“But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit - Titus 3:4-5

Friendship with God entails that we become intimately connected with God in order to experience His love. By now, you should understand the fact that performance mentality does not really help in creating a strong bond or intimate connection with God. By performance mentality, I mean activities such as spiritual observances. Somehow, I discovered that it is not about what you do, and how you do it, where it is done. It is all about knowing who God really is and believing that He truly loves us deeply. Jesus Christ shows clearly that intimate relationship with God is not all about observance to rules, rituals or even man made religion; these things are done only to impress people and cannot make us attain the knowledge of God. On this very issue, the Master never agreed with the Pharisees and the Sadducees. To know God better is to look at Jesus. Jesus says that if we have seen him, we have seen God. Therefore, there is no further revelation of God, except as revealed by Jesus Christ. Jesus presented God as gentle, kind, merciful and full of love.

Many of us were taught to fear God and to see Him as an angry or hard-to-please taskmaster. But Jesus tells us that God is someone entirely different! He assures us that when we pray we don’t have to be afraid of not being able to perfectly follow certain rules or rituals, but we can pray with a confidence that our Father in heaven loves us just as we are. The word of God is telling us today that God loves us despite our weaknesses, but often, we don’t live that way, even though the reality of God’s love surrounds us day by day. God’s love is steadfast and unchanging; God’s love comforts us; God’s love is revealed to us through Jesus Christ and God’s love is poured into us through the Holy Spirit. Today, take a few minutes to meditate on God’s love and ask the Lord to show how you can FEEL HIM and how to SHOW His love to others in your life.

Father in the name of Jesus Christ, I declare you are merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness. Lord, I shall abide in your steadfast love forever. Thank you father for the fulfillment of my dreams and aspiration. AMEN