A passage helpful for explaining a relationship with God is Matthew chapter 6, verses 9-13. (People familiar with the Bible write this “Mat 6:9-13” as a type of “Bible shorthand.”) In this passage, Jesus is teaching His disciples (followers who are learning from Him) how to pray. Prayer was not unknown, but a lot of people prayed to idols or recited “special” words over and over, so Jesus disciples wanted to know what method (or words) He recommended. Jesus gave them this example. For your convenience, we reproduced the New King James Version of this famous passage below. Matthew 6 9 In this manner, therefore, pray: Our Father in heaven, Hallowed be Your name. 10 Your kingdom come. Your will be done On earth as it is in heaven. 11 Give us this day our daily bread. 12 And forgive us our debts, As we forgive our debtors. 13 And do not lead us into temptation, But deliver us from the evil one. The first two words of this model prayer tell us a great deal about relationships. First, notice that Jesus starts out with the word our, not the word my. The reason is that God is not only the father of the person praying, but of others also. In this context, the our includes the “horizontal” relationship with other people who are children of God. Today, since we can “Get right with God through Jesus,” the word our includes all Christians. Second, the word Father implies a “vertical” relationship with God. Note that the relationship is not that of a wife to a husband, two people dating one another, or a neighbor to another neighbor. It is a child to a father relationship. Those people who do not acknowledge God (such as an atheist, agnostic, or someone following another religion) do not have this relationship—and they certainly would not refer to God as Father. They might call him creator or god perhaps, but not Father. Establishing the Relationship So how do you go from the “creator-created” relationship you had, (which is not really a relationship at all) to a “father-child” relationship? The first of two steps is a process we call “getting right with God.”
Posted on: Thu, 14 Nov 2013 20:37:09 +0000
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