Your ‘personal’ relationship with Jesus is more corporate than personal. Paul wrote to the church in Ephesus, “In [Jesus] the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit” (Eph. 2:21-22).
“Come, let us return to the LORD; for he has torn us, that he may heal us” ~Hosea 6:1 God is faithful. That is one of the prevailing themes in the Bible, one that is particularly demonstrated throughout the unfolding of Israel’s story in the Old Testament. God’s justice and mercy, discipline and deliverance, and even transcendence and imminence demonstrate His faithfulness.
What does it mean to find pleasure in God? We are not to seek pleasure in ourselves, or in the creation (Rom 1), so what are the pleasures of God? What do they look like? Are they really more pleasurable than the ones I tend to sinfully run to already?
“For I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God” (Exodus 20:5). As a child, I used to think God was mean. When we read the 10 Commandments in church Sunday mornings, I thought of God exacting revenge on mankind because that was what (in my mind) jealous men did: got angry and started destroying things. This past week I was given to see clearly that God is not a jealous destroyer (only?), but a Lover in relentless pursuit of His Bride.
Essentially, what Paul in talking about in verses 12-19 of the fifth chapter of Romans is the imputation of sin in all of humanity paralleled with the imputation of Christ’s righteousness to all who believe in Him. Adam, and the covenant head of mankind, sinned; this one transgression plunged the whole human race into a state of inherent sinfulness.