How to Develop a relationship with God
Accept Admit Ask Access
Accept Jesus Christ as your personal Lord & Savior, and Deny all forms of yourself to follow after Christ.
Admit & Confess you are a sinner. Knowing you are undeserving of the cross, born into sin, and if it were not for the blood of Christ, you would not be here. Humble Yourself.
Ask for Forgiveness, and you will be washed clean.
Access to God. By accepting Jesus Christ into your heart, you now have access to God. To build an authentic personal relationship with God and receive all that He has for you to receive.
a. Pray, Communicate, and Talk with God.
b. Praise & Worship.
c. Read Your Bible.
This week, we're discussing furthering, growing, and developing our relationship with God.
So, how do we build a relationship with God? Or maybe you accepted Jesus Christ into your heart months or years ago, but you feel stuck.
What do we do?
I have always described a relationship with God as any other relationship with a parent, sibling, spouse, or best friend. To build any relationship, you have to get to know the person. Conversating, spending time with them, getting to know them. And soon, the more you get to know them, the more the relationship beings to grow deeper; even so, you become like the person you're learning to understand. Except with God, it's a bit different. God knows every single detail about you. He created you in His image. God knows from the number of hairs on your head to the purpose of your life. He even knows details about you better than you. God already knows anything you can think of, inside and out, including your past, present, and future.
So to build that relationship with God, you have to open up yourself with prayer and communication. I used to think He didn't care about our feelings, but I soon learned that is far from the truth. When something is bothering us, whether in or out of our control, God wants nothing more than to open up our mouths in honesty. Sometimes, He wants to hear about your day. Granted, He already knows, but that's how you build that relationship. But sometimes in prayer, we should listen to the voice of God, as He shows us what to do and how to do it; which can be found in the next point.
Another way to grow closer to God is to read His word. Words that are so powerful, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing and edifying the soul and heart. Words that are wisdom and guidance in this life and within ourselves. God's word shows us how our daily lives are to be lived according to His will and not our own. In the words of my Dad, “God’s word is our offense and defense in this life.”
And finally, praise and worship, my favorite. I remember when I heard a pastor state in a sermon, "You become what you worship." As Christian, we are followers of Jesus Christ, to be the example of God's love so others can see and believe who God is. So in our praise and worship, we acknowledge the true and living God. As we go deeper, God will begin to clean us out of all sin, filth, iniquity, and wickedness in our hearts; anything that is not of Him within us. In the process of this change, God will fill us up with His love, joy, peace, goodness, patience, kindness, self-control, faith, righteousness, and all of who He is. As we are poured into, we will then pour out to others.
Further your relationship with God, get to know Him, and love Him with all your heart. Spending time with God will build your faith, which means you will be tested. Remember, though, NEVER ALLOW your circumstances to define who God is to you.
Some of us have strayed from God, including myself. We turned our backs, we ignored God, but as long as we have breath in our lungs, there is still a chance and opportunity to build that relationship. It's never too late.
We have busy lives, but you make time for what's important. If you have to, read a chapter a day, set a timer for 10, 15, 30 minutes to talk to God, but don't just talk; listen. Use your lunch break, traffic time, on your way to or from work, and before you go to bed to spend time with Him. God looks at the quality, not the quantity.
Today is the day of change. Build that relationship with God, so you can be and receive all of what God has for you today.
