What makes God so unique from everyone else in the world is His focus on what is on the inside of us. We live in a culture that is sculpted around outward appearance. Christians often follow the ways of the world and also focus on outward things instead of what's on the inside.
I don't just mean looks, but little things that stray us from focusing on God alone.
Sometimes our lives are more about who has the most Bible knowledge, who takes the prettiest notes in their journal, or even who we deem to be good at praying.
It is those simple things that build up our love of religion and our desire to impress man. Then, one day we take a look inside and our motive is not God at all.
This is normal and it is okay, but it is something that we have to address in our lives so that we can repent and get back to simply being a child of God.
Our relationship with God is just like our relationship with any other friend.
If our goal is to show off our friend and see how we can benefit from them, it is not a real friendship. What I have found, is that the best friendships in my life are the ones that aren't always perfect but they are raw and honest, and that makes them last a lifetime. My friends who have seen my worst qualities and loved me anyways are the ones that always point me back to Jesus.
That type of friendship is just a fraction of what God wants our relationship with Him to look like.
Not only does He desire to be our best friend, He desires to be a Father who finds joy in leading His children in the right direction.
As a Father, He loves to teach us and give us boundaries to protect us.
An example that comes to mind in my life is my Dad telling me I was not allowed to climb trees when I was little. At the time I felt like he was trying to take the fun and excitement away from me, but I later learned that he broke both of his arms falling out of a tree when he was a kid. His own experience of pain led to my discipline so that I could be safe.
God's boundaries are really similar to that experience.
He tells us not to murder, steal, have idols, put anyone in our lives above Him, commit adultery and more. While these are just a few things He asks of us, most of which seem obvious not to do, we tend to struggle when we feel like God is keeping us from the fun and exciting things.
We want to have sex before we are married, drink before we are old enough, and stray away from Gods eternal word because we only want to read the parts of the Bible that don't require any action from us.
A reminder: a relationship with the creator of the universe will always require action.
When we truly let God in and have the Holy Spirit in us, we don't have to question anything He asks us to do. A lie I believed for a long time was that sin is something I would always struggle with and that is the way life was.
Now, I have seen the way that God has freed me from insecurity and self comparison which I was told could never happen. Luckily, I have a God that says full freedom is for me. It is for you too, you just have to receive it.
Because of what Jesus did on the cross for you and I, we have the same power in us that He did to say no to temptation forever.
When you open your mind to the word of God and close your mind to the lies of the enemy, you will find that God has been the exciting and fun thing all along.
