How To Build a Relationship With God

Wouldn't it be nice if people were perfect? Just imagine how much easier the world would be! We wouldn't have to worry about crime, broken homes, divorce, lost friendships, and countless other problems we deal with today.

But that's not reality. People mess up and hurt others all the time. We long for perfection in our relationships, but it's never found. Just when you think you've finally found someone who won't let you down, they do. Then you're back to wondering if you'll ever have the perfect friend, spouse, or whoever.

We want a person who is good, loyal, loving, truthful, honest, and kind at all times no mater what. We will spend our whole lives searching for that person. But we will only find all that and more in Jesus. The yearning we feel, the hole we have, can never be fully satisfied by a human. That doesn't mean we can't have good friends or family. It just means they can't fill our desire for a perfect friend, and they're not meant to. Only Christ can do that.

“But how?” we ask. We've heard before that Jesus wants to be our friend, but we're not sure how. After all, Jesus isn't on earth anymore; how do we become friends with Him?
There's no set formula to it. You can't go through ten easy steps and voila! You've got a solid relationship with Christ. But there are some ways to get started.

~ Get to know Him. “Now acquaint yourself with Him, and be at peace: thereby good will come to you.” (Job 22:21, NKJV.) Study the Gospels and note how He acts. See how the Bible describes Him. Find out what He wants in a friend. Some passages to get you started are Matthew 12: 50, John 15, and John 10.

~ Start communicating with Him. Don't go with the shallow prayers of, “Dear God, I'd like to get to know you. Amen.” That's not going to get you very far. Make time to be silent with God and pour out your heart to Him, (Psalm 62:8, NASB). Don't just tell Him what you think He wants to hear. He knows if you're being authentic or not. Express your frustrations, worries, confusion, and sorrow. He already knows about it. Not only that, but He wants to help us work through it.

~ Listen to what He has to say. He speaks to us in different ways. Sometimes through Scripture, the Holy Spirit, a sermon, someone you know, or countless other ways.

A relationship with a perfect person is possible, but only if that person is Jesus. Humans will never make perfect friends; it takes someone like our Savior to be like that.