How have we perverted the purest relationship? Why do we treat God like a human? How has our idea of who God is prevented us from knowing who He really is?
John 15:23-27
23 He who hates Me hates My Father also. 24 If I had not done among them the works which no one else did, they would not have sin; but now they have both seen and hated Me and My Father as well. 25 But they have done this to fulfill the word that is written in their Law, ‘ They hated Me without a cause.’26 “When the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, that is the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, He will testify about Me, 27 and you will testify also, because you have been with Me from the beginning.
Hate is a strong word. Jesus uses it often to express the severity and definitiveness of our relationship with God. We cannot have half a relationship with God. We cannot just love Him enough to where it makes Him happy so He leaves us alone. We cannot manipulate God with our supposed love or obedience. God isn’t subjected to incantations. Yet, everyday we try to appease Him as if He needs to be appeased. We tend to see God as someone we have to keep happy because if not, then surely His wrath will rain upon us. We entertain God’s commands in fear. What we have done is perverted the purest relationship of all.
God is a god of love. He doesn’t just love us; He is love. Hate is a great word to explain how we treat Him when we are not in a loving relationship with God. It is not that He hates us, but instead we hate Him. We turn our backs on Him. We do what we think we should do to shut Him up and prevent some sort of condemnation. Our idea of God and our relationship with Him is all wrong. We have treated our relationship with God like our relationships with other people. If we truly began to understand and seek out the pure relationship God wants to have with us, then maybe our other relationships would follow suit. This is why “The Helper” is so important.
Our humanistic ways, our sinful self, cannot comprehend what this means. We cannot trust in the way God calls us to trust Him on our own. We waste so much time trying to treat God like a human we might as well not be trying at all. This is one of the areas that the Holy Spirit helps us with. The word used for Helper refers to an advocate, a counselor, as one who we have by our side during a legal issue. They know the law, they know the language, they understand your side, they sympathize with you, they instruct you on what you need to do and they consult the judge on your behalf. They fight for you when you feel the most helpless. The Holy Spirit is that for us, yet we constantly ignore what He says. How stupid are we? A stiff-necked people indeed!
I’m learning this week how hard I try to do things for God and how hard I try to be what He wants me to be. He wants me to be in relationship with Him. He wants to mold and form me. The potter doesn’t just throw a pile of clay on the wheel and say, “go ahead, become something I will enjoy.” The potter does the molding Himself. The potter has an intimate relationship with the pot as a result of creating it. So too God wants to have that relationship with us. Instead, we run off the potter’s wheel, splat on the floor, and tell Him that we can do it on our own. This is EXACTLY what the entire text of the bible talks about.
How are you hating God today?
