Jeremiah 29:13

This week at REALife we discussed how there are common misconceptions that many people have about Christianity. So many people consider Christianity to be just a list of rules. Others consider Christianity to be a checklist of things to do... as though Christianity only involves going to church, reading your Bible and being a good person. While those things are at times included in Christianity, that is not what it's all about. Christianity is about pursuing a relationship with the God that deeply and passionately loves us. When we see God as a list of rules or Christianity as just a checklist of things to complete in a week we severely miss out on a truly amazing relationship that has the power to transform our lives. Christianity is a relationship to pursue... not an obligation to keep.

This past weekend at REALife I challenged the students to this understanding of pursuing a relationship with God. Our passage of scripture was Jeremiah 29:13, where God tells us "you will seek Me and find Me when you seek Me with all your heart." This verse tells us two very important things. First, God wants to be pursued by us. This verse is a relational declaration from God. He is calling us to seek Him. He is calling us to pursue a relationship with Him as we would a relationship with someone we truly love.

The second thing this verse tells us is that this relationship with God isn't always easy. But let me ask you a question; is any relationship easy? From my experience with relationships, if you don't put time and effort into it, it is going to be shallow at best, but most likely it will grow to be non-existent. We can expect nothing less from our relationship with God. If we're not pursuing Him and putting in the effort that relationship will die.

So I gave the students three ways to pursue this relationship with God: regularly practice a quiet time with God, engage in conversation about God with others, and continuously think about Him and His word. These are three ways that we can all grow to pursue God better in our lives. As we move forward with our year at REALife, these points will be ones that I encourage in the lives of our students, and I pray that you as parents will join in or continue on in this effort.

One way you can keep up-to-date on the topics we cover at REALife is by downloading our "Daily Dose of Awesome." This is a resource I create for students each week to help in their daily devotional life. It has daily readings that relate to the topic we cover at REALife, and is great for helping students relate what we are teaching to their daily lives. This resource is available to you to download on our website, so please click that link and check it out.

I know this could possibly be a new topic for some of you. Pursuing God as a relationship is different than what some of us might be used to. If this is a topic for which you would like more direction as it relates to your son, daughter or even yourself, please feel free to email me at rsmernoff@mecklenburg.org and we can discuss this further.