Christianity is first and foremost a relationship. It has never been a ‘religion’. And that, is something that people find hard to comprehend. Actually it would be far simpler if Christianity was a religion – then it couldn’t touch us.
I profoundly believe that people, for the most part, don’t understand (or want?) how Christianity can be a relationship because that makes it personal. And we all tend to really want God to be waaaay out there – to be revered by those who believe but not to be involved in our day-to-day living. I even believe that this was part of the problem with Satan – he wanted reverence, preferably obsequious, and when this wasn’t how God functioned then he went off the deep end.
When you view Christianity as a relationship then this places ‘requirements’ on us. Actually it places requirements on the relationship. However, God foresaw that and gave guidelines for how the relationship could function. And when He saw that we were having difficulty in developing this kind of relationship, He sent Jesus to provide us a model.
Yes, Jesus is our savior, our only way into relationship but He is far more than that, fantastic as it is. Jesus is also a model of what a relationship with the Father can be. I find it incredibly awesome (and I rarely use that word) that God was as interested in developing a relationship with us as He was in saving us. I still have trouble getting my head around that reality.
