Ritual or relationship

I have to say, right up front, that I am teasing a few of you here, but there is a very serious point to be made as well. So read on with your tongue firmly implanted in your cheek.

A good friend of mine once said this “We must be replacing ritual with relationship. We must be redeveloping our relationships with God, Jesus, and Holy Spirit” (that’s from @SoulSupply on Twitter) I had to think about this. I mean, after all, the author is a trusted theologian and I’m an untrained pensioner with no theology at all other than that which I have gained in ministry listening to those who really do know better than me.

OK, I know my friend is a colonial type from Australia, but he does have credentials that I could never even aspire to. Same with the other colonies – like those over the pond in the America’s. There are, in these places, those far better qualified than I am who could comment far more eruditely and theologically soundly than I could ever do.

OK – so what have the former British Colonies have to do with my message here. Well, they were all founded on relationships. There were family, friends, acquaintances, work colleagues, and enemies. All had some sort of relationship with each other. Now if we require the balance of relationships with people to be right in order to grow, how much more do we need our relationship with God to be right in order to grow spiritually?

Yet what did we do? In our great and defining wisdom, we set up certain rituals and totally ignored the relationship. As long as we followed the ritual, God was bound to be pleased with us – wasn’t He? Just so long as we prayed the right sort of prayer at the right moment, God would be OK with that wouldn’t He?

Well – in a word – NO! That is not what God wanted then, and neither is it what He wants with us today either. He never wanted it in the days of the Pilgrim Fathers or Captain Cook, and He doesn’t want it today in the days of the second coming and end-times revival. But we have grown so set in our ways that we don’t even think about our relationship with God. We think only of fulfilling the ritual. Each Sunday, every Sunday, we have the hymn/prayer sandwiches. Where is the spontaneity? There is no spontaneity because it is all ritual and no relationship. Did we learn nothing from Wales and Azusa Street?

God the Father, believe it or not, wants nothing more than a personal relationship with us. A relationship that is as close and personal as any we have with family or friends. That He knows us is one thing – that we can know Him is a wonderful bonus. He really does care about the smallest detail of our everyday lives. He wants to build a relationship with us and He cares not one jot for the rituals we sometimes assume will please Him. He wants us to have a spontaneous and loving relationship with Him. To laugh with us and maybe at us – to offer comfort when we cry – to help with and confirm all those difficult decisions – in short, to be our best and most intimate friend for all time. He loves us and wants us to learn how to love Him in return.

He wants a relationship with us and nothing else. Only then will we know and understand the joy of us knowing Him and He knowing us. Forget the rituals – concentrate on your relationship with Him and watch your faith and your joy grow.