PERSONAL RELATIONSHIPS BASED ON HIS LOVE
God is a personal God, and His love is a personal love. Jesus came to earth to reveal God to us. We know what God is like because of the life of Jesus. And Jesus had real feelings. He had love for others. That is not just a figure of speech. He felt deep love for people in personal relationships.
Three of His closest friends were two sisters, named Mary and Martha, and their brother, Lazarus. “Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus” (John 11:5). They knew that Jesus loved them. When Lazarus fell ill, they sent a message to Him. Notice their confidence in His love for them. “So the sisters sent word to Him, saying, ‘Lord, behold, the one you love is sick’” (John 11:3).
We should have that kind of confidence in Christ’s love for us. They had no doubt in their minds that He loved them. He is the same Jesus today that He was then. He loves us in the same way He loved them. If you read the story of Christ’s relationship with Mary, Martha and Lazarus, you will see a personal relationship. One based on love. One where the recipients of His love knew that He loved them.
There is absolutely no reason why we today cannot walk in that same confidence in His love. If you know that Jesus loves you, do you think you will walk in fear of what He will do to you on the day of judgment? His love casts out all fear (1 John 4:18). Personal relationships. That’s what Jesus had while on earth. Do you think He wants anything different with us now?
It is informative that Jesus arrived where Lazarus was too late to save him from dying. Mary and Martha were very disappointed in this. So, even though Christ loves us, that does not mean that He is always going to do things the way that we think He should do them. And that does not disprove His love. Martha and Mary did not understand why Jesus did not get there in time to save their brother. They knew He had the power. But you will not read of them questioning His love for them.
When people are in a personal relationship with Christ, and they love Him, they do not require Him to answer to them in order for that relationship to be maintained. They rest in His love. They know that He loves them because of what He has already done and because of who He is. They do not require extra “proof“ of His love. Yes, we will be disappointed at times. We will be confused at times. There will be things that we do not understand. But when you know Christ in a personal relationship, you will know that He loves you.
It is also imperative to remember how the story of Lazarus’ death in John 11 ended. Christ performed one of His greatest miracles because He did not get there in time to keep Lazarus from dying. Because He did not do what Martha and Mary thought that He should do, He was able to do something greater. He raised Lazarus from the dead.
So even when things do not go the way that we think they should, even when God does not do what seems so clearly the “right” thing to do, to our minds, in any given situation, we should trust Him. Because He always has something better in store. If not in this life, then in eternal bliss with Him in heaven. Either way, because of the love of Christ, we win.
Dewayne Dunaway
