I have a question for you: How busy are you? Lately, I have found myself busier than ever. I have tasks to accomplish, places to be, meetings to attend, and family to tend to; so, where does my relationship with God fit in? Should I even be asking it to ‘fit in’? Should it not be a priority?
Abetter question to ask would be what is God’s desire for our relationship? As Christians, we focus on John 3, as well we should, where Jesus (talking about himself) says that God sent him into the world because God loved the world and longed for all to be saved. We fixate on Romans 5 where Paul speaks of Christ dying for ungodly and how through Christ we are now reconciled to God. Again, all good passages that describe our salvation which we have been blessed with because of Jesus Christ.
However, I cannot help but dwell on what else is found in the Bible. Ephesians 2 describes how God in His great mercy sent His Son and made us alive together with Christ. Verse 6 in that same chapter says that God “raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.” Jesus in his life responded to the direction of God, in his death submitted to the will of God, and in his ascension sits on the right hand of God’s throne forever in wonderful relationship with the Father. Their relationship is perfect and there will never be any separation.
God desires the same type of relationship with us. Why would he otherwise say that he has raised us up with him (Jesus) and seated us with him in the heavenly places? He desires relationship with us. Perfect relationship.
Yet, we are too busy. I am ashamed to say on a good week I give God an hour of my day. I have been grieved to realize that I give more time to my iPhone, which often leads to my own detriment and destruction, than I give to the Almighty that I claim to worship.
We choose what, or who, is most important by our lived-out priorities. Luke 16:13 makes it clear that we cannot serve two masters. We will either hate the one and love the other or we will be devoted to the one and despise the other. I am not saying having productive work is bad, but by choosing busyness as priority and fitting God in we are choosing the god whom we will worship.
I encourage you to realize that we as followers of Christ should be dying to the desires of this world so that we can be raised up with Christ and seated in Jesus Christ. We can have perfect relationship with Christ and our Heavenly Father!
First, however, we must decrease so He can increase.