It’s All About Relationship With Him

// Part 1: The Heart //

Our relationship with God is the number one most important thing in our lives, but so many Christians struggle with it. We ask questions like: how do I spend time with God? Do I pray, do I read the bible, what should it look like? Is there a certain amount of time I should be spending with God? How do I know what to pray or what to read? What if I haven’t spent time alone with God, should I just stay away now? Is it too late? So many questions! We spend our time exhausting ourselves with the “how’s,” when we should be spending our time with Him.

Guys, in asking these question, we forget that God is real and He is personal. He is not a statue or a robot. He is real and He is all about relationship. We just need to stop over complicating it and turning our relationship into some robotic, impersonal, clinical, heartless, routine. Religion is the opposite of relationship. When we get religious, we stop connecting and start performing. We stop just being in with Jesus and start trying to be accepted by Him. The enemy’s goal is to separate you from God. The joke’s on him though, because you can’t be separated from God, but he can lie to you and tell you that you have to be a certain way or have to have had a certain type of week to be all “clean enough” to step into His presence. He lies to you and then you believing it, empowers it. The only power the enemy has is his ability to lie. He has no power without you partnering with Him.

“Religion is the opposite of relationship.”

When you believe something the devil says to you, you empower that lie. He tries to use you against yourself. He will lie to you and tell you that Jesus is mad at you, so you stay away from Him. The devil is a liar. Any thought or belief that is drawing you out of connection with our Father, is a lie. Why wait to be “clean” to come to Him, when He is the only one that can purify and cleanse you? See, that makes no sense. You will never be clean, you’ll just walk away from His heart for you and feel depressed, hopeless and bored. These are the types things that the enemy will say to you. Don’t buy it, reject those thoughts immediately and run into God’s loving arms ASAP. He burns for connection with you. He died so that he could be in with you. Of course, He doesn’t expect you to be a certain way to come to Him, that’s the very reason He died for you. You can come straight to Him just how you are, every single day.

“Any thought or belief that is drawing you out of connection with our Father, is a lie.”

He doesn’t count hours and minutes that you have spent with Him. He doesn’t count the amount of words you’ve read, how many things you have prayed for, that aren’t about yourself. What kind of relationship would that be? Definitely not one I would like. That is just controlling, manipulative, exhausting and stressful. When we think like this, we are not seeing God for who He truly is. He is pure, perfect love and the best Father and friend ever. He cares about your heart and the only way to look after your heart is for your heart to abide in His. Once again, it all comes down to. Everything flows from our relationship with Him. That means coming just as we are, with every question, every broken piece, coming just as your unveiled self. You being completely you. That’s who He wants to be with. That’s who He died for. That’s who He completely adores.

“You, that’s who He wants. “

// Part 2: The Practicalities //

My time with Jesus looks different every single time. It’s not always super easy to get into. I don’t always feel His presence straight away. I don’t always have a huge revelation or experience some life changing encounter. (I also do have a lot of encounters, but when this is all you hear from people it can be easy to get discouraged and feel like you’re doing something wrong. God is moving in you, do not be discouraged!) I don’t always find it easy to hear what He is saying. But the more I spend with Him, the more natural and easy it is and the more awareness I have of what He is saying and doing. It’s important to know that you don’t have to always have some amazing revelation and encounter. No time with Him is ever wasted! Fall in love with Him; fall in love with being with Him. If you don’t feel a passion and hunger to spend time with Him, here are two things you can do:

1. Pray and ask God to give you a passion and hunger for Him. He really is so kind! He will give you a passion for Him when you ask. I have asked God to restore my passion and awaken my hunger when I’ve felt it start to get dry and He always does.

2. The second thing to do is, well just spend time with Him. Don’t worry if you feel slightly awkward and unsure of what to do. Just spend time with Him and get to know His heart. Your passion will grow and you won’t always feel unsure of what to do or what to pray. The more time you spend with Him, the more that you will want to. It is a relationship, it’s all about connecting with Him. Connecting just comes from being with Him.

I will reap fruit from every single moment I have spent with Him no matter if I felt like anything huge happened in that time or not.’ He is moving in your life and in your heart whether you feel it or not. The key is to keep pressing in and to keep going after Him.

If I find it really hard and just have no idea what to do, I have some “go to” things.
One of these is praying in tongues, which is so powerful! I promise you will feel a shift if you just pray in tongues for five minutes. Especially when you just feel stuck. Another thing I do is I have a go-to worship video on YouTube that just gets me every time. (If you don’t have one of these, just search Steffany Gretzinger spontaneous on YouTube & you’ll find something pretty quickly.) These are all just keys, not a guideline. Follow the leading of Holy Spirit. If I’m just finding it hard to get into the Bible and know exactly what to read I either go back to the last thing that impacted me (This is always a key!) or I read the Psalms until I feel a shift in my heart. I love the Psalms!! I know it’s partly because I’m a worship leader, but they are just so good! I love reading them until I feel like I’m not reading someone else’s words anymore and those Psalms just become my own prayers/worship.

Another practical key to connecting with God is praying out loud, I don’t mean intercession or going through a prayer list – Although these things are both great! I simply mean just talking to God out loud about whatever you want. I find it is just better sometimes because it just get’s my conversation out of my own thoughts and connects me in a different way to Jesus. He is such a fun friend and we forget that He enjoys it when we talk to Him as one. Somebody I know said this recently, “When you are only talking to God about spiritual things, you are missing out on a whole lot of great conversation.” He is the greatest friend you will ever have, He is full of joy, love, life, He is faithful, wise, patient and fun! He loves being with you in every single moment.

There are so many things you can do when it comes to spending time with God, but it all comes down to connecting with His heart. Find the things that resonate with you. He is eager and ready for you to come to Him. He knows how to speak to you in a way that you will understand. Don’t complicate it, just come. There is no right way to spend time with God, it’s just about relationship and connection. Find the things that make it easy for you to connect, the rest comes from knowing Him. He is not just the God of ‘quality time’ moments in your life, He is the God of your whole entire life. He desires for us to abide in Him and live in connection with Him. The key is to just come and just connect. We were designed to live and thrive in relationship with our Saviour. We were never meant to live without His presence in our lives, every single day.

Let’s just get in His sweet presence.

“I don’t want to spend a single minute without Jesus.”