Do you see God as a real person? Someone wanting to be with us and so much so that He creates opportunities to do so.

• Revelation 21:3
• Revelation 3:20

Jesus is knocking on your door. He wants to spend time with you. He is a real person who wants to have a meal with you. Have you ever had a meal that you were having so much fun and good conversation that you look up and BAM! it’s been several hours but it didn’t feel like it.

Jesus wants to have time with you that is not hurried. In the same way that you can go to In-n-Out or Whataburger and spend hours there with good friends, Jesus wishes to sit down with you and have a conversation.

Francis Chan shares a story where he mentions that he purchased a car that he thought he would have for the rest of his life. That same car he gave away a few years later to his son-in-law the day that his daughter got married. He asks, “Imagine if, at that moment (after seeing the beautiful ceremony of his beloved daughter), Justin (the son-in-law) looked at me and said ‘Man, thanks for the Toyota.””

That sounds ridiculous right? That’s how we treat God and Jesus sometimes. We think:

• Oh let me be obedient so that God will bless me
• I’ll accept Jesus so I don’t suffer in Hell
• If I just pray and focus on my relationship with God, He will make sure to provide and be with me.

While all of these things are true, God doesn’t want us to spend time with Him or have a relationship with Him purely for what He can give, or save us from. He wants us to love Him for Him, not what He can do. Imagine, God giving His only Son, and all you care about is that by being obedient and repenting you won’t be destroyed in hell!

“His nearness has to be our greatest treasure.” - Francis Chan, Beloved, Pg 89.

David says this:

• Psalm 27:4

Why does God call David “a man after His own heart?” Isn’t David the guy who killed a man in order to cover up the fact that he slept with that man’s wife? It’s because David knew that what he wanted wasn’t a kingdom, wasn’t a wife, wasn’t a legacy, it was to be in the house of the Lord and to gaze upon His beauty. This is why, when God sent Nathaniel to rebuke David, David immediately repented. David prayed day and night for God to save the baby born out of that sin, but when that baby died, David immediately got up and dressed and moved on. When Michal, David’s first wife who he had loved so much, ridiculed David for worshipping God David turned away from her. When David had a chance to kill Saul, he never touched him because David still respected the anointing that had been on Saul even if God had already turned away from Saul. Why was David called “a man after God’s own heart? It is because nothing mattered to David in comparison to his relationship with God.

Think about John the disciple, who calls himself “the beloved disciple.” Is it pride, or arrogance? No, if there was one thing that John knew it was that Jesus LOVED him. John calling himself the beloved disciple was his testimony. He understood and had faith that Christ loved him, not because John was particularly lovable but because he understood that God loved us first. This is how he’s able to come to the understanding that we see in one, if not the most, famous bible verses in Western theology: John 3:16.

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How many people have you seen lose their faith in God?

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How does this happen? How can one know about the love of God and how much He desires us and decide to turn away?

It is because they haven’t learned to Abide in God, to open the door that Jesus is knocking on and let Him in.