lovely wife and I as she was telling me about her day and I was telling my friend to make sure that he put relish on it?!? Really…?

So, we a few years back put into place a little agreement that on our dates phones stay put away and only checked to make sure the kids are OK.

At this point then we have to go back to the definition of relationship…a connection…an association…and an involvement. In the next couple of posts we are going to look at what it means to have a “relationship” with Christ. What it means to have a connection with Him, to have an association, and an involvement. And what does the Bible say about each of these and do we as people truly understand what that means?

God Bless
~ Pastor Tyler