“Answer this question: Does the God who lavishly provides you with his own presence, his Holy Spirit, working things in your lives you could never do for yourselves, does he do these things because of your strenuous moral striving or because you trust him to do them in you? Don’t these things happen among you just as they happened with Abraham? He believed God, and that act of belief was turned into a life that was right with God.” The Apostle Paul Galatians 3 The Message
Did you know that God lavishly provides you with his presence in the third person of the godhead, the Holy Spirit? Do you understand that God the Holy Spirit is working things into your life that you could never do for yourself? The apostle is describing a close personal relationship with God. It is God coming to you and working in you.
The question Paul asks is profoundly important; does God come to you and work in you by your effort or your trust? Your effort is the religious rule-keeping I spoke about last week, while your trust in God to come to you and work in you is the basics of a close personal relationship.
The Apostle Paul references the Old Testament patriarch Abraham. He is 100 years old when his ninety-year-old wife delivers the baby God said she would have. In his seventies, he leaves the family clan and strikes out for an unknown adventure. Why does he do this? He does because God asks Abraham to follow him.
Applying this principle to your own life, do you see the difference? Abraham had to act on his trust in God. You, as well, must act on your trust in God, but that does not mean following a prescribed rule-keeping regiment.
The problem arises when people think not following a rule-keeping regiment means being lazy or rebellious. There will always be a life discipline. Creation is made to follow a routine, the fundamental principle of life. But a rule-keeping regiment requires your strength, not trust in God.
A close personal relationship with God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit is about getting to know him in a close personal way. Such a relationship is difficult to find in a rule-keeping regiment. God is after your heart—your whole life—not your regimented routine.
Join me in the journey; it will be life-altering.