YOUR RELATIONSHIP WITH GOD

PART 5:

Have you ever noticed that when relationships are right, great things can happen? I've

even heard it said more than once that who you know is more important than what

you know. The all-important relationship; it can either make you or break you, because it

is often true that if you have the right connections, certain people can facilitate your way

on the upward path of success. People can open doors of opportunity or remove obstacles

blocking your way.

Our relationship with God works in much the same way. The Bible tells us that life in this

world and the world to come is all about having a growing relationship with almighty

God. We are not talking here about a relationship of convenience or superficiality; God

wants an intimate relationship with us! Jesus Christ came into the world to give us that

relationship with God, and our decision to accept salvation through Christ has major

implications for not only eternity, but for the time we have remaining in this world.

Being a Converterlator is all about having a right relationship with Jesus Christ and

having his Word and life personally operating in your life (see appendix B on page 139).

This is a tremendously exciting place to be! When we have a growing relationship with

God, we experience his favor and blessing. And if we have the favor and blessing of God,

what else could we ever need? To have his presence and the truth of his Word operating

in our lives through Christ living his life in us truely makes us a different people.

Moses modeled this principle for us. The living presence of God in his life was

paramount. In fact he did not want to proceed with the tasks God had for him without

having God's very presence in his life.

"And he said to him, 'If your presence

will not go with me, do not bring us up

from here'" (Exodus 33:15, ESV).

This kind of dependence on God is not

possible without knowing God and

understanding how he thinks. This

means we must not only begin a

relationship with him, but go on to

develop an intimate relationship with him in order to truly experience his presence in our

lives. Moses realized that if he ever hoped to find favor in God's sight, he needed to

know God in a deeper way when he said, "Now therefore, if I have found favor in your

sight, please show me now your ways, that I may know you in order to find favor in your

sight

GOD AT WORK

Each one of us wants to experience God in a powerful way. The prophet Isaiah wrote,

"That they may see and know, may consider and understand together, that the hand of the

Lord has done this, the Holy One of Israel has created it" (Isaiah 41:20, ESV). As we live

each day in relationship with God, we see and understand the "God things" that occur in

our lives.This is not to say that life will be easy. There will be hard times, but God will be there

with us. In my first book, KingdomNomics, I recounted how I experienced the Lord

lifting a spirit of oppression from me. I have also experienced his presence as I lived

through some very difficult situations. He does work in our circumstances.

The Bible gives us a wonderful summary about how important our relationship with God

is for our time in this world, and how to achieve it: "Now acquaint yourself with Him,

and be at peace; thereby good will come to you. Receive, please, instruction from His

mouth, and lay up His words in your heart" (Job 22:21–22, NKJV, emphasis added). The

International Standard Version of the Bible actually words verse 21 this way, "Get to

know God, and you'll be at peace with him, and then prosperity will come to you."

Acquainting ourselves with God, or "getting to know him," is the key. The avenues for

bringing this about are receiving instruction from his mouth and storing up his Word in

our hearts. By discovering the benefits of a living and vital relationship with God through

Christ, our value system develops, and we discover the road map for our life. We

discover that our relationship with God is more valuable than anything else. Our

relationship with God is so important that gold and silver from a value standpoint

compared are like the dust of the ground, "Then you will lay your gold in the dust, and

the gold of Ophir among the stones of the brook" (Job 22:24, NKJV). Gold and silver

represent the world system's epitome for the ultimate "store of value." In comparison to a

living and vital relationship with almighty God they are the equivalent of dust. We must

be in God's Word on a regular basis to learn more about him!

Gold and silver are false saviors. Worldly wealth of

any kind is a false savior. Only a relationship with

God through Christ can deliver. The wise person of

today will acquaint himself with God, and become a

Converterlator, living to convert the perishable into

the imperishable, holding on to values that will echo

into eternity. In this case, it really is who you know that counts.