Matthew 22:37-39 says "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and the most important commandment. The second most important commandment is like it: Love your neighbor as you love yourself." These two commands that Jesus gives are tied to our relationship to God. To love God with all of our being requires that you get to know him. And did you catch that part where it says 'is like it'? When we love others, it is like loving God. Just as Jesus said "I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me." Matthew 25:40.
Heaven is about relationship. John 17:3 says "And eternal life means to know you, the only true God, and to know Jesus Christ, whom you sent." (Good News). Eternal life means to know God. What an awesome thought. Recently my cousin and I were chatting about sharing the gospel with family and friends. She said something that struck me as revolutionary. The question that often stalls our conversations is 'who goes to heaven and who goes to hell?'. We don't have the right to judge another person's heart; that's God's place. Instead of stalling, this can be a great opportunity to talk about the relationship God wants to have with us. It's all about the crazy love of God for us, wanting to be in a deep intimate relationship with us. When we choose to accept God's unconditional love and what Jesus did on the cross to cover our sins, to make it possible for us to be in a deep intimate relationship with God; heaven is then a continuation of that intimate relationship. We can simily say, 'Why would someone want an intimate relationship with God after they die if they don't want one when they're alive?'
I've been reading in the Old Testement lately, which has made me aware of the words used to describe God; his names and his character and even his authority. Jesus clearly states which God you need to know to experience relationship and through whom you get it. He says that eternal life is to know the only true God and to know Jesus (John 17:3). In John 14:6-7 he says "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes tothe Father except through me. If you really knew me, you would know my Father as well." There is only one BIG G. and many little g's. There is only one Big G. who created the universe; and this is the only true God who sent Jesus his son to die for you.
Our relationship to God and to others grows in love and intimacy as we journey in our walk with Jesus. Yet we will not achieve the fullness of relationship and knowledge until that day. 1 Corinthians 13:12 puts it perfectly, "Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known."
Get your relationship straight with the only true God through Jesus Christ, and you will find that all your other relationships - flowing out of that - can be better, stronger, closer to how God planned it.
