Piper Curda

Dr. Chase
CORE 101-5
18 October 2016

The Gospel of Grace as a Relationship

In this day and age, relationships—especially those amongst the millennial generation—
are tough to define. It has become increasingly popular to leave a relationship between two
people undefined and simply refer to it as ‘talking’ or ‘just dating’ so as not to put a label on
things or, rather, to leave an easy out with minimal repercussions. Dating multiple people at once
is a seemingly acceptable activity, even promoted by television shows like The
Bachelor/Bachelorette in which a man or woman dates 25 people at the same time. People being
cheated on isn’t rare and has almost become commonplace. Relationships are a tricky game and
often it’s hard to tell where you stand in one, even in a relationship with a friend or a family
member. I can’t say I know much more about relationships than the average person. However,
one thing I know for sure is that a relationship with Jesus is nothing like the relationships we
confuse ourselves with nowadays. In a relationship with Jesus, you never question where you
stand. In a relationship with Jesus, you don’t have to wonder if you’ll ever be left feeling
abandoned or heartbroken. In a relationship with Jesus, you will never have to be confused about
His feelings towards you. In a relationship with Jesus, you experience his unconditional love and
excessive grace.
One of my least favorite things is when I talk to people about Jesus or Christianity and
their response is, “so you’re pretty religious, huh?” I hate that word—religious. It’s not a bad
word and doesn’t really have a negative denotation, but it’s the connotation of the word that
pains me. Recently, the image that has typically accompanied the adjective ‘religious’ in
people’s minds is that of a Bible-thumping, old, white person with a fiery hatred for anything
that does not align with his or her beliefs. While I won’t deny that there are people in this world
that may fit that description, it has given people all the wrong ideas of God and what He has to
offer us. I prefer to reject the description of Christianity as a religion and tend to favor thinking
of it as a relationship.
If I had to use three words to summarize a relationship with God, it would be this: God
loves us. That’s pretty much it. A relationship with Jesus has very little to do with us, and that is
because we have no say in whether or not God loves us. 1 John 4:19 says, “We love Him,
because He first loved us” (King James Version). A typical response to this might be “yeah, but
if God knows everything, that means He knows all the terrible things I’ve done and there’s no
way anyone could love someone who has done all those things,” but that’s the cool thing about
God. He does know all the awful things you might have done, but he loves you anyway. A
common fear in human relationships is worrying that if you do something wrong, that person
will abandon you, but that’s not the case with God. The Cape Town Commitment refers to the
love of God as “covenantally faithful, committed, self-giving, sacrificial, strong, and holy,” and
goes on to describe God as love saying that, “love permeates God’s whole being and all his
actions, his justice as well as his compassion. God’s love extends over all his creation” (9). This
means that God’s love is not dependent on how closely you live your life to the Bible’s
specifications or how much money you give to charity or what you do wrong or what you do
right because He loves you no matter what you have or have not done and that love never ends.
 Another main trait of a relationship with Jesus is His faithfulness. I know at least three
people who have been cheated on in a previous relationship, and that went on to affect their
overall mood, self-esteem, and their future relationships. Someone who has been cheated on in
the past often worries if the same will happen to them in another relationship. That worry is
irrelevant in a relationship with Jesus. Romans 3 addresses this faithfulness in verses 3 and 4
saying, “just because they were unfaithful, does that mean God will be unfaithful? Of course not!
Even if everyone else is a liar, God is true” (New Living Translation). You might have
experienced loss of faith in people due to your previous relationships, but Jesus restores that faith
because his faithfulness is one that will never die. Deuteronomy 31:6 encompasses this idea of
God’s faithfulness by saying, “He will never leave you nor forsake you” (New International
Version).
We all make mistakes. Sometimes we make little mistakes like forgetting to clean your
room like your mom asked or accidentally spilling something on someone else’s clothes. Other
times we make big mistakes like breaking someone’s trust or betraying someone you were
supposed to be loyal to. These big mistakes can ruin or end relationships. It is inevitable that at
some point in your life you will make a big mistake. However, it is not guaranteed that those we
wrong will forgive us. Once again, this is not the case with God. Every single person on earth
does things that God does not like, but that never means he stops loving them. Our God is a God
of forgiveness. This is extremely convenient because we are all inherently sinful. We all sin—
that is a fact of life. Thankfully, so long as we ask for it, God grants forgiveness. Ephesians 1:7
explains that “In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, in
accordance with the riches of God’s grace” (New International Version). God sent His son Jesus
to earth to die on the cross. He didn’t just do that for fun. He did it to save all of us, and by doing
so, He forgave us for our sins and all of the sins we would inevitably commit. St. Augustine
describes his own experience with God’s grace and forgiveness in relation to his sins by saying
“By your sheer grace and mercy you melted my sins away like ice. To your grace also do I
ascribe whatever sins I did not commit…I acknowledge that you have forgiven me everything,
both the sins I willfully committed by following my own will, and those I avoided through your
guidance” (34). Augustine makes a great point by touching on a quality of God’s grace that is
often overlooked. When you accept Christ as your savior, you are not only absolving yourself of
your former sins, but saving yourself from future sins that you might have committed had you
not been saved.
Think of all the relationships you have or had in your life. There are good ones, I’m sure.
There are probably bad ones too. Ultimately, not one of those relationships comes close to the
kind of relationship you could have with Jesus. You may question the conditions of a
relationship with someone else, but you never have to with Jesus. You may question the
faithfulness of someone else in a relationship, but you never have to question God’s faithfulness.
You may fear that someone will not forgive you for your mistakes, but God always will. A
relationship with God is better than any earthly relationship you could possibly imagine. Though
this is not to say that earthly relationships aren’t important. N.T. Wright explains how our earthly
relationships play a part in our relationship with God. He writes, “One of the central elements of
the Christian story is the claim that the paradox of laughter and tears, woven as it is deep into the
hearts of all human experience, is woven also deep into the heart of God” (38). God cares about
us and, subsequently, about our relationships with others. In fact, the most important command
He gave us had to do with our relationships with one another. In John 13:34 He says, “Just as I
have loved you, you also are to love one another” (English Standard Version).
 Annotated Bibliography

Augustine. The Confessions. Translated by Maria Boulding, O.S.B., Vintage Spiritual Classics-
Random House, 1997.
Annotation: In this book, Saint Augustine speaks about his constant sinning. However, he also
talks about the constant forgiveness God blessed Him with. This contributed to my
statements about God’s constant and unrelenting forgiveness for our sins.

The Bible. 1 John 4:19. King James Version, 2012.

Annotation: This verse talks about the fact that we love God because He first loved us, not the
other way around. This contributes to the statements I made about God’s love for us.

The Bible. Deuteronomy 31:6. New International Version, Biblica, 1973.

Annotation: This verse touches on the fact that God will never leave us or forsake us. This helps
me make my point about God’s faithfulness. It further expresses the fact that He will
always remain with us no matter what.

The Bible. Ephesians 1:7. New International Version, Biblica, 1973.

Annotation: This verse describes the redemption we receive in Christ Jesus. It explicitly
mentions that our sins are forgiven through Him. This contributes to my points about
God’s forgiveness.

The Bible. John 13:34. English Standard Version, Crossway Bibles, 2001.
Annotation: This verse is about God’s command to love one another. It says we should love one
another. This contributes to my paper because it expresses the importance of human
relationships and how we should go about them.

The Bible. Romans 3:3-4. New Living Translation, Tyndale House Publishers, n.d.
Annotation: These verses address God’s faithfulness in the context of faithfulness in our
relationships with other humans. It states that even though others may be unfaithful does
not mean that God will be. This contributes to my comparisons between a relationship
with God and other relationships we experience.

The Third Lausanne Congress. The Cape Town Commitment: A Confession of Faith and a Call
to Action. Hendrickson Publishers, 2011.
Annotation: This book describes God’s love and the traits of His love in full. It helps me explain
God’s love and contributes to my statements on grace by further expanding on the quality
of His love.

Wright, N.T. Simply Christian. HarperCollins Publishers, 2006.

Annotation: In this book, Wright has a chapter about earthly relationships. Most of my paper
focuses on the relationship with God and why it can be so much better than earthly
relationships. However, Wright helps me make a point as to why earthly relationships are
not all bad.