1 JOHN 4:13-15

Many Christians want to hedge their bets with God. Because their experience with God is largely based on salvation rather than restoration, they rarely factor in relationship as part of their goal. But the Bible taught us that our relationship with God aims to restore a connection that was lost. God doesn’t save us simply because we were in need. He saves us because we are his. He loved us and so he is invested in us. For those who don’t understand this, they can be confused by a new sense of obligation and conviction. They thought their deal with God is transactional. But it never was. This sensation is evidence that God is relational, as is our salvation. We should see it as confirmation that he wasn’t saving us out of benevolence but love. Our relationship with God returns to a symbiotic one. By his acceptance of us, we now live in him and him in us. This is the foundation of Christian fellowship. By extension, it is not transactional. Instead it is relational. The feelings that are subsequently activated that convict us and weigh upon us to do right by each other and God, they are the voice of God’s Spirit, which testify to this fact. Many believers reject this as the Bible, or the church meddling in their lives. Hey do so at the cost of the character of God in their growth. They never grow in their love because they never understood Gods intent was not salvation, but relationship. Salvation was merely the necessary outworking of relationship with a finite and sinful creature. When we refuse to live, we do not understand either. We can expect that when we keep love transactional, love will never grow. We must love each other because of God’s love for us.