OceanSide church of Christ

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A Relationship With God
by: Dalton Gilreath

Consider your life for a moment without having any of your current relationships. This would mean you have no spouse, no parents, no siblings, no friends, no children, and no God. A life without any companionship would be a very lonely existence. Now, as you are thinking about your current relationships consider the quality of each of them. How would you compare your relationship with your parent or child with that of a friend? In most cases your relationship with family might be much stronger than your bonds you have with friends, with some exceptions. Why is that? Because you keep in touch with your family, your family and you have a lot in common, and you feel that you owe them so much due to their always being there for you in the past.

Now consider the parent/child relationship we have as Christians with our Father in Heaven. How is your relationship your Creator? Here are some things we might ask ourselves to determine how close we are to our Father:

1.    How often do I talk to God? Naturally, what happens to a relationship when you only speak to that person from time to time? You are going to be closer to someone you speak with on a daily basis as opposed to someone you only contact from time to time. The same is true of our relationship with God. Can we really say we have a relationship with God when we only talk with Him on rare occasion? The apostle Paul tells us to “pray without ceasing” (1 Thess 5:17). He doesn’t mean we can never quit praying, but to pray consistently. Talking with God every day in prayer is the first step in maintaining your relationship with Him.

2.    How often do I allow God to speak to me? Having a one sided conversation with someone doesn’t do much for a relationship either. Not only must we talk to God through prayer, but we must allow Him to speak to us through His Word (2 Timothy 2:15). There are plenty of people in this world claiming to have a relationship with God but know little to nothing about Him. Can we really have a relationship with someone we know nothing about? We might say that many know of God, but they do not know God. Which category are we in?

3.    How often do I talk to others about God? Have you ever met a grandparent who will jump at any opportunity to pull a picture of their grandchildren out of their wallet and tell you all about them? Why are so many people this way? Because grandparents enjoy their grandchildren. They love them more than most people in this world. Well, how many of us are like that with God? Do we jump at every opportunity to insert God into our conversation because we love Him so much, and we just love talking about Him with others? If we are truly excited about our relationship with God, we will want our friends to meet Him and get to know Him as we do.

These are just three questions to consider and you may can think of others as well. There are plenty who throw around that term “relationship” loosely, and we don’t need to be one of them. Let’s make sure we maintain our relationship with God as His child, friend, bride, and servant. Make sure to talk with Him every day in prayer, to allow Him to talk to you every through study, and to talk to others about Him the way you would the person who means the most to you in this world. You show me a person who fulfills these three things, and I will show you someone who truly has a relationship with the Creator.