Relationship with God

BIBLICAL REFERENCES: LUKE 6:9-13.

SUB TOPIC:

1. PRAYER AS MEANS OF COMMUNICATING WITH GOD

2. RELATING WITH GOD

CONTENT

PRAYER AS MEANS OF COMMUNICATING WITH GOD

Prayer is a means by which we communicate with God. When we cultivate the habit of praying constantly to God, we come close to Him. The more we pray, the more the relationship grows. For our prayers to be answered, our prayer should be based on faith.

When Jesus was with His disciples, they observed that he always prayed to God. He would pray in the morning, afternoon and evening. As a result, Jesus had very close relationship with God. Therefore, one day when He had finished praying, they asked him to teach them how to pray, Jesus taught them the “Lord’s Prayer”. The importance of the Lord’s Prayer is to give us the pattern of how we should arrange our approach to our Heaven Father – from thanks to our request and also ending with praise and attributing the glory to Him.

Relating with God through prayer is to have close, personal and intimate relationship with him.

RELATING WITH GOD

Here are some ways we can relate with God:

1. Reading the Bible: When we read or study the Bible – word of God – carefully, we learn that God’s relationship with human being is based on love, kindness, mercy and forgiveness. The Bible tells us that this relationship between God and human being, can be traced from the time of the creation of Adam and Eve, the Israelites and also the fullest expression of this is in Jesus Christ our Saviour.
2. Worshipping God: To worship is to show adoration, reverence and devotion to God. We worship God when we go to Church to worship him on Sundays along with our family. In the act of worship in the Church, we praise God with songs.
3. Praising God: To praise God, is to magnify, exalt, glorify and bless Him. God created us to praise and glorify him for evermore and also for His goodness to us.
4. Prayer: Praying does entail more than closing our eyes. The Bible says “But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do: for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking”. Matthew 6:7. It is a heart to heart communication to God as we make our desires known to our Heavenly Father.

WEEKEND ASSIGNMENT:

1. What is prayer?
2. State five ways of relating with God.
3. For our prayers to be answered, our prayer should be based on ________.
4. Write out the Lord’s Prayer.

BIBLICAL REFERENCES: LUKE 6:9-13.

SUB TOPIC:

WAYS GOD TALKS TO US

WAYS OF MAINTAINING GOOD RELATIONSHIP WITH GOD

CONTENT:

WAYS GOD TALKS TO US

God is always talking to us, it’s only that we are not ready to hear Him. God talks to us through the following ways:

1. Through our parents:

God loves us and wants us to grow into obedient, hardworking, useful and responsible Christian citizens. Therefore, he has given us good parents to ensure that we do what he wants us to do at all time. Obedience to our parents simply signifies the same to God.

•  Through the Bible:

The word of God tells us that the Bible is God’s revelation of Himself to human beings. In His revelation, God made it known that obedience to him leads to success and prosperity; while disobedience to him leads to failure and poverty in life (Deuteronomy 28:2,15). Job is a very good example of someone whose obedience to God led to success and prosperity. Saul, the first king of Israel is a very good example of someone whose disobedience to God led to failure, misfortune and poverty.

• Through the Church Leaders:

As in the Old Testament, God still speaks to us through His ministers. The only problem that we have now is just that many profess to be His mouth piece but only prophesy for their belly, when He has not spoken. Jesus speaks through our religious leaders who are: Priests, Pastors, Teachers and so on.

WAYS OF MAINTAINING GOOD RELATIONSHIP WITH GOD

There are several ways of maintaining relationship with God. These include:

1. Loving one another: We show love to one another when we are kind to strangers who have lost their way, poor people, carry load for elderly people, visit the sick in hospital, motherless homes or prisoners in prison.
2. Daily prayer: When we continuously talk to God in prayer, like Jesus did, it will help to maintain relationship with him all the time. We should pray to God when we wake up in the morning, in the afternoon, and before going to bed.
3. Living a holy life: ‘To be holy’ is to be ‘righteous,’ therefore to live a holy life is to live a righteous, virtuous and upright life. It is to be morally good in all that we feel, think, say and do. However, it is not easy to be holy by doing all the above holy things all the time without the help of the Holy Spirit.
4. Worship and doing good: To maintain good relationship with God, we have to worship him always. We have to go to Church every Sunday and worship him together with our family.
5. Reading the Bible: In reading the Bible we learnt how God showed love, kindness, and mercy to Adam and Eve, to the people at Tower of Babel. We also learnt how God called Abraham.
6. Forgiving one another: We must learn to forgive all those who wrong us. If we find it difficult to forgive those who wrong us, we should pray to God through Jesus to give us spiritual love to overcome that difficulty and forgive all those who offend us, so that we can maintain our good relationship with God all the time “…and forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors…..but if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.” Matthew 6:12, 15 KJV.

MORAL LESSON

1. Sin is a major hindering factor to smooth communication with God.
   1. Its only when we make our heart desires known to our Heavenly Father before He can respond with blessings.
   1. God can never be too busy not to attend to our prayer when we call on Him in faith.
   1. For our Heavenly Father to forgive us, we need to forgive others too.

WEEKEND ASSIGNMENT:

1. State five ways of maintaining good relationship with God.
2. Mention three ways by which God talks to us.
3. Memorize the Lord’s Prayer.
4. Memorize Psalm 150.