BUILDING A PERSONAL RELATIONSHIP WITH GOD

John 4:23-24

Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks.
God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.

To build means to increase gradually, or to become bigger and stronger.

Relationship is the way two people or two groups behave towards each other or the way two or more things are connected and affect each other.

Relationship between two people can be strong and full of emotions or it can be casual.

Personal means something that has to do with you and no one else; so, personal relationship is one that has to do with you and another person alone.

Beyond worshiping God together In the Church, each Christian is supposed to develop a personal relationship with God.

God is defined casually by the dictionary as the Being who Christians pray to.
Of course, no book can give us the definition of God better than the Bible, which in one angle says, “God is Spirit...” ^{(John. 4:23, 24).}
This definition is sufficient enough to make us know how to build a personal relationship with God. If God is Spirit, then to relate with Him, we have to be Spirit - ^{Romans. 8: 19.}

The beginning of a relationship with God is faith in Him, in other words, no one can build a personal relationship with God without being born again.

Hebrew 11:6 says,

But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.

Abraham, David, Daniel and other faithful men and women have personal relationship with God as a result of their faith. We need faith to worship God and this happens to be our main duty upon which our relationship with Him rests.

Building personal relationship with God is all about being inspired and mastering how to live peacefully and joyfully with Him whereby our lives become purposeful.

The ability to build a good relationship with God begins and ends with you based on the identified things you need to do. We will look at the various things we can develop to assist us in knowing how to build a personal relationship with God.
God has missions to accomplish in the world, he needs those who can build a personal relationship with Him like Joseph, Daniel or Abraham to stand in the gap.

God will not use someone who has no passion to do the job and stay the course, but a person who knows what it takes to make Him happy.

Concerning Abraham and his relationship with God: “For I know him, that he will command his children and his household after him, and they shall keep the way of the Lord, to do justice and judgment that the Lord may bring upon Abraham that which he had spoken of him.”^{Gen. 18: 19}

Building any relationship for that matter takes time and efforts. Our relationship is stronger with the person whom we spend much of ourtime with. To build a personal relationship with God is to find out things we can do in His presence and what makes Him happy.

Rev, 4:11 says, “Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honour and power: for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created”.

That means we are created for God's pleasure, to make Him happy; but only a happy person can make another happy. Going to His presence should make us happy as David confessed, “I am happy when they say let us go to the house of God”.

As Christians, we are the spiritual house of God or the temple of God, recreated to worship our creator directly in the unseen temple ^{(1Cor.3:16; 1Pet.2:5)}

We need a period of personal spiritual solitude to close our physical senses of sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch to put on our spiritual senses that will take us to the presence of God.

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