Relationships are hard! It is hard to cultivate great meaningful relationships and maintain them. Most relationships that are long-lasting take work. At times our human relationships can become complicated between growing older, misunderstandings, and moving from place to place. In our human relationships, we are bound to be disappointed and let down. 

Is it that hard with Jesus?

I think our humanity can make our relationship with Jesus hard. Let me explain. Developing a relationship with Jesus is Just like developing a relationship with people. It takes time, work, and dedication. A meaningful relationship with Jesus isn’t passive. It isn’t something that you can put 30 minutes to an hour into once a week or once a month or once a year. If we did that to our friends here on earth, we wouldn’t be on good terms with them.

With Jesus, it does require work, but the bright side of our relationship with Jesus is it will never be something complicated. Developing a relationship with Jesus is simple. It takes three simple steps; Read, Pray, and connect.

Read

When I say Read, I don’t mean read just any ol’ book, I mean THE book – The bible. The word of God is the best way for him to speak to us. John 1:1 says, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” The word is God. Therefore, the best way to get to know God is to read the word. He reveals himself to us more and more with each chapter we read, and the longer we are spending reading. Even when we revisit those same chapters, he reveals himself. Just like any relationship, the more time we spend with him, the more he is open to us. 

Pray 

Prayer is simply a conversation with God. If you read the blog from last week on how to pray, you know that prayer is more than you coming to God with your problems but thanking him for who he is, invite him in, repent, and hearing what he has to say. Can you imagine being in a relationship where the person you were every time you hung out with that person, they talked the whole time and didn’t allow you to get a word in? Although you’d know everything about them, they would know Absolutely nothing about you because they never stopped to listen. That is precisely what we do in pray, trying to get to know Jesus. We talk the whole time and never let him speak and reveal himself to us. Prayer that allows time to listen is a part of the foundation of a relationship with Jesus.

Connect

Connection and fellowship with others are also a foundational part of getting to know Jesus.

How? You just said relationships with people is hard...

Yes, relationships with people are challenging, but that doesn’t mean that it isn’t vital to become a better Christian and develop a better relationship with Jesus.  Proverbs has many quotes about friendship. It is in the Bible that the friends we have matter! If we are linked with the right people, they will push us in the right direction. If we are developing relationships with people who know Jesus, wouldn’t they be reflecting who Jesus is? Wouldn’t we get to know him more by getting to know the people who are made in his image? Like you would get to know someone that you would want to be friends with based on the people who know them, the same is true with Jesus. You can get to know him more through people that have testimonies of who he is. That is why it is essential to connect with others. Even when you don’t see every part of him yourself, the people you are in community with can give you a glimpse from their perspective.

A Bonus tip in developing your relationship with Jesus is to learn to trust him. Developing a relationship is hard, but it is even harder without trust. If you can’t trust Jesus with your life, then what is your relationship? It’s hard to trust. That is why we created the trust challenge coin. The Challenge coin says, “God, I trust you” on the front and has proverbs 3:5-6 on the back. This coin is great to keep with you as a reminder of who God is and how you can trust him more and more. The more you trust Jesus, the closer you are to Jesus. Pick up this coin today to help challenge you to trust Jesus.  

To sum up, developing a relationship with Jesus is if you repeat the three simple steps to creating a relationship with Jesus. The only hard part is being dedicated, taking time, and putting in the word to complete these steps. We must overcome parts of our humanity to make our relationship with Jesus a lot simpler.