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Our Relationship with GodRead Time: 8 Minutes More appropriately, our relationship is with our Heavenly Father. In the Old Testament Jehovah/Elohim/El Shaddai was God the provider, healer, our strength, our peace, the shepherd, God Almighty, etc. But He was never a Father. Today, in the Grace Administration, we have a different relationship with God. Jesus Christ came to make known his Father, the only true God. In John 17 Jesus Christ is talking with God shortly before being taken.
In the Epistles God is now referred to as our Father.
God is now our Father as well. "God our Father" or "God the Father" is also declared in I Corinthians 1:3, II Corinthians 1:2, Galatians 1:3, Ephesians 1:2, Philippians 1:2, Colossians 1:2, I Thessalonians 1:1, 3, II Thessalonians 1:1, 2, 2:16, I Timothy 1:2, II Timothy 1:2, Titus 1:4, Philemon 1:3.
Have you ever tried to love someone that is unlovable? Have you tried to love someone that didn't want anything to do with you, spit in your face, lied to you, and had animosity toward you? I have not, but the Father has; He loves us. No matter what you have done in the past, not matter what, God, our Father, welcomes you when you have a change of heart and return unto Him.
Jesus Christ and the Words of God that was from the beginning of the Church of Grace, from the day of Pentecost, is declared unto us for a purpose: that we may have fellowship with the Father, His Son Jesus Christ, and God's chosen. That fellowship is by definition a full sharing. In order to fully share with our Father we must be talking to Him. Are you talking to God? Access to God was very limited before Christ came and gave his life for us. The temple had a wall around it and only Judeans could enter into the "Greater House" or Holy Place of the temple. Then there was a veil, an expertly woven curtain, that separated the Judeans from the ark of the covenant and mercy seat. One man, one day of the year could go into the Holy of Holies that was encompassed by that veil and he had to bring with him the blood of a sacrifice and be clean himself otherwise he would die. (Hebrews 9) Only one day a year! And this is in regards to the Children of Israel, I don't even qualify for him to make intercession for me at that time. I am a Gentile, I could not come before God, the wall around the inner court of the temple has written on it the statement that if I entered I would die. What really separated the Judeans and the Gentiles from God? Sin. The sin of Adam. It took a sacrifice, the blood of a lamb of the first year without blemish or spot, Jesus Christ, (I Peter 1:19) to be the payment for our sin and to allow us to gain access to God.
Yes, without God, separated from Him, without access, not on talking terms, unclean, unholy, unrighteous.
That wall that separated the Judeans and Gentiles was destroyed so there is no longer any separation between us. I have the same rights as a Judean, God's chosen people. But wait, there is more . . .
Reconcile means to bring back together that which has been separated, we had been separated from God because of Adam's sin. Jesus Christ had come to reconcile men back to God, he did it! That veil that separated all of mankind from God, what happened to it?
The veil, a woven curtain of the highest quality, physically and symbolically separating man from Holy of Holies, was torn from top to bottom, from God to man.
We are of the household, we can hang out in the kitchen. We can pull our chair up to the table and feast on the bounty God supplies. We can retire to the living room of God's love in the evening to rest, be edified, and encouraged. We have the access and the right to hang out in God's presence. Do you not have the right to kick off your shoes and put your feet up in your house? Can you bare your soul to the inhabitants of your home? You can come into the Father's house and bare your soul to Him.
We no longer need to go the temple to be in the presence of God, what temple/church can contain Him? (I Kings 8:27) He has a grander idea! (He always has grander ideas.) We, the body of Christ, are now the temple that God is building with Jesus Christ being the chief cornerstone. Let these analogies paint pictures in your mind so that they become living and real in your everyday life.
We now have boldness to enter into the holiest, the presence of the Father because of the blood of Jesus. Our access is now a new and living way. Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, totally know we can. Our hearts are sprinkled from an evil conscience. That word 'sprinkled' is only used in Hebrews and it refers to the blood of a sacrifice being sprinkled on things to cleanse them and make them acceptable to God. See also Hebrews 9:13, 19, & 21. Our relation with God is now as a father with His children, for we are His children. We may now enter into the throne room of God. We can talk to Him, who is now our Heavenly Father. You must take the time to go there. He has looked forward to this for a long time.
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