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[Silver Spoon]

What does it mean when Christians say they have a personal relationship with God or Jesus? Do you literally hear a voice in your head? Do you just talk to God and hope he hears you? How do you know he can hear you, and how do you know when/if he answers? Or am I taking this too literally and is it just another way of saying someone is a Christian?

[jimwalton]

The Bible speaks of Christianity as a matter of a love relationship, and not a religion at all. The terms that the New Testament uses are the terms of relationship, not of cultic obligations. It could be said that "religion" is people engaging in cultic behaviors to earn their way to God, but Christianity is God initiating contact with people because he wants to have a love relationship with them.

We see it all through the Bible. Even in Genesis 2 God wants a relationship with the people He has made. The terms "work it" and "care for it" in Gen. 2.15 are priestly terms, not agricultural ones. God wants a relationship with His people (the priests were the ones who met with God on behalf of the people and who cared for sacred space so that God could live there). Notice all the personal care all over Genesis 2 from God's initiative. And this plays all through the Bible. Enoch walked with God (Gn. 5.22). So did Noah (Gn. 6.9). God revealed himself to Abraham and established a covenant. Now this piece is important, because the idea of "covenant" goes through the whole Bible.

Dr. John Walton, in a book called "Covenant," writes: "God has a plan in history that he is sovereignly executing. The goal of that plan is for him to be in relationship with the people whom he has created. It would be difficult for people to enter into a relationship with a God whom they do not know. If his nature were concealed, obscured, or distorted, an honest relationship would be impossible. In order to clear the way for this relationship, then, God has undertaken as a primary objective a program of self-revelation. He wants people to know him. The mechanism that drives this program is the covenant, and the instrument is Israel. The purpose of the covenant is to reveal God."

When God tells Moses to build a tabernacle, it's so he can be in the midst of his people and have a relationship with them. So also with the Temple. When we get to Jesus, we find out that one of his names is Immanuel, meaning "God with us." He came to show that relationship is what God is interested in.

This theme plays all the way through to Revelation, where it says in Rev. 21.3 "Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God." It's all about relationship. God loves us and wants us to love him in return. In doing so, we can avoid a horrible fate that necessarily awaits anyone who rejects love and life. If you reject love and life, the only other choice is evil and death. God at all costs wants to spare us from that, so he came in the flesh and died in our place so that our lives could be redeemed (bought back from that which stole us away from him) and he could grant us access to fellowship with him.

Religion is definitely not what God had in mind. Isaiah 1.11-20 are pretty obvious. But if you look at the words and teachings of Jesus, he reserved his harshest words for the religious hypocrites. Jesus was very cool with sinners, but he had no indulgence for empty religious practices (Matthew 23 is a blazing diatribe against religion). But Jesus often spoke against religion, and behind many of his teachings and healings were symbolisms that he was also attacking religion.

Look at Philippians 3. Paul said, "I've done all this religious stuff, and I consider it worthless" (Phil. 3.4-6). But then he says "I want to know Christ...and be found in him. ... I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection" (Phil. 3.7-11).

A relationship with God is the whole idea that God is seeking a love relationship with me. He wants to forgive. He wants to "be friends" (John 15.15). In return he doesn't want sacrifices and religious ga-ga, he wants me to love him back (Deuteronomy 6.4). Read John 15.1-17, and notice all the relational talk.

Do I hear a voice? No, I never have. When I pray, I talk to God; when I read the Bible, that's his voice to me.