How to strengthen your relationship with God.

 ‘How to strengthen your relationship with God’

Rev. Chris Nuttall

‘Draw near to God and He will draw near to you’.

It is such a simple instruction ‘Draw near to God and he will draw near to you’ taken from James 4:8, and yet we can find it so difficult an instruction that we can, if not careful, fall so far away from God, that it can be difficult to come back to him.  Not on his part, of course, he is always with us, but from our fragile human existence it is sometimes easier to fall away rather than fight to stay.

A strong relationship with God does require us to intentionally put effort into it.  It is just like any other relationship that you want to work.  I try and always ‘fall in love with my wife all over again,  everyday’ for our relationship to continue to prosper and this has been the case for the last 35 years that we have been together.  It can sometimes be very hard to do so.  She may have said or done something that has upset me and vice versa; not intentionally, but it can happen and can then affect how our relationship works and there are a few things that we should ensure we are doing for our relationship with God to be strengthened.

So how do we strengthen our relationship with God?

Firstly, we need to prioritise daily prayer.  Spending time talking with God builds intimacy in our relationship with him.  Remember we can talk to him about anything and everything and if we use the pattern of the Lord’s prayer to do this, we can ensure we have got the basics covered.

• ·       We pray for Gods will: ‘Your Kingdom come; your will be done’
• ·       We pray for worship: ‘Hallowed be thy name’
• ·       We pray for forgiveness: ‘Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us’.
• ·       We pray for Protection: ‘Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil’.
• ·       We pray for daily needs: ‘Give us this day our daily bread’

Then we can ask for strength and his protection as we make our way through this journey called life.

The second thing that we ought to do is to engage in bible study.  God speaks through his word, and we should be reading, discussing, mediating on all what it says.  Every part of it is important, even though I fully understand that some of it may seem a little bit boring.  We must take the boring with the exciting so that it balances all out.  The words in the bible have been specifically given to tell Gods story with regard to human kind (the Old Testament) and the story of his son, our Lord Jesus Christ and the sacrifice that was made for all of us; along with issues that affected the early church and what we can look forward to, as Christians, when he comes again (The New Testament).

Now, thirdly, and you may find that this is strange that I have put It in third place is to worship regularly.  The reason why this is in third place is simple; if you don’t have the foundation of the first two happening in your life, then worship is nothing.  The other thing about worship is that it is not just for Sundays.  Many people think that Vicars, Pastors, Priests or whatever the name you give your Christina minister, only work on a Sunday.  That’s when most people who come to church will see this person, standing at the front of the church guiding the worship and giving the message.  They do not see all the hard work that goes into preparing for a worship service (which can be multiplied depending on how many worship services you have each week), nor do they see the pastoral care that happens when looking after a ‘flock’.

The reason for mentioning this is that I often worship by myself when preparing for the services I am leading and often the music that I listen to is generally Christian in nature, although I do like rocking out to Shakin Stevens as well.

Whilst worship is great in a group, you can worship alone.  Listening to music, podcasts or even having Christian videos playing in the background whilst you do household chores, is all worship as long as you are extolling God and thanking him and praising him and singing to him and, and, and………….

The next thing that you ought to be doing, without any thought of reward or favour, is to be of service to others.  Jesus calls us to serve with acts of kindness and love that reflect his character.

Of course, we are not alone in this, and we should be surrounding ourselves with fellow believers as it is when we are in this community, we can draw encouragement and accountability which ultimately strengthens our faith.

But above all, we should be practicing obedience and trust by following God’s will even when this may seem difficult to our human condition.  It is so easy to say ‘God, I cannot do that’ when we should be saying ‘OK God.  You want me to do this, but I am afraid that I will fail, or I am scared to go into this place, so please help me overcome my fears for I know you are always with me’.

Remember what it says in Matthew 6:33. ‘Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness’ and you will not go wrong!

 Amen, and may the Lord our God, bless you always.