Relationships

One of the more important aspects of a happy and meaningful life deals with relationship. Both personal and interpersonal and perhaps most importantly, our spiritual relationship. In case you hadn’t noticed it, both the Old and New Testaments point out God’s desire to have a very special relationship with His people.

Many of these relationships were indicated by the names by which God’s people knew Him. For example: the name El Elohim points to the covenant relationship God has with His people. The name El Shaddai (God Almighty) points to the high esteem in which God is held by His people, as do: El e’lyon (God Most High), Yahweh Seba’ot (Lord Almighty) and Adonay Yaweh (Sovereign Lord).

God is identified in Scripture as: Holy, Just, Living, Merciful, Gracious, Powerful, Righteous, Spiritual, Sovereign and Personal. And these are just some of the traits by which His people know Him.

John 16:26 says, “In that day you will ask in my name…”

John is not implying that we invoke the Lord’s name as if it were some magical word but rather that we ask in His very nature (to be so intimate with Him, that we are as one with Him). To enable us to do that, we must have such a right relationship with Him, that we understand what His nature is. In other words, that we might be able to ask in His will.

The goal is to be at one with the perfect Sovereign will of God. In that day, when we achieve this, we will be in perfect unity with our Savior and with His Father.

As Jesus prayed in John 17, “My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me.”

To fully appreciate the significance of a right relationship with our Lord is to recognize the goal and purpose which God intended – “…that the world may believe.”