Hello again and thank you for taking your time to read one of our blog posts from Living in Faith through Christ written by Lelo.
This week we will be discussing vulnerability with God therefore determining the true relationship and/or position we have given Him.
There’s so many things we have been unpacking and all we’ve unpacked play a role in determining the transparency we live by, not only with ourselves but with God too.
I would go as far as promoting these questions we could ask ourselves to determine the kind of relationship we allow ourselves to have with our Heavenly Father:
- Do we allow God to see the raw unfiltered version of ourselves?
- Do we tell Him the things we seem to think are secret; things we hide, thinking He somehow doesn’t know about or see?
- Even though we know He knows what we do, do we remain transparent with Him?
These are questions I believe will help us understand the type of relationship we have with God.
He is all powerful
To be transparent myself, one of the many things I know I used to battle with and in turn enabled excuses to avoid God and not deal with my vices is that “He is all powerful.” I mean, He sees the things we would hope He doesn’t, so surely we have no need to tell Him something He already knows right?
What are your thoughts on the above statement? Does it make a difference when we tell God our short comings even though He knows them?
My short answer is yes, it does make a difference. In fact, I believe that He actually want us to do that. He wants us to have a relationship with Him that allows us to tell Him things even though He knows what’s going on.
Why do I say that? Well, the Bible in 1 John 1:9 NLT says “But if we confess our sins to him, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all wickedness.” I literally was amazed by the revelation God gave me after reading this verse again, I was able to see something I hadn’t seen before.
The “if” statement stood out to me, “if we confess our sins to Him.” I went on to understand what the “if” word means; and according to the Oxford dictionary, it explains that “if” (introduces a conditional clause) on the condition of or supposition that; in the event of.
So, in the event of us confessing our sins to God, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all wickedness. In simple, we have been given a choice because at the end of the day, God doesn’t force Himself on us, so the decision is on us. Do we decide to confess our sins to Him?
Are we vulnerable to Him? Even when knowing He sees everything, are we able to tell Him things or do we rely on Him being the all seeing Father and God?
This verse I believe is an emphasis of deciding to have a healthy relationship with God. I say this on account of the fact that our sins are already forgiven because of the death of Jesus Christ, our sins are forgiven because of God’s love for us; 1 John 4:10 NKJV, in other words, there’s nothing we can do to have our sins forgiven by God because Jesus already died for the forgiveness of our sins. We will be diving more into this statement further on.
Here’s a scenario: In a parent and child relationship. The child happens to wrong the parent, and the parent knows that the child wronged them.
Would you, (a) appreciate a conversation with the child where they then decide to confess what they did wrong and ask for forgiveness even though they may not fully understand how it affected you (b) be okay with the child assuming that since they wronged you, you should forgive them based on the fact that they know that you know that what they did was wrong?
- Would you think that the child is trying to be accountable, understanding and taking responsibility of their actions?
- Would you define your relationship with them as a healthy one?
- Would you define the relationship to be mutual?
Mutual understanding
So with all the above, I believe that God’s intention is to have an intimate relationship with us, the Old Testament did not allow much of a relationship with Him, however, through Christ the veil was torn and we now have access to God through Him.
In Romans 5:8-11 NLT, Paul tells us that God showed His love for us by sending His Son, Jesus Christ, to die for all our sins. We are therefore made right in God’s sight by the blood of Jesus. Paul continues to tell us that our friendship with God has been restored through Christ’s death, how we can rejoice that we now have a new wonderful relationship with God because Jesus Christ has made us friends with God.
In these 4 verses Paul emphasises our relationship and friendship with God through Christ Jesus, I don’t think that the repetition is by mistake. Writing it down felt like I was saying the same thing over and over again. This repetition I believe is to enforce our understanding: We now have a relationship & friendship with God through Christ, however, I also believe that the understanding that God wants to be our friends and have a relationship with us, is contingent on us wanting to actually have a relationship with Him.
God cannot have a conducive relationship with an unwilling party.
With all that said; I’d like for us to direct our attention toward understanding that relationships should be built on mutual affection where both parties should not only consent to building a relationship, but also reciprocate sympathy in understanding that whatever affects one person, affects the other.
If we agree to have a relationship with God our Father. We agree to having an open line of communication, committing to reading His written Word and learning His heart.
POV: The best way to know more about God is to read His Word, the Bible. He speaks to us through His Word, and we speak with Him either inwardly or outwardly.
We cannot be in a healthy relationship if we don’t learn to not only communicate but also be transparent within communication; acknowledging that transparency requires us to be open and honest.
I believe that once we are able to be transparent with God, we will be open and honest with ourselves; relationships I believe are paramount to manoeuvring life because we are all one body in Christ and we all need each other to function as the One body, Romans 12:4 NLT.
Vulnerability
Redirecting our focus to the question I had asked earlier, “do we allow God to see the raw unfiltered version of ourselves?” This question I believe could be the decider of what kind of relationship we have with God. It involves an evaluation of the type of character we present to God and ultimately the world.
An example of this would be: If we are able to be so real with God in a way that we forget about how we are carrying ourselves, leaving the “holiness” concept behind, being able to tell Him the truth about how we feel about things and people; would be the foundational ground to building a healthy relationship.
1 Peter 5:7 NLT states “give all your worries and cares to God, for he cares about you.”
In living out this verse in our lives, I believe that vulnerability is applicable, I believe that when we allow ourselves to be vulnerable with God, the internal struggle we have within ourselves because of what we think Christians should think and behave wouldn’t exist as much as it could because we truly left all cares unto God.
I used to struggle with mixing my will with God’s will, and honestly I still do sometimes. What helped me was understanding that I had to be honest and open with God. I learnt that God requires me to be real with Him.
So, I stopped pretending that I was an all put together Christian with Him. Reading more of God’s Word assisted me with understanding condemnation and conviction.
I began humanising myself, understanding that just because I sin doesn’t mean I am irreparable. I began understanding Romans 7:19-20 NLT “I want to do what is good, but I don’t. I don’t want to do what is wrong, but I do it anyway. But if I do what I don’t want to do, I am not really the one doing wrong; it is sin living in me that does it.”
In short, I am born a sinner, however, sin doesn’t control me anymore because of Christ. I realised that by being honest with God that I actually mixed my will with His and ask that He forgives me because I actually want to follow and be guided by His will, increased my relationship with Him.
And just like that, the hold of sin is no longer there, Romans 6:6 NLT reminds us of that; “We know that our old sinful selves were crucified with Christ so that sin might lose its power in our lives. We are no longer slaves to sin.”
Conclusion
I believe that knowing if we are vulnerable with our Heavenly Father helps us in many ways and two of the ways it helps with is realising where we have put God in our lives and being free from the control of sin, therefore allowing us to put our focus on having a relationship with God.
Now, how do we begin to have a relationship with God through Christ:
- Invite God to be our friend
- Transparency & vulnerability with Him
- Reading His written Word to understand His character
Whether we are transparent & vulnerable to Him determines the position He holds in our lives. In retrospect, can He see me? Or am I presenting an all together Christian version of myself to Him?
P.S. Always remember that nothing supersedes reading God’s Word.
What part of this message have you found to be helpful to you?