Business Relationships with God (Thoughts from John 2)
Sang Won Sur
14In the temple courts he found men selling cattle, sheep and doves,
and others sitting at tables exchanging money. 15So he made a whip out
of cords, and drove all from the temple area, both sheep and cattle;
he scattered the coins of the money changers and overturned their
tables. 16To those who sold doves he said, "Get these out of here! How
dare you turn my Father's house into a market!"
Do you ever find yourself trying to make deals with God?
In our business-minded society, we learn that this is normal -- to try
to negotiate what seems best to us. Even in our friend/college/even
church relationships, we often seek what benefits us from the
relationship. (think about this . . . I was going to name some
examples, but I think we all know how this works).
Maybe we need to learn accept people as they are and love them despite
their flaws. I think our modern-day, fast-paced lifestyle, and broken
families, teach us relationships don't matter -- and many of us don't
know how to hold and nurture our relationships. Isn't this another
reason why divorce rates are so high? Married people have not learned
to build relationships, but rather go through the motions of
emotions/love and when that fades, there's no foundation of
relationship to lean on. And of course, they don't see the problem
within themselves and rather blame the other person. Then life goes on
as if nothing happened . . . because we all have things to do, careers
to pursue, money to make. Relationships are not as important as our
personal goals and success.
I think many times, we want to some how manipulate God just as we want
to manipulate our relationships. If you're a guy, and you just want to
win a girl's heart (perhaps out of love/emotion), we perform series of
events to obtain what we want. I think we seek to find a way to do
that with God. Perhaps study Scriptures enough to perform "some steps"
to "make" God give us what we want. How many of you have said, "I
prayed about something and nothing happened, therefore God must not be
real." or "He must not love me."
I think this is why it's so hard for even Christians nowadays to
experience God -- to know His love for us and His mighty power that is
at work within and through us. Christianity have become such a weak,
wimpy religion . . . one where anyone can join (80% of US claims to be
a Christian), but no power, no difference than non-Christians (divorce
rates for Christians no different than those that claim to not be
Christians!). People who claim to be Christians are often sad and
depressed (though Scriptures talk about "joy divine") . . . it's
dead, and no one would be interested.
I want to share a new concept with you, if you haven't heard me talk
about it -- Christianity is not the religion for which Jesus came (<--
I've been thinking of writing a book with this title). It's about a
relationship. With your mother or father, you would not manipulate the
situation to force the parent to give in to you. Maybe since many of
us are older, we may be able to pull tricks over our parents, but try
to think of yourself as a little kid (like my son's age) and trying to
pull a fast one on an adult. God doesn't want that (of course He sees
right through our hearts) . . . God doesn't want a business
relationship. He wants a father-son (mother-son) relationship -- where
it's all out of pure love for each other that one finds satisfaction.
Developing our relationship with God is how we can see the things God
is doing and we can join in with Him to see His power. As we do join
with God (partner with God), we may find that God blesses us in our
regular lives (cf. Matt 6:33-34). As we put all our trust in God, we
can find our lives to be without worries, and therefore joyful because
we know God is in control! We have hope that He will turn all the bad
for good.
So, I encourage you, develop a relationship with God. (If you're not
sure how -- all you have to do is let me know and I'll walk with you
through it)
Couple of things for all of us to reflect on:
1. How are your people relationship skills? Do you find yourself
lacking it? Let me or someone you believe can help you know . . . and
work on it. If you learn to build relationships with other people, you
may better recognize how God wants to have a relationship with you . .
. that's it's not about what you "do", or how you "try to do" things
that causes him to reward you . . . He wants to give and He loves. . .
we just need to learn to accept His love and grace, and relate with
Him.
2. Do you find yourself trying to make deals with God? "God, if you
would give me XYZ, I would do whatever for you" -- that's not going to
work. And God sees through your "business" plans . . . He wants to
have a relationship with you instead.
3. If you have been a Christian for a while, and believe in all the
things in the Bible, but don't see His power or guidance in your life
-- try to think about why. It may be because you consider God to be
someone far away to just deal with your problems and issues. You may
not consider Him like a Father with whom you ought to relate to,
converse with, rely on in all of life's matters. He's seeking you to
surrender all of you to Him -- what are you holding back? What
skills/talents/abilities do you find yourself relying on your own
strength? Maybe you need to stop making deals with God as if you have
something of value that you can negotiate with God for a reward. He
wants to relate with you.
Instead of doing business deals with God, but let's walk with Him.
-Sang