A personal relationship with God is the goal of every believer. If we accept the free gift of eternal life, we have the opportunity to forever have an intimate personal relationship with God. But what exactly is a personal relationship with God and how do we achieve it?
Let’s take a quick look at what the Bible tells us.
- We know that Jesus Christ, experienced an intimate relationship with God.
- We know that God created us to have an intimate relationship with Him.
- We know that through this intimate relationship we have access to the Holy Spirit.
- We know that a close relationship with God means that we can join Him in advancing His kingdom here on earth.
The question however is just how do we create a relationship with God? That question is exactly what this blog strives to answer!
Related Reading: How To Build Intimacy With God
How do you start a relationship with God?
Step 1: Realize There Is An Invitation
Often, we can get so caught up in focusing on our problems that we miss Christ Jesus’ invitation. Jesus gives each and every one of us an invitation to a personal relationship with Him. When we accept the invitation from our heavenly Father, he can then guide and direct us.
As we take Jesus at His word, we focus on His invitation (God’s power) rather than our problems. In this simple act we find rest in God’s love and can start to live a life that witnesses the miraculous miracles that only God can do!
This truth is demonstrated in John 4 when Jesus healed the official’s son. This story shows Jesus Christ in the Cana of Galilee with a royal official whose son lay sick at Capernaum. When this man heard that Jesus had arrived in Galilee from Judea, he went to him and begged him to come and heal his son, who was close to death. “Unless you people see signs and wonders,” Jesus told him, “you will never believe.” The royal official said, “Sir, come down before my child dies.” “Go,” Jesus replied, “your son will live.”
The man took Jesus at his word and departed. While he was still on the way, his servants told him that his boy was living. When he inquired as to the time when his son got better, they said to him, “Yesterday, at one in the afternoon, the fever left him.” Then the father realized that this was the exact time at which Jesus had said to him, “Your son will live.” So he and his whole household believed.
Let’s stop for a moment and look at the official. The official invited Jesus to his home twice. Both times, Jesus did not respond with a Yes, I will come.
He first responds, “Unless you people see signs and wonders, you will never believe.” After this, he tells the man that he is not coming with him but follows up with your son to will be healed.
How often do we want to believe in God or even have a personal relationship with Him? But, because He doesn’t show up how we want Him to or doesn’t perform the miracle we want, we feel angry and easily dismiss Him as not real or deny that He is a loving God who cares about us.
I encourage you to realize that God’s presence is with you, caring for and praying for you. I pray that anyone reading this realizes there is an invitation for everyone to have a personal relationship with God.
Step 2: Accept His Invitation
Let’s focus on a different miracle found in John’s gospel. Sometime later, Jesus went to Jerusalem for one of the Jewish festivals. Now, there is a pool in Jerusalem near the Sheep Gate. The Greek word for this place is Bethesda, and it is surrounded by five covered colonnades.
Here, many disabled people used to lie—the blind, the lame, the paralyzed. One who was there had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there and learned that he had been in this condition for a long time, he asked him, “Do you want to get well?” (John 5:1–6)
Note: If someone has been an invalid for thirty-eight years, they most likely have learned to cope and take on the identity of an invalid. If they are healed, their identity is going to change.
Some of us are afraid of being healed by God because we know how to cope with our affliction, but we do not know how to cope with the new challenges that will come if we are healed. Such was the man at the Pool of Bethesda.
Jesus knew this, so He asked the man, “Do you want to get well?” The invalid replied, “I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred. While I am trying to get in, someone else goes down ahead of me” (v. 7).
The man is explaining and complaining simultaneously, but he misses what is happening. The only true God is standing before him, asking if he wants to get well. And all this man can do is complain about not getting into the pool.
He doesn’t understand God is standing right before him. Just like this man, sadly, not everyone can focus on the invitation to have an intimate personal relationship with God; instead, we focus on our problems.
Are your problems, your dysfunction, your trauma, your shame keeping you trapped in your own cycle of dysfunction? Are you unable to accept a personal relationship with God because you fear God’s love or feel that you don’t deserve His love? Know that nothing can be farther from the truth:
Romans 8:38-39, NIV: And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow—not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love. No power in the sky above or in the earth below—indeed, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Regardless of your reason for not having a personal relationship with god, today is the day to accept His invitation.
How to build relationship with God?
Step 1: Start Trusting His Word
Let’s examine the royal official’s reply to Jesus. The royal official said, “Sir, come down before my child dies.” This man’s statement indicates that he knew Jesus was Lord. He had heard about Jesus’s life and knew that when Jesus laid hands on the sick, they recovered. He knew that Jesus trained His disciples to lay hands on the sick.
Perhaps he had heard about the woman with the issue of blood who was healed when she touched the edge of Jesus’ cloak (Luke 8:43–48). Or perhaps he heard about how Jesus healed Peter’s mother-in-law with a touch (Matt. 8:14–15).
There is an emphasis in Scripture on the glory and the power of God moving from Jesus’ body to those who touch Him or whom He touches. This royal official had an understanding of the significance and importance of Jesus laying His hands on people.
He understood the power that comes from Jesus’s touch. For this reason, he was anxious for Jesus to come to his house and lay hands on his dying son. In the short description of his dialogue with Jesus, he asks Jesus twice to come to his house (vv. 47, 49).
Watch what Jesus said in response to this Father. “Jesus replied, ‘You may go. Your son will live.’ The man took Jesus at his word and departed.”
There it is: a key to a personal relationship with God—the man took Jesus at His word, and because he took Jesus at His word, his son was healed.
If you read this in context, the man asked Jesus to come to his house more than once, and Jesus responded, “Go.” Therefore, this father just believed what Jesus said and went home. He reached out and grabbed hold of God’s word.
His obedience indicated that he believed Jesus’ words, “You may go. Your son will live.” The royal official’s act of obedience indicated that he knew Christ and believed that he was the true God. In this simple act, his son was healed!
The best way to build a personal relationship with God is to spend time reading the Bible to recognize God’s voice. In doing so, you will start to understand that it’s God’s voice (and not your conscience) speaking to you:
John 10:27-28, NIV My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one will snatch them out of my hand.
But, most importantly, you will be able to listen and obey when God speaks because you trust that it’s Him.
Step 2: Start Stepping Out In Faith
We see the royal official didn’t ask Jesus Christ to come to his house again after Christ said your son is healed. The royal official turned and walked away, believing that his son would be healed. We can all experience intimacy with God when we hear God’s word and accept it as truth.
Several years ago, Joshua told me that there was healing in my hands. Since then, others have said similar things. There have been moments where God has asked me to do different things that involve healing people.
Whenever I feel like God asks me to pray for healing, I confess I am scared to do it. I think, God, what if it doesn’t work? Is this You, or is it just me? It is so much easier to follow the leadings of the Lord when we hear an audible voice or have an open vision rather than a split-second idea or a fleeting mental picture.
All I usually have is a split-second impression that I should pray for XYZ. I am here to tell you that it takes more faith to declare a fleeting impression than it does the audible voice of God or a vision from God.
I think God sometimes speaks to us in fleeting impressions because He is pleased by our faith when we respond in obedience. The majority of times I step out in faith, people receive healing.
I felt God’s nudge to step out in faith a few months ago. I had this impression that I felt God said, My presence is in your worship, and so is My power to heal; pray for her healing, speak life over her! For context, the woman I decided to pray has cancer; we did not have a relationship before that, and no, she was not miraculously healed.
The result of me stepping out in faith has been a relationship with this woman. It turns out that some of her closest friends have abandoned her, and God used my stepping out in faith to forge a relationship that has benefited and encouraged the both of us!
This realization has helped me step out and test whether or not I am hearing from God, which in turn has created new levels of faith in me to “go for it.” When I do and experience a breakthrough, I write it down as a memorial stone, a testament to God’s faithfulness. When I accurately hear from God and act on what I hear, the fruit of my actions causes my faith to rise, and my relationship with God grows.
Has God asked you to step out in faith lately? Serving God is complex because we never know what today will look like or if God will bless our endeavors. But we know that to have a close relationship with God, we must step out in faith. After all the Lord has done for us, though, I think we can muster up, at worst case, “looking bad” and, at best case, seeing a miracle.
Step 3: Pick Up Our Mats
Let’s return to the Pool of Bethesda. The crippled man and Jesus were beside the pool. The man missed the invitation and focused on the problem as he complained to Jesus about why he had not been healed. “Then Jesus said to him, ‘Get up! Pick up your mat and walk. At once, the man was cured; he picked up his mat and walked” (John 5:8–9).
Jesus was implying something here. The first thing He told the man to do was to get up. Then, He told him to pick up his mat, and Jesus told him to walk. And the man got up, and he walked. I wonder just how his healing unfolded.
Did he all of a sudden begin to feel power? Was he healed after feeling power, which gave him the courage to get up and walk? The Bible does not tell us, but there are implications.
The Bible does tell us that Jesus said, “Get up, pick up your mat, and walk.” Of course, I cannot prove it, but I think that the man probably didn’t feel anything at that point because that is what I see happens most of the time when I witness healing.
I think he felt no strength in his legs—that nothing happened until he obeyed the first command to get up and walk. I think it was after that first command when he attempted to get up, that he began to experience his healing.
He was most likely weak at that point. He might have been questioning all this because he was paralyzed, but when he attempted to get up, he could move, pick up his mat, and walk.
I am reading my own interpretation of the Bible, but let’s look at the scripture again.
Jesus says three things: get up, pick up your mat, and walk. And then the scripture says, “At once the man was cured; he picked up his mat and walked.”
I believe the healing came when he obeyed and attempted to get up. I believe that faith acted upon in obedience brings the miraculous. But if this wasn’t the case with the man and his mat, if the healing came before he obeyed, it is the only one of the miracle signs of Jesus where an act of obedience was not required. The other instances of the miraculous in John all followed acts of obedience.
When you want a more intimate relationship with God or you want to draw closer to God, there is nothing better than being obedient to what he says. The difference between those with a close relationship with God and those with a deeply intimate, strong personal relationship with God is simply how long it takes the latter to obey God’s command. When we love God, we act
Step 4: Accept That Faith ‘Feels’ Risky
Remember, faith is spelled R-I-S-K. If you play it safe, you may avoid embarrassment, but you won’t walk on water. Think about when Jesus bid Peter to come to Him by walking on the water.
When Jesus said, “Come,” Peter heard the invitation and acted on it in faith. Now, what do you think happened when Peter stuck his foot over the side of the boat and into the water? I don’t imagine that the water felt like it was a solid surface.
I think that when Peter put his foot over the side of the boat, it just went into the water. I believe the miracle did not happen until Peter put both feet into the water and began walking.
We will not see the miracle when we still have one foot in the boat because we are not exercising our faith until we are 100 percent committed to the thing that Jesus tells us to do— when we know there is no turning back.
It wasn’t until Peter let go of his faith and began thinking about the reality of his situation that he almost drowned (Matt. 14:30).
I read a sermon on this once. The sermon’s point was that if we take risks based on faith, risks that are outside of the norm of the church, we are bound to fail because we do not have the church behind us. We are supposed to be good Christians; you know: attend church, focus on our Bible studies, and commit to our daily prayer and quiet time; after all, isn’t this what God loves? While I think the pillars of our faith are important, I don’t think we should focus all our time and energy inside the church.
I believe that if we are only surrounded by people who know us, talk like us, and look like us, we are not taking risks on non-believers, and more importantly, we aren’t putting ourselves in positions where we need a walk-on-water miracle.
It is when we are willing to take risks on people—based on faith and in obedience to God’s instructions—that His glory is released in the miraculous. Besides Jesus, Peter is the only person in the Bible to have walked on water. Now, that is miraculous!
And I believe he thought about that until the day he died. Peter and the other disciples were imperfect, and we know that because the Bible portrays them that way—especially in John’s gospel, which gives details not found in the other gospels.
They argued about things like who would sit on the right and the left of Jesus when He came into His kingdom (Mark 10:35–45), and there was the time John and Peter raced each other to the tomb (John 20:4). And we know that it was John who got to lay his head on Jesus’ breast at the Lord’s Supper (John 13:25).
We can see the humanity of these men, and it helps us to grasp the significance of Peter’s faith when he walked on the water. These were not super “holy” men. They were ordinary people, just like you and me.
I appreciate that the Bible does not whitewash who these men were. I have come to know the meaning of risk after being in ministry for most of my adult life.
Conclusion On developing a close relationship with God
In pursuing a relationship with God, we must understand its connection to obedience. In John 14:15 Jesus Christ say, “If you love me, keep my commands.” While are not saved by obedience, we do have greater intimacy with God when we obey Him.
If we start violating God’s grace by saying yes to the sinful things we want to do and no to things God is leading us to do but we don’t want to do, it will affect our relationship with God and our revelation. Guilt hinders a strong relationship with God.
In John 14:16–17 Christ shows us the connection between obedience and receiving the Holy Spirit. “I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever—the Spirit of truth.”
Understand, this obedience is not possible apart from the renewing and regenerating work of the Spirit in us. Then, in verses 21 and 23, we see obedience tied to intimacy with God and intimacy to the revelation of Christ. “Whoever has my commands and keeps them is the one who loves me. The one who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love them and show myself to them.” . . . Jesus replied, “Anyone who loves me will obey my teaching. My Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them.”
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