God Is Real, Therefore God Is Relevant • DDCommunity

God Is Real and He Is Relevant

If you believe God is real, then God is relevant to your life. God desires an intimate relationship with His creation. He is not merely an impersonal creator who has left His creation to fend for itself. He is a real God who desires humanity to experience Him as relevant to every aspect of life. John spoke of the joy that results when we encounter Christ as real and relevant.

John knows God is real.

We proclaim to you the one who existed from the beginning, whom we have heard and seen. We saw him with our own eyes and touched him with our own hands. He is the Word of life. This one who is life itself was revealed to us, and we have seen him. And now we testify and proclaim to you that he is the one who is eternal life. He was with the Father, and then he was revealed to us. We proclaim to you what we ourselves have actually seen and heard so that you may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ. We are writing these things so that you may fully share our joy.
1 John 1:1–4 NLT

**What do you mean by relevant?**

Webster’s dictionary defines relevant as “having a significant and demonstrable bearing on the matter at hand; affording evidence tending to prove or disprove the matter at issue or under discussion.” Is there significant and demonstrable evidence that God is real in your life? If we say we believe God is real, then His reality will be reflected as we demonstrate His image in our lives.

As we daily experience God as relevant, our lives offer proof of His existence to a watching world. There must always be an interaction between what we profess and what our lives evidence. The essence of Christianity is not a mere profession of faith, but rather a possession of faith, where the truth of Christ is confirmed by the reality of our lives.

Do you believe God is real?

Jesus Christ demonstrated God’s reality and relevance when He paid the price for our sins.

The Son radiates God’s own glory and expresses the very character of God, and he sustains everything by the mighty power of his command. When he had cleansed us from our sins, he sat down in the place of honor at the right hand of the majestic God in heaven.
Hebrews 1:3 NLT

“Do you believe God is real?” The question is not asking if you know about God, if you know of God, or even if you have been educated concerning god. The question asks, is Jesus relevant, pertinent, and applicable in your life? Does He make a difference?

The day Kirk found God real and relevant.

One day as I (Kirk) sat in my office, I was feeling particularly powerless, vulnerable, inadequate, and worthless. In my desperation I began to pray, “God, be real to me. Show me Your power. I need to experience You as real.”

Truthfully, I did not anticipate the response I encountered from God. The Holy Spirit promptly said to my heart and mind, “The issue of My reality is not in question. Look at the birds, trees, and all of creation, even the fish in your aquarium. Do they not declare My glory? Why then do you say to Me, ‘Be real to me?’ I am as real as I am ever going to be! The issue at hand is not My being real to you, but when will you be real with Me?” I could not be aware of God’s relevance in my life until I was real with God.

Operating under the guise of submission, we petition God to make a difference in our lives. But when His Spirit speaks to reveal His plan, we continue on our own way, pretending not to hear His guidance. “Come on, get real!” Do you really want what God wants, or do you just say you want what He wants? When we assert that we want God to be ruler in our lives, we must become real with God by implementing the plan He has laid before us. Unless we are willing to employ His resources, we will never experience Him in a relevant manner.

Why run from the truth?

We run from God’s truth in our lives. We do not listen to God’s guidance, or we pretend not to hear. He tries to wake us from our stupor with warning signals such as anxiety, but we employ a variety of evasive tactics as we attempt to squelch His truth from our listening souls. Until we are willing to acknowledge His plan of truth, God will continue waiting for us while we continue to miss Him.

We want to meet with God on our terms, but He will meet us only on His terms. We want to relate with Him in a way that is comfortable to us, but anything short of God’s plan is a deception. Consequently, we forfeit reality for comfort and give up a relevant encounter with God.

God asks us to confess that He is real and relevant.

The Bible uses the term confess to identify the juncture where we become congruent with the mind of God regarding His revealed truth. God asks us to confess foundational truths such as Jesus Christ is the Son of God and Lord (1 John 4:15; Romans 10:9), Jesus is relevant (Luke 12:8), and we are sinful (1 John 1:9). Confession is key to an authentic relationship with God.

As we become congruent with God’s description of us and our sin, we no longer succumb to Satan’s deceptions that keep us bound. When we confront the truth about ourselves, we agree with God that He is the only one capable of delivering us. We are incapable of living an independent life.

Under the pretext of spirituality, we miss a relevant relationship with Jesus. Christ asserted to His disciples that a true relationship with Him is more than just performing good deeds, even if they do appear to be supernatural and miraculous.

“On judgment day many will say to me, ‘Lord! Lord! We prophesied in your name and cast out demons in your name and performed many miracles in your name.’ But I will reply, ‘I never knew you. Get away from me, you who break God’s laws.’”
Matthew 7:22–23 NLT

^“These people honor me with their lips,
but their hearts are far from me.
Their worship is a farce,
for they teach man-made ideas as commands from God.”
Matthew 15:8–9 NLT

How do I know if God is real and relevant to me?

Jesus favors a simple childlike trust when we enter into reliance upon Him, fostering a dependent connection with Him through truth. Placing our faith in all Christ has revealed to us about Himself, and confessing to Him all He has revealed to us about ourselves moves us to authentically encounter Him, to actually know Him, and to be known by Him. God, through Jesus Christ, is relevant to my life when

He is my reason for living.

^“I live because of the living Father who sent me; in the same way, anyone who feeds on me will live because of me.”
John 6:57 NLT

He is my resource for thriving.

^“The Spirit alone gives eternal life. Human effort accomplishes nothing. And the very words I have spoken to you are spirit and life.”
John 6:63 NLT

He is my resolution to crisis.

We think you ought to know, dear brothers and sisters, about the trouble we went through in the province of Asia. We were crushed and overwhelmed beyond our ability to endure, and we thought we would never live through it. In fact, we expected to die. But as a result, we stopped relying on ourselves and learned to rely only on God, who raises the dead.
2 Corinthians 1:8–9 NLT

God is real, therefore He is relevant.

God is real, therefore He is relevant. Jesus desires to have an intimate relationship with you. A relevant relationship with Christ will change how you view life. It will change how you live your life. When you believe that God is real, and live in a close relationship with Him, everything changes.

God, I believe you are real and relevant.

God, I am listening to You. Thank you that You have cared for me since I was born. Yes, and even before I was born You carried me. I want You to be my God throughout my lifetime—until my hair is white with age. God, I believe that because You made me, You will care for me. I trust You to carry me along and save me. . . .
based on Isaiah 46:3–4

Insight Journal

What evidence is there in my life that God is real?

Excerpts from Desperate Dependency by J. Kirk & Melanie D. Lewis.

Available from your favorite book retailers, including Amazon and Redemption Press. (As an Amazon Associate, we earn from qualifying purchases at no extra cost to you.)

Would you like a more in-depth study of Desperate Dependency? Enroll now in our Teachable Desperate Dependency class.

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