By Robert Seibert
Columnist
They say the longer two people live together the more they look like each other. If this is true, maybe we should rethink who we want to live with and we should. No servant can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one, and love the other, or else he will hold to one, and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon, Luke 16:13. So, who do you want to live with? Who do you want to become one with?
Paul thought he knew the answer to that question. He was a convicted Jew, Pharisee among Pharisees. He was dedicated to God, but had not come to fully know him. Paul only knew the father side, then he met the son. He considered all he had done up to that point rubbish and gladly gave it up to know God the son. He died to his old life and pressed on in his new. He wanted to be “Christ on earth.” Paul wanted others to have this same conviction and relationship with God. I urge you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship, Romans 12:1 Being in a relationship with anyone, especially God, is a decision we make. Paul had made that decision, first with God the father, then with God the son, which led to him allowing God the spirit into his life.
As we make the decision to have a relationship with God, we must realize who is blessed by the relationship. Who has the most to gain? Obviously, it us. We must first humble ourselves before we can ever have a relationship with God. Paul said even Jesus did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped and was obedient to the point of death on a cross. When we submit to God and acknowledge who he is, it provides security to us. O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, just as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not have it, Luke 13:34. Under the protection of God there is true security.
Once we have humbled ourselves and are in a relationship with God, we realize what really sustains us. Many today think they can only depend on themselves and everything they have is a result of what they did. Christians, however, take a different view. I’m in a relationship with God not just because I want it, but because he wants it. But if some of the branches were broken off, and you, being a wild olive, were grafted in among them and became partaker with them of the rich root of the olive tree, Romans 11:17. God added me into his family tree. He sustains me, without him I would die.
Maybe you are asking, “Is it really possible, can I be one with God?” Not only is it possible, it’s Jesus prayer. And I am no more in the world; and yet they themselves are in the world, and I come to thee. Holy Father, keep them in thy name, the name which thou hast given me, that they may be one, even as we are, John 17:11. Are you one with God? Just think, the longer I live with God the more like him I’m going to look.
Robert Seibert, minister, Hayesville Church of Christ: www.hayesvillechurchofchrist.org.