Did you know that God wants to be your friend?
Jesus experienced death on the cross so that you and I could have a deep intimate, personal relationship with Him!

It was never His plan to come and give us a list of rules to follow so that we could be acceptable to God.

For the most part, that is what religion is all about—following a set of rules and regulations. When we keep the rules, we feel good about ourselves, and when we fail to keep them, we feel bad about ourselves. The biggest problem with being religious is that it keeps you from enjoying life and your relationship with God.

Unlike religion, relationship is about fellowship, not what we do or don’t do. It’s about being in love with God and communicating with Him throughout the day, just like we would with a good friend.

Ephesians 3:12 says, …because of our faith in Him, we dare to have the boldness (courage and confidence) of free access (an unreserved approach to God with freedom and without fear). In other words, as a result of our faith in Jesus, we can enjoy an ongoing relationship with God that is part of our normal everyday life.

There is a big difference between practicing religion and experiencing a relationship with God. Below are a few things about what it means to have an intimate relationship with Him.

God's Expectations or Man's
“What does God expect of me?” Many people ask themselves that question, and the answer has a lot to do with how you view your relationship with God. Many people think God expects them to be good. But the Bible says that there is no one righteous, not even one. God knew that you and I were not capable of being good apart from Him. That’s why He sent Jesus—so we could become the righteousness of God in Christ.

The truth is, we need God’s grace to be good, because being good is not just about our behavior or following certain rules…it’s also about our motives. If we are in close fellowship with God, the natural result will be that we are motivated and empowered by our relationship with Him to do the things that He would like us to do.

Whether it’s helping others, reading the Word, praying or doing any other good thing, if our relationship with God is priority, then we’re going to be concerned with what He thinks. In other words, we will be motivated by wanting to please God and love people, not by our own need for acceptance or fear of what others may think.

Are You Enjoying Your Life?
Another sign that we are practicing religion instead of experiencing relationship is that we are not enjoying our life or our relationship with God. The high call of every believer is to enjoy God. If we don’t enjoy God, we won’t enjoy life because He is life. If you and I are just practicing religion, then everything seems to center around following rules and keeping laws.

The truth is, we can make a law out of almost anything! We can make a law out of exercise, cleaning house, prayer, Bible reading…you name it.  You can become so religious about cleaning your house that you can’t even relax and enjoy having friends over for a meal. By making such a big deal out of making sure everything is perfect that by the time the guests arrive, you are angry and exhausted and wish they would go home.

If we’re just practicing religion, even our relationship with God can become a burden. Instead of looking forward to being with Him, we feel like we have to spend time reading His Word, we have to pray, we have to go to church… and the list goes on. But when you and I are enjoying an intimate relationship with God, we see things differently. Spending time with Him becomes a privilege—we get to read the Bible, we get to pray, and we get to go to church!

Now, I’m not saying that we should never have any rules in our lives. Having rules is okay because they actually help us live a disciplined life. But having rules becomes a problem when we feel like we are unacceptable or not good enough when we fail to keep them. Jesus doesn’t want us to live under guilt and condemnation. He came to set us free.

Are You Experiencing Freedom?
I believe there’s a world full of people who are living under the bondage of religious rules and regulations who would love to experience friendship with God. Jesus paid a great price so we could be made the righteousness of God and brought into right relationship with Him. Second Corinthians 5:21 says, For our sake He made Christ [virtually] to be sin Who knew no sin, so that in and through Him we might become [endued with, viewed as being in, and examples of] the righteousness of God [what we ought to be, approved and acceptable and in right relationship with Him, by His goodness].

You and I should be encouraged to focus on our relationship with the Lord, not on things such as how many chapters of the Bible we read or praying the “right” number of hours. We were saved from our sins so we could know God and have fellowship with Him. God wants us to be relaxed in His presence and be ourselves in our relationship with Him. It is for freedom that Christ has set us free… (Galatians 5:1 NIV).

God wants to be our best friend— he want us to be free to relax and be ourselves and talk to him at any time about anything, no matter how we are feeling.

Choose Relationship
The choice is yours: You can either practice religion, striving to keep rules and regulations, or you can enjoy relationship, experiencing intimacy with God. The God of all creation wants to be your friend—to talk to you about everything, to share your secrets, your joys and your tears. I encourage you to seek Him for a personal revelation of His love so you can relax and enjoy a free and intimate relationship with Him— starting today!