Give Your Relationships to God: Pt. 3 — A ‘Time With God’ Audio Devotion

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Transcript

Good morning.

Let’s start this day by spending some time with God. You know, your life can be such a mess, and God still wants to spend time with you. You can have offended God in many ways. He still wants to spend time with you. He wants you to get to know Him. You say, well, how can you say that after all that I’ve done? I know God wouldn’t want to know me.

Don’t forget, he sent his only Son, into this world to live as a man and die on the cross specifically to make a way for you to be forgiven and you to come into a relationship with him. Of course, he wants you to take time with him and learn from him. Even if you’re a Christian who has offended God, it doesn’t mean that God doesn’t want to see you again.

Remember the story of the prodigal son. He wants you close. That’s why it’s so important each day to take time with God in His word and just learn from him.

And all this week we’re talking about giving your relationships to God.

That’s what God wants from you as His follower to give your relationships to Him. Give your relationship with your children to Him. Recognize God wants to use you to help shape them and to help them come to know Him personally and grow in that relationship. You need to give your relationship with your friends to God.

Don’t think you’ve got your own private Christian life, and then you have your relationship with your friends. Be a whole person.

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If you’re a Christian, that’s your identity. Don’t hide it. Be open about your relationship with God when you’re with your friends.

Today we want to look at the importance of giving your relationships with your workmates to God. I want to read a few verses out of Luke chapter 5 about a tax collector named Levi who became a follower of Jesus. Here’s what it says.

After this, Jesus went out and saw a tax collector named Levi sitting at the tax booth, and he said to him, Follow me. And leaving everything, he rose and followed him.

And Levi made Jesus a great feast in his house, and there was a large company of tax collectors and others reclining at table with them.

And the Pharisees in their scribes grumbled at Jesus’ disciples, saying, why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?

And Jesus answered them.

Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick.

I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance.

Well, this passage gives us such a great picture of Jesus’s attitude to people who are far from Him – right, sinners, and he says, these are the people I want to hang out with. The religious people say, no, you should just hang out with religious people. He says, well, that would be dumb. It’s the sick people who need a doctor, and I’m here to help them in their relationship with God.

There’s a great lesson there, but I want you to learn a lesson from Levi, who came into a relationship with Jesus and chose to follow Jesus and be trained by him.

And the first thing Levi did was have a big party at his house and invite all his workmates, right? You see what it said? There was a large company of tax collectors at the party. What is Levi? He’s a tax collector. So here’s all his workmates, and I want to suggest to you that as you go to work and you have your relationship with your workmates, God wants to use those relationships to introduce those people to him.

Don’t be one of those Christians who crams the Bible down people’s throats when they don’t want to hear it.

Be an ice cream salesman who has delicious ice cream for people to taste. Be the trailer for an awesome movie about what, what it means to know God.

Right? So that you’re out there, you’re not hiding your relationship with God, you’re talking about God’s activity in your life, how you’re learning, life lessons from scripture, what God’s teaching you through church on Sundays. Answered prayer in your life.

Let people see how great it is to know God, and then invite them to learn more about God with you.

Give your relationships with your workmates to God.

I’m John North.

To go deeper in your faith, visit AFCI.com.au.

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