Practical Steps You Can Take to Build Your Relationship With God

Have you ever heard someone say love others as you would want to be loved? That is a saying that is driven from the Bible. It is a paraphrase of the second greatest commandment. Love God with all your heart, soul, and mind is the first. 

The Bible tells us to love our neighbor as ourselves, Matthew 22:39, Mark 12:31. The only problem with this scripture when people quote it is that many of us were never taught how to love ourselves. Often, the “as ourselves” part gets overlooked. It creates an unbalanced world. 

Many people are taught how to love their neighbor, but they are never taught how to also love themselves. Then you have some people who were never taught how to love at all. They do not love themselves, so it is hard to expect them to show love to their neighbor. 

The Great Commandments teach us to love three different entities, God, our neighbor, and ourselves. Learning to love all three is an ongoing process. If your parents never taught you, this is a responsibility you must take on-on your own. So where do you start? 

We will take a look at how you can be better in all three areas. First, we will focus on our relationship with God. Here are a few things I did to learn how to love God.

How to Love God: Abandon Everything You Know

Learning to love God is the same as learning to love anything or anyone. It requires you to get to know God. Have you ever had someone tell you so much about a person you have never met? You then began to formulate an opinion about that person based on what was said about them. Or perhaps you have been in a situation where someone else told others about you, and they began to prejudge you based on what they heard. Most of our relationships with God start off that way. We only know what mama, or whoever told us about God, has to say about Him. 

When I first restarted my relationship with God, I abandoned everything I knew about Him. Everything I knew about God was based on what my mom, my grandma, and others told me. While I did trust my mom and grandma, I realized a lot of people misquote Scripture, so I had to abandon everything I knew in order to see or learn God for myself. I started off by reading and studying the Bible. In the process, I relearned some things my mom and grandma taught me. 

I know some of you may be thinking where do I start? The Bible can be very overwhelming. There is so much in there. It can be so overwhelming that you don’t even want to start, especially when people try to make you feel like you have to spend hours a day reading and studying to be considered a “real Christian.” But be practical. When you first meet someone, you do not learn everything about them in one sitting. So take practical steps to build your relationship with God and when reading the Bible. Here are a few practical steps to building your relationship with God you can start taking now. I will also include practical steps you can take to help you when studying the Bible.

Practical Steps to Building Your Relationship with God

Start With a Strong Foundation

I think the best thing to do when building your relationship with God is to learn about His love first. When I first started, my pastor at the time focused more on the reasons people are going to hell and what people needed to do to be a “real” saint of God, lol. I learned that if you listen to certain music, it is wrong. If you watch certain things, it is wrong. So I went home and deleted all of my music, only to re-download it later, lol. 

I felt like living for God was too much, and I began to struggle. I then learned more about His love, and that was the beginning of building a stronger foundation. Many things people told me I had to give up were not even bad. So I encourage you to learn about God’s love first. Do not focus so much on becoming perfect. Do not focus on not sinning. Focus on God’s love. Learn about how He sees you despite the mistakes you may have made in the past, the ones from today, and the ones you may make tomorrow. Allow His love to fill you and guide you.

Focus on What He is Trying to Show You

Have you ever met a woman or man you really liked, and you asked them a question you were not ready to hear the answer to, and the answer totally changed your perspective, making you no longer interested? I used to ask God questions I was not ready to know the answer to. When He responded, I would either get mad or sad, but it taught me a lesson. It taught me that God’s timing is the best timing. He will reveal the things I need to know about in His timing when He deemed me as ready for the answer. 

Be careful what you ask for. Take the time to focus on what God wants you to see right now by asking Him, “What do you want me to see right now.” If there is something you want God to show you, ask Him to prepare you for the answer and reveal it in His timing first.

Do Not Compare 

When you are building your relationship with God, do not compare your relationship to others. Have you ever been in a relationship with someone and compared it to someone else’s, or have you ever compared yourself to someone else? I have met couples who look at other couples and say, “I wish our relationship was like that. They seem happy.” I have also met people who compare themselves to other people, including myself. 

I once compared myself to someone who I believed was more successful than me, but I had to realize everyone is different. That person that is “more” successful than me does not have my story. They were not raised by my parents, and their support system is totally different from mine. That couple may have had to put in years and years of work to get to their happy place. So when you see people who are in their happy place or are more spiritually mature, use them as motivation. Do something that will make your relationship stronger with God each day. That can be taking the time to pray, writing a letter or journaling, studying a verse or a chapter each day, etc.

Stay on the Same Page

Pacing yourself is very important when building your relationship with God. Have you ever been in a relationship with someone that was on a different page than you? You’re more focused on getting to know them, meanwhile, the other person is focused on planning your marriage. 

You may be focused on your destiny, starting the job God has for you, finding the mate God has for you, etc., but God is more focused on preparing you for those blessings. He may want you to focus on other things like healing, forgiving, learning to love, etc. But when you want something so badly you tend to focus on that one thing. 

Trust me, it will only frustrate you when God does not allow that one thing to come to the past because you are still not ready for it. Write down the things you desire and pray about them. After you spend time with God, the things on your list may change as you grow. Ask God to place His desires for you in your heart so that you will have the same desires as Him. He will bless you with the desires of your heart when you are prepared, so ask Him to prepare you and stay on the same page. Don’t worry about what is in the rest of your book.

Pace Yourself

Sometimes people get overwhelmed while building with God. Sometimes you have to relearn so many things like how to love yourself, how to forgive, how to control your emotions, etc., and it becomes frustrating. You watch yourself make many mistakes as you continue to push yourself to become a better person. It gets tiring. These are growing pains. 

It does not always feel good to grow up, but it is necessary. Do not grow weary and tired of correction. God corrects those He loves because He wants better for them. He wants better for you, but do not be so hard on yourself. See yourself as a child learning new things. This is how God sees you and He is proud. He sees the potential you can reach and wants you to see it too.

Practical Steps to Studying the Bible

Choose a Topic

The Bible covers so much, and sometimes you just do not know where to start. When you feel overwhelmed and unorganized, sometimes it discourages you, and you never start the task you have been meaning to start. So organize your thoughts by writing out a list of topics you want to learn. If you want to learn how to love, read what the Bible has to say about love. If you lack trust, study scriptures on trust or use the internet to search for someone from the Bible who also lacked in the same areas you lack in. You can also write down topics you always wanted to learn and study them. I use Got Questions to learn more about God to get a better understanding.

Read a Little Each Day

When I first started out, I tried to read a lot all at once. Again, do not compare your relationship to other people. If they read hours at a time daily, that is great, but you have to start somewhere, so just start. Sign up with platforms that offer daily scriptures to be sent to your phone or e-mail such as Bible Gateway and You Version. You can read their daily Scripture and ponder or meditate on it all day. Study it if you want a deeper understanding. 

Even if you start off reading every day for five minutes, that is better than not starting at all. If you do not remember to read today or tomorrow, read the next day. Practice being consistent. You will grow and read and study more as time goes on as long as you seek to grow and not just read to check it off your list.

Read and Study With Intention

This goes back to me saying read with the purpose of learning or connecting with God and not just reading so you can check it off your to-do list. God is not your to-do list. It’s like someone calling you just to say they called you or spending time with you just to say they did it. They really did not have any intentions of gaining a deeper connection with you. They see you as an obligation. Honestly, I think it is better to not read at all than to read with no intention of gaining something out of Scripture. If you lose the right intentions, do not be afraid of asking God to help you or give you the right intentions. He likes being a part of the process, and He is always willing to help.

Join Life Groups or Bible Studies

If you are a part of a church, ask if they have life groups or Bible studies. Some churches have life groups which are groups of people who live in the same area as you and attend the same church, and they “do life” together. Some life groups go through Scripture together at a set time each month, and some just do activities together. See what your church has to offer, and with so many things being offered online now, it is becoming easier to find churches who have online life groups and Bible studies.

Take a Bible Class

Some Bible classes are free and some are paid. You can also follow theologians to get a better understanding of Scripture, but always pray and ask God to show you who to follow, what is true, and what you should gather from what you learn. I also follow and have learned from pastors who know the Word such as T.D. and Sarah Jakes, Allen Parr, and Rick Warren. They have books you can read to spiritually grow, and some have classes that break down Scripture if you are ready to go more in depth. Below is a video of Allen Parr teaching people more ways they can study the Bible. 

As always, I truly hope this was useful. Leave a comment below and be sure to subscribe, so you will be notified as we continue to talk more about relationships with yourself and other people.

Love,
Jaz