What Does God Get Out Of This?

I was reading in my Bible this morning and I came across a phrase that jumped out at me. It probably didn't help that it was mentioned several times in just a few Scriptures in the book of Deuteronomy where I was reading either, but regardless of how or why it did jump out at me. The phrase was "...the Lord your God".

Moses was instructing the Children of Israel with the second giving of the law of God in the context of what I was reading this morning, when he used this phrase. What jumped out at me was the thought of how God is telling us here that He wants to be a personal God. He isn't Someone way off in Heaven that we occasionally talk to, you know just during the festivals and passover and stuff.

If you look back at Adam and Eve, (the blueprint for what God designed man & woman to be) what you will find is that God wanted someone that He could have a relationship with. He did not create Adam and Eve to be cringing servants, or puppets on a string, He created them so that He could have someone to enjoy and be friends with. He made man in His image because He wanted to have a family.

All throughout the Bible you see time and again God desiring relationships. It is at the core of Who He is. My Pastor says all the time that when everything is said and done, once everything has come to pass that God has set in motion, the thing that He gets out of it is you and me. We are at the heart of God, not what we do, or how much we accomplish, it's us. God wants us, plain and simple. Wow! I don't know about you, but that makes me pause and re-think my life.

Think about it for a minute, the God of the universe who created everything that we see wants to have a relationship with you, not a boss/employee or a master/servant relationship, but a friendship where the exchange of ideas is welcomed, where He shares His deepest and most intimate thoughts with you and hopes that you will do the same with Him. A relationship that He knows could be thrown away by us in the blink of an eye. Yet He is willing to give us the freedom to reject Him to prove just how much He actually loves us.

This is just astounding to me that God would love me that much, on a personal level. Where He is the Lord "MY" God. Wow, what an awesome thing. Get 'em up folks, let's go out and whip something for the Kingdom today!