A greater relationship!?!?!???

"So when Jesus had received the sour wine, He said, "It is finished!" And bowing His head, He gave up His spirit." John 19:30-31

In the recent months God has been giving me what I like to describe as word or sentence revelations. I will be going about my everyday life and all the sudden, I am hit with what Dane Cook would describe as a "tic-tac" size comment. It may be one word or a sentence that is uttered on the radio. That "tic-tac" sized comment then sits in my brain and will not dislodge itself. These experiences and thoughts I have been having have been great, and yet a major struggle in my life. Sitting around and wrestling with these thoughts has brought about some realizations of the person that I am. Again I say some good and some bad! Here is "tic-tac" that has really consumed me and been a great wrestling match for the person I am now and the person I long to become.

In the posted scripture verse, Christ had finally fulfilled what he had come to accomplish. He was the perfect sacrifice for all of mankind. He had a very real and literal experience in dying. The bible calls us to die to our self. This is no easy matter for most if not all people. What I have been wrestling with is the thought of myself being a Christian who is not fully proud to be just that, a Christian! Does my life reflect what those around me in the world believe I should be, or am I wholeheartedly seeking after my God? Christ was brutally killed for me!!! When He died, my sins were forgiven. Am I really so self-centered. Can I not try to at least display 1/1,000,000 of what Christ did for me?

I feel as though I have been unable, only because of my own sinful nature, to say "Hi, my name is Ryan, and my God is great and I want you to know Him!!!" I feel that this is due to many things. I believe that we as a nation we have been brought up to be self-absorbed, self-centered, hypocritical, and material individuals. Even as a Christian, I have fallen hook line and sinker for these ideals in my own life. I also feel as if I have not up to this point really, really had the aspiration to be something more for Christ! I have always wanted a relationship with God, but it has been on my terms and not His. I want my life to reflect my God and not the world. I want to be in a deep, personal, ever-loving relationship with my God. Here is where the good news comes in. My God has always wanted that relationship with me, even when I have turned away or been to busy to seek after Him.

I am at a point in my life that I desperately want to have this relationship with my Father. I want to seek him wholeheartedly and without hindrance. I want God to use me as a vessel for His works. I want my life to pour out what he is pouring into me. I want people to ask me what makes me who I am and for me to respond by sharing my beliefs and what God is to me!!! The crazy-scary part of this is that it is completely up to me to do this. God is eager and ready, I just have to take the steps to meet Him. He will not let me down, why should I not do the same for Him?