How do I have intimate relationship with God
Blessings to you Sister E. I can feel your sincere desire for the things of God. I pray that this righteous yearning will be satisfied as written in Matthew 5:6 Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled.
You have taken the first step of longing for the ability to communicate with God and hear Him. You have also completed the second step of praying, the third step of reading your Bible, and the fourth step of asking how to get an intimate relationship with God, where you can hear Him. Congratulations!
The first step comes with a deep yearning like David in Psalm 82:2 My soul longeth, yea, even fainteth for the courts of the Lord: my heart and my flesh crieth out for the living God.
When we genuinely repent of our sins, God forgives us. Joy usually follows. This joy is immeasurable, considering where we were coming from. Christ had taken away the burden of sin, the condemnation that loomed over us, the hurt and bitterness, the envy, anger and jealousy, the murder and adultery and the harassment of Satan, all are taken away by His Blood in one go. That is what makes us His New Creation in 2 Corinthians 5: 17.
In gratitude, you want to hug Him, worship, and praise Him. You may lack words; go flat on your face in gratitude. You want to do anything in appreciation for the amazing grace you received. The prayer that comes from this state is different from the prayer of an ordinary churchgoer. The reading of the Word that proceeds from this state is also different because there is a quest to know Him more.
There are some reasons people pray and read their Bible without understanding. Distractions and the cares of life can hinder us from hearing. Asking for things outside His will can be a barrier to our hearing.
James 4:3 Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts.
Hindrances to spiritual growth and the ability to hear clearly from God can be the outcome of the version of the Bible one is reading from. Let us take one example, Ephesians 6:5 in KJV will minister to your heart, but the same verse in NIV might make you angry. Romans 8:1 in KJV reads; There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit. In NIV it reads Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. The person who read KJV will go further in knowing that the “no condemnation” is for those who walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit, the NIV person will not know that there is a condition to that promise and might be careless. There are many more of these truths hidden or taken away from all the so-called ‘easy’ versions, making it harder to hear from God.
Reading the Bible is not to simply fulfil all righteousness but should be a genuine search for gold in the word. You will still not understand if you are biased. Just like Moses saw the burning bush that was not withering and drew closer to see it, so should everyone approach the Lord in a genuine quest.
Another reason is spiritual immaturity. Samuel heard the Lord calling him, but he could not recognise the voice because he was young and immature. It took Eli to discern that God was speaking to him. Sometimes we need a more mature person, just like in the families where the older siblings explain things to the younger. There is added advantage when teachers and mature believers are in the house.
We need our mind to be renewed to understand the scriptures, Romans 12:1-2. If we read the Bible with our old mindset, we might not hear the Lord as we will be filled with our own perspective. This is subtle, as our mind might be speaking and can be easily mistaken as the Lord’s.
We know the voices of our parents even in dreams, and this is because we have been with them most of our lives. The same is with God, when we dwell in His presence in prayers, in the scriptures, desire to know more of Him and are passionate about Him. These spiritual exercises will surely help us recognise His voice. If you do these things only once in a while, it will take a little more time to recognise His voice.
Another step is self-denial. Be dead to the ‘you’ in ‘you’. Yeshua wants total surrender. You wouldn’t want to waste time with a stranger who will not pay attention.
Like little children, if we obey His word in simple things like forgiveness, loving one another and not debating with His word, He will speak more.
God speaks to us in different ways, but most of the time we look out for Him in only one direction. Some people want to hear an audible voice, but the Lord might want to show them things through a picture in their hand. Let’s learn to be open and not cage Him.
The power of The Holy Spirit cannot be overemphasised. The Bible says that the Holy Spirit will guide and teach us all things and guide us into all truth. If He is absent, we will be empty. We should ask for His fresh filling to become attuned to the voice of God.
Hopefully, the above answers will bring joy to you in Jesus’ name, Amen.
