Relationship Is Key

 

 

Believers struggle with fear

Wondering if they will make it

And set store by their works

To become spiritually fit.

 

They concentrate on doing

As opposed to being

And so their works obscure

What they should be seeing.

 

That relationship is the key

Often falls by the way

And their Christianity becomes

A struggle each and every day.

 

My purpose for this poem

Is to highlight relationship,

Two types I will mention

So let’s get right down to it.

 

The first is: God is my Father

And I am His child,

A father and child relationship

In that I must abide.

 

 

My earthly father was great

He was the very best

But if compared to God

He would have failed every test.

 

For there is none to compare

With my Father, God

And He leads me by the hand

At home and abroad.

 

He won’t give me a serpent

If I ask Him for a fish

And a stone won’t be His offer

If bread was my wish.

 

He establishes relationship

He doesn’t leave it up to me,

It is God that first initiated

The concept of the family.

And so, I can start each prayer

With those two beautiful words,

“Our Father” at the beginning

As you have often heard.

 

Sometimes I do not know

What I really want to say

But “Our Father” acknowledges

That relationship everyday.

 

Note the special relationship

God has had with His Son,

That same type of relationship

He has offered to everyone.

 

A father and child relationship

Offered to you and me

And once we accept God’s offer

It’s ours for eternity.

 

Here is the second relationship

It’s the shepherd and his sheep,

Jesus is the loving shepherd

And God’s children are his sheep.

 

They have combined together

Their sheep to always protect

And any that come to them

They would never ever reject.

 

Such is this relationship

That every sheep has a name,

A name known only to the shepherd

On every sheep he has claimed.

 

The shepherd’s sheep are his

Not one of them he will lose

And having given his life for them

Not one will he refuse.

 

 

Are you a sheep of Jesus?

Are you a child of God?

Or are you a goat of the hireling?

Are you following after the Fraud?

 

The latter is a pseudo relationship

There is nothing in it for you,

The former, however, is key

“To be” will influence “to do”.

 

All the credit goes to God

All our merit is in Christ,

It’s Christ who gave his life for us

Relationship hangs on his sacrifice.

 

Stewart Russell © May 2019