Relational God

From the beginning of Scriptures, we discover that God is a relational God. The Triune God exists in relationship--God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. What has made some churches and Christian life more difficult to live and share is that "we are more concerned with winning arguments and battles than with winning friends and losing the self in truces of truth" (Quoted in Sweet, 103). When this happens we turn people off instead of drawing them to Christ. Ordinary people and sinners drew closer to Jesus because they saw Him as a friend, not a prosecutor and judge. The difference between Jesus and the Pharisees is that the people found out that they could approach Jesus unhindered whiles they were forbidden to come closer to the Pharisees. In the Gospel of John chapter 1 when John and Andrew came to Jesus and realized or discerned that He was the Messiah, they went to call their brothers and fishing partners to come and see for themselves. "Philip discerns that Nathanael will be transformed, not by an argument, not even an idea, but by a personal encounter with God's self portrait in Jesus" (quoted in Sweet, 103). The Christian life is about building relationship with others and helping them to encounter Jesus in a personal way.