How Do I Start a Relationship with God?
Some people have never been to church before, and they don’t know how to start a relationship with God. Other people might have been religious at some point, but they feel that their relationship with God has been broken, and they want to know how to have that relationship. If you are in this situation, you might be wondering: how do I start a relationship with God?
Don’t Try to Clean Up Your Life First
The first thing that you must know, if you want to have a relationship with God, is that you don’t have to clean up your life before you start that relationship.
This probably sounds a little counterintuitive. For all your life, you’ve heard that there are certain things that God doesn’t approve of. Naturally, you might assume that if you want a relationship with God, you need to start by getting rid of these things from your life. Maybe that means that you stop drinking so much, or sleeping with your boyfriend, or watching those naughty shows.
But actually, trying to clean up your life, before you start a relationship with God, isn’t the best approach.
You Have a Deeper Problem
The reason why you shouldn’t try to clean up your life before starting a relationship with God is because you can’t. That’s right, it’s literally impossible for you to clean up your life.
As you get to know God (by reading the Bible), you will realize that God is entirely perfect. Not just A+, without-a-mistake perfect, but more like white-hot, dazzlingly-brilliant, cover-your-eyes perfect. I’m talking about a perfection that is so perfect that nothing, absolutly nothing, can stand up to it, because everything else is just so-so in comparison to Him. He is uniquely perfect. There is a word for this, and it’s called holiness.
When you try to ‘clean up your life’ before coming to God, it just shows that you don’t understand God’s holiness. No matter how much you scrub, you still won’t be clean in his presence. The reason why is because of sin.
Sin is more than just ‘doing nasty things.’ Sin is missing the mark that God has set. It’s the exact opposite of holiness. And when you really understand sin, the way that God sees it, you realize that sin is disgusting. It’s like sewage – gross, repulsive, and sickening. It’s like gangrene – spreading ruin and disfigurement to everything that it enters. It’s like poison – always resulting in death (even if it comes packaged in a flashy container).
The problem that you have is this: ‘sinful’ isn’t just a word to describe what you do – it’s a word to describe who you are. At the core of your being, at your very heart level, you are sinful – smeared with that stuff, so that you reek of it. This might sound pretty harsh, but this is actually God’s opinion of you:
“None is righteous, no, not one.” (Romans 3:10)
“They are corrupt, doing abominable iniquity; there is none who does good.” (Psalm 53:1)
Of course, you probably don’t think of yourself that way. We like to assume that we are genuinely good people who do, from time to time, make mistakes that we regret. Jesus, however, teaches the reverse:
“For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, mmurder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.” (Mark 7:21-23)
What Jesus meant is that our apparent ‘goodness’ is actually just a veneer over the ‘real’ us – deep down, we are defiled, sinful, and unloveable.
What this means is that actually, you are in deep trouble. Not only are you sinful – but why would a brilliantly holy God even want to have a relationship with you?
God Offers a Relationship
The good news is that when Jesus came to earth, to help people start relationships with God, he didn’t go to the people who had it made. Those people were already too convinced that they were ‘ok,’ and they didn’t really believe that they were as terrible as God said they were. Instead, when Jesus came, he came to the people who knew that God’s description of them was accurate. Jesus ministered to the people who knew that they were sinners. He went to them, loved them, and taught them how to have a relationship with God. When some people questioned why Jesus would spend his time with the sinners, Jesus explained it like this:
“Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.” (Mark 2:17)
How did Jesus, the God-man, help sinners to have a relationship with God? He came from heaven, lived a perfect life, without any sin, and then he died on the cross in the place of sinners, who deserve to die. He lived the life that we couldn’t, and then he died the death that we deserved. He becomes a sort of shield for us, so that we can approach God because of him. Rather than be pulverized by the intense brilliance of God’s holiness (since we are sinners and can’t endure his presence), Jesus’ righteous life is what God sees, and so we can approach him. Jesus also becomes our substitute, because God has already punished sin in full force: Jesus took the full brunt of God’s righteous wrath, not because of anything that Jesus did, but because of the sins of others, that Jesus took on himself.
How do we know that Jesus was successful in his mission to save sinners? Because he rose from the dead. Even death wasn’t able to keep Him. His resurrection is proof that he really did defeat the power of sin, and that he is able to save you, too.
What God Tells You to Do
When you understand God’s holiness, your own sin, and what Jesus did, you are finally ready to understand how to start a relationship with God. God tells you to do two things.
First, he says that you should ‘repent’ of your sins. This isn’t just ‘cleaning up your life,’ where you get rid of the really bad things that you were doing. This is completely renouncing sin, saying that ‘from now on, sin is my public enemy number one.’ You have a change of mind, so that you can say, ‘I’m done with sin, because instead, God is in charge of my life.’
You can think of it like ‘waving the white flag of surrender.’ God asks for your life, and that means every part of you. He wants you to surrender everything to Him. From now on, He is the one who is in control. Your life will not be your own. You will sacrifice it to him, by obeying him in every aspect. If you do this, you will find that God won’t just ‘clean up’ your life. He will do a complete remodel, rebuilding it from the ground up.
This isn’t a step to take lightly. If you want to obey Jesus, Jesus encouraged people to ‘count the cost,’ because it is a complete surrender. God isn’t interested in a relationship with you unless you are completely surrendered to him. He deserves nothing less.
The second action that God demands is ‘Believe!’ He wants you to believe everything that he says. His word isn’t up for debate. He really is as holy as he claims, you really are as sinful as he says, and Jesus really did die on a cross so that you could approach God. Believe this! Don’t place your trust in some other system, philosophy, worldview, or approach. Don’t believe the lie that says ‘all belief systems worship the same God’ or the lie that says ‘God will accept you if you just try hard enough’ or the lie that says ‘we are all basically good people.’ Instead, believe in Jesus! Believe that he really did come to earth to save sinners like you, and believe that he is the one who brings you near God!
Living Out Your Relationship with God
If you have done these two things – repented of your sins and believed in Jesus, then you have a relationship with God! It’s not like you need to ‘do’ more. God isn’t interested in you trying to ‘do’ anything in order to ‘earn’ a relationship with him. He does the heavy lifting! He just wants you to acknowledge who He is – the one who is actually holy, and the only one who can take care of your sin problem.
This isn’t to say that your life will remain the same. If you have a relationship with God, your life will be radically changed. First of all, if you have a new relationship with God, you need to be baptized (immersed in water). Getting baptized doesn’t do anything to make you a Christian, but it is the first step of obedience to God. It’s a definitive statement that means, “I’m fully committed to following God. I’m trusting in Jesus, and only Jesus, to bring me near to God.”
Your life will also change, because you will start to read the Bible. This is the primary way that God communicates with us. The Bible tells us what God thinks about everything. So, a person who has a relationship with God goes back to the Bible, again and again, in order to learn what God thinks, and then to apply that truth to life. Those sins that you knew were wrong in your life get ‘cleaned up’ because God is transforming you, using his Word to direct you. In fact, before long, you start to see that the sin problem was a whole lot worse than you realized. Suddenly you find that some things that didn’t seem to be a problem, still have to go, because God isn’t pleased with them (maybe it’s the things like lustful thoughts, or bad language, or unforgiveness in your heart). So yes, your life becomes radically different, because you learn what God really wants.
When you are in a relationship with God, you also realize that church is important. Not because it makes you feel better, and not because it is always thrilling, but because God says it is important, and because it is your opportunity to learn more about God and to spend time with other people who care about God. Of course, we all know that there are some hypocrites in church, and many people have even been hurt by church. It’s certainly important to be careful in choosing a church, but those who have a relationship with God know that it is important. It’s one of the best tools that we have to continue building that relationship with God.
Do You Want a Relationship?
What about you? Do you want to have that relationship with God? If you do, don’t delay. God offers it to you today! The Bible says that anyone who has a relationship with God is a ‘new creation.’ “The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.” (2 Cor. 5:17). There is nothing to prevent you from having this relationship, and freedom from your sins. It isn’t difficult: all that he asks is that you repent of your sins and believe in his son, Jesus. If this is your desire, feel free to express that to Him in prayer!
I want you to have this relationship with God, because it’s the most important thing. I encourage you not to delay, because a relationship with God is the one thing that you truly need. But I also don’t want to pressure you into such a relationship, because that isn’t how a relationship with God works. If these are new thoughts to you, and you need to give them consideration, then go ahead. I might recommend that you read some of the Bible. For example, you can find the book of John in the Bible. It’s pretty short, and it tells the story of Jesus. It’s an ideal place to start if you want to learn more about a relationship with God.
