Article by: Kenneth J. Ester
Your Personal Relationship with God
The most important thing any Christian can do once they are saved, is to learn how to work on their personal relationship with God. The moment you are Born Again, you become a priority target for the devil and his angels. The closer you are to God, the more prepared you will be to fend off their attacks.
Once we are born again, God has changed our spirit to desire Him. If we fall back into the world of sin, we become miserable. The closer we get to God, the happier our spirit is.
But how does one get close to God?
Your relationship with God works much the same way as it does with any other relationship. For any relationship between a man and woman to be successful, there are 5 aspects that must be tended to. Getting to know each other better, love, communication, trust & forgiveness.
Getting to Know Each Other Better
God already knows everything about you. He knows you a thousand times better than you know yourself. He knows how many hairs you have on your head. What must be done yet is for you to get to know God better. How do you do it? By reading and studying His Word.
Too many Christians today only know God through what their pastors teach them. Most Christians do not read, much less study the bible for themselves. That is like a guy getting to know a woman through a friend and never actually talking with the woman. How well can he possibly get to know her if he doesn't have his personal time with her? How well can you truly get to know God if you never spend your personal time just reading and studying His Word to get to know Him?
Love
How often men in this world will tell their wives that they love them, then turn around and ignore them. Or worse, they may abuse them. Is that real love? You can tell God you love Him all you want, but it is your actions that matter the most. You need to show God you love Him. How do you show God you love Him? Well there is the typical Praising and Worshiping Him. That is a show of affection toward God. You know another very important way? By loving others. By treating others with love and doing good works. That is how you show God love. Jesus said, "what you do to the least of these, you do unto me."
Communication
Every relationship needs it. If you do not communicate with each other, your relationship will fade. You communicate with God through prayer. Not just the prayer where you pray in church, but as a large part of your daily routine. Pray the first thing in the morning before you get up from bed. Pray each night when you go to bed. Pray now and then throughout the day. When you really get right with God, you can learn to be in a constant communication with Him. He is always there in your mind and you keep praying through the day.
Forgiveness
God will never need to ask you for forgiveness. He will never do you wrong. If there is ever a need for forgiveness, it will always be you who needs to ask God for forgiveness. I cannot express how important this one is. We are human. We will make mistakes. We will sin. Many of us will sin on a daily basis. We can sin and not even realize it because sin isn't just breaking His commandments. Sin is doing anything that misses the mark.
Every single time you pray, you should ask God to forgive you for any sins you may have committed against Him. Every time we sin, it becomes a stumbling block between us and God. Sin separates man from God in his personal relationship with God. When we do not ask God to forgive us for it, that sin will stay a stumbling block and every time we sin it will build up between us and God until we no longer hear God's voice calling us. The worse the wall of sin gets, the further we fall from God until we are pulled completely away and into the world of sin. That is a miserable place for anyone who is born again. So it is so important that we pray often and always ask God to forgive us for our sins. Keep the way clean between us and God so there is nothing to hinder our relationship from growing.
Trust
With God, this is called "Faith". How can you say you trust God if you have no faith that He will be there for you? Faith is by far the hardest of these to build on. It is where the devil likes to attack us the most. It is the most important of these things because it is what your salvation depends on. For we are saved by grace, through faith!
How do you build up your faith? By following all the other aspects of your relationship with God. The more you do the other things, the more your faith will grow stronger.
Those five aspects of a relationship are not suggestions on how to make your relationship better. All five of them are absolute musts! If you ignore any one of these things, your relationship with God will suffer because of it. The more your relationship suffers, the easier it is for the devil to find a crack in your armor to work at. Tend to all five of those things on a daily basis, and your relationship with God will grow.
Once we are born again, God has changed our spirit to desire Him. If we fall back into the world of sin, we become miserable. The closer we get to God, the happier our spirit is.
But how does one get close to God?
Your relationship with God works much the same way as it does with any other relationship. For any relationship between a man and woman to be successful, there are 5 aspects that must be tended to. Getting to know each other better, love, communication, trust & forgiveness.
Getting to Know Each Other Better
God already knows everything about you. He knows you a thousand times better than you know yourself. He knows how many hairs you have on your head. What must be done yet is for you to get to know God better. How do you do it? By reading and studying His Word.
Too many Christians today only know God through what their pastors teach them. Most Christians do not read, much less study the bible for themselves. That is like a guy getting to know a woman through a friend and never actually talking with the woman. How well can he possibly get to know her if he doesn't have his personal time with her? How well can you truly get to know God if you never spend your personal time just reading and studying His Word to get to know Him?
Love
How often men in this world will tell their wives that they love them, then turn around and ignore them. Or worse, they may abuse them. Is that real love? You can tell God you love Him all you want, but it is your actions that matter the most. You need to show God you love Him. How do you show God you love Him? Well there is the typical Praising and Worshiping Him. That is a show of affection toward God. You know another very important way? By loving others. By treating others with love and doing good works. That is how you show God love. Jesus said, "what you do to the least of these, you do unto me."
Communication
Every relationship needs it. If you do not communicate with each other, your relationship will fade. You communicate with God through prayer. Not just the prayer where you pray in church, but as a large part of your daily routine. Pray the first thing in the morning before you get up from bed. Pray each night when you go to bed. Pray now and then throughout the day. When you really get right with God, you can learn to be in a constant communication with Him. He is always there in your mind and you keep praying through the day.
Forgiveness
God will never need to ask you for forgiveness. He will never do you wrong. If there is ever a need for forgiveness, it will always be you who needs to ask God for forgiveness. I cannot express how important this one is. We are human. We will make mistakes. We will sin. Many of us will sin on a daily basis. We can sin and not even realize it because sin isn't just breaking His commandments. Sin is doing anything that misses the mark.
Every single time you pray, you should ask God to forgive you for any sins you may have committed against Him. Every time we sin, it becomes a stumbling block between us and God. Sin separates man from God in his personal relationship with God. When we do not ask God to forgive us for it, that sin will stay a stumbling block and every time we sin it will build up between us and God until we no longer hear God's voice calling us. The worse the wall of sin gets, the further we fall from God until we are pulled completely away and into the world of sin. That is a miserable place for anyone who is born again. So it is so important that we pray often and always ask God to forgive us for our sins. Keep the way clean between us and God so there is nothing to hinder our relationship from growing.
Trust
With God, this is called "Faith". How can you say you trust God if you have no faith that He will be there for you? Faith is by far the hardest of these to build on. It is where the devil likes to attack us the most. It is the most important of these things because it is what your salvation depends on. For we are saved by grace, through faith!
How do you build up your faith? By following all the other aspects of your relationship with God. The more you do the other things, the more your faith will grow stronger.
Those five aspects of a relationship are not suggestions on how to make your relationship better. All five of them are absolute musts! If you ignore any one of these things, your relationship with God will suffer because of it. The more your relationship suffers, the easier it is for the devil to find a crack in your armor to work at. Tend to all five of those things on a daily basis, and your relationship with God will grow.
