Bible Study Post  2

Our Relationship with God

In our last Bible study, we looked at developing a heart devoted to God. In this study, I want to look at a couple of practical areas to help us as we strive to draw closer to Him.  

As Christian women, we know that our number one priority is to be our relationship with God. This is to be our highest priority, before anything or anyone else.

Matthew 6:33

But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness;

and all these things shall be added unto you.

Matthew 22:37-38

 Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment.

In these verses we see the importance of putting God first. These are commands of scripture, not optional extras. God must come first. We need God’s direction in every area of our lives. We need to put him first and put our relationship with him first.

We need to spend time with him to get to know him and learn from him.

As we learned from the story of Mary and Martha, serving is important but all the activity in the world will never bring the peace and joy that a relationship with Christ will bring.

Don’t substitute activity FOR God, for a relationship WITH God

Two areas that I feel are very important in our Christian walk, are prayer and quiet time.

1.    Prayer

Why is prayer so important in our walk with God? Well, first of all, it is commanded in scripture. Also, we have many examples of Godly men and women in the Bible praying and we see its importance spelled out very clearly in the Word of God. It is the way we communicate with God.

When you pray, not only do you honour and worship God, but you enter fully into one of the privileges you have as his child – that of communing with the God of the universe! What an awesome privilege that is!

Not only is it commanded as a duty of the Christian, but prayer is so beneficial and it helps deepen our relationship with God. And that is the focus of this lesson and the goal of our Ladies Bible studies. To deepen our relationship with the Lord and to find ways that help us to grow stronger spiritually, as Christian women.

There are many things that prayer does.

Prayer increases our faith – as our prayers are answered, we have more faith and trust in God. Our faith grows each time we have an answer to prayer. We put our trust more fully in God.

Prayer gives us a place to unload our burdens – on someone who truly cares and will not be overwhelmed with it all. When we unload on our husband or friends and family, sometimes it’s all too much. God tells us to bring our cares to him. He is big enough to handle them.

1 Peter 5:7 Casting all your care upon him; for he careth for you.

Prayer teaches us that God is always near

Psalm 46:1 God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.

Oswald Chambers said, “The purpose of prayer is to reveal the presence of God equally present all the time in every condition”

We know that God is always listening and his ears are always open to our cry.

Psalm 34:15

The eyes of the LORD are upon the righteous, and his ears are open unto their cry.

Prayer trains us not to panic – turning to God as your default move helps replace the tendency to panic, with God’s strength. In Luke it tells us always to pray and not to faint.

Luke 18:1

And he spake a parable unto them to this end, that men ought always to pray, and not to faint;

Prayer changes lives – prayer will change us. This will have a flow on effect and help to change others lives. God gets all the glory for this. People say ‘prayer changes things’, but it’s not entirely accurate, prayer changes lives, it changes us, but ultimately, GOD changes things!

Prayer brings God’s power. God’s peace. God’s perspective.

Prayer is basically talking to God. If I only talked with my husband between 7 and 8 pm on a Wednesday night and maybe a few minutes on a Sunday morning, how well would I know him? What kind of a relationship would I have? Prayer is vital in building a relationship with Christ.

I fear that sometimes our relationship with God survives on as little communication as this. We expect to grow spiritually, while only talking to God a few minutes a week.

In I Thessalonians 5:17, we are told to pray without ceasing. This doesn’t mean we are to pray every minute of the day, as that wouldn’t be practical, but it means to have a continual attitude of prayer. A prayerful spirit.

“When prayer becomes your immediate reflex instead of your last resort, the whole battlefield begins to tilt your direction”

When our minds are disengaged, like when we’re cleaning the bathtub or sweeping the house, or folding the washing, our thoughts can go to prayer instead of frustration or anxiety. We can praise God and talk to him at these times. We can continually be lifting up our prayer to God all the day long.  Warning: be careful not to only ever ‘pray on the fly’. Don’t just have a ‘squeezed in’ prayer life. A little here a little there, never really focused.

Not only do we need an attitude of prayer, we need to set aside specific times of prayer. We read many verses in scripture about making time to pray.

In the morning - Mark 1:35 And in the morning, rising up a great while before day

he went out, and departed into a solitary place, and there prayed.

In the evening, morning and at noon - Psalm 55:17 Evening, and morning, and at noon, will I pray, and cry aloud: and he shall hear my voice.

In addition to the short prayers we lift up throughout the day, we should make time to come to God in prayer with our prayer lists in hand. It’s not easy. It’s hard work to set aside time. Look for the quiet times and use these times to focus and pray. My favourite times are early in the morning and also throughout the night when I wake up and can’t sleep.

“When you can’t sleep at night, have you ever thought maybe it’s God saying “we need to talk and now you have time”

It’s also easy to fall into the “I’ll pray later” ditch. We tell ourselves we’ll pray about it later. How good a memory do you have? Because I know mine is shocking and life gets in the way, and all too soon, the prayer request is forgotten.

One way to avoid the “I’ll pray later” syndrome, is to make a time to pray with others. Find a prayer partner or group. Someone who you can meet with on a regular basis to pray with. It holds you accountable to someone and you are more likely to seriously pray when you actually have to make time in your day to meet with someone to pray.

The great thing about prayer is that we will never run out of things to pray for. There is always something or someone to pray for, it’s just that we run out of time to pray for it all.

2.    Quiet  Time

The 2^nd area I want to look at is that of bible study and devotional or quiet time. We not only need to pray but we need to spend time in God’s word. We need to listen to the Lord as he speaks to us through his Word. We need to have a desire for the word of God

1 Peter 2:2

 As newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby:

We need to desire God’s word just as a baby desires milk. Hungrily. Impatient. Always wanting more. There are so many bible study books, commentaries, handbooks, apps etc to help us in the study of God’s word. These are only tools to use and should not replace digging into the Word ourselves and searching for answers. But they can be very useful. I have learnt a lot over the years from others study of the Word of God and their insight into passages of scripture.

The best time to study the bible is during your own personal quiet time with the Lord. A time set aside where you just spend time with the Lord, letting him speak to you and talking to him.

Our effectiveness for God requires times of solitude. “The impact you have on you family and on others will be in direct proportion to the time you spend away from people and with God.” Time alone with God is so important for our spiritual development.

As well as saying ‘no’ to things that are wrong and sinful, we have to learn how to say ‘no’ to pleasant, profitable and good things that may hinder our time alone with God.

And when we talk of quiet time we are talking of a state of rest or calm, free from noise or disturbance, still, hushed, not turbulent, not excited, anxious or wrought up, calm, peaceful. Yes, all words that are usually the opposite of our days, but not impossible.

It’s so easy to fail at a regular quiet time with the Lord. For years I struggled with making time for bible study and devotional time, but seasons of life change and quiet times change. We need to remember that it’s the relationship we are working on. Not a strict schedule. It’s a time to draw apart with God. A time to talk with him, learn of him, grow in him. A time to deepen our knowledge of the Lord. To fellowship. To worship. Your quiet time is a time for your own personal growth. This is not family devotion time. This is a time for you and the Lord only. It may have to be several small snippets throughout the day or one large chunk if you are blessed with being able to do that.

When we take time to be with God, we receive. We are nurtured and fed. We ensure our spiritual health and growth. He supplies us with strength and encourages us in following his ways. In a book by Elizabeth George she talks about this time as the Great Exchange. Away from the world, hidden from public view:

I exchange my weariness
For His Strength.
My darkness for His Light.
My problems for His Solutions.
My burdens for His Freedom.
My frustrations for His Peace.
My turmoil for His Calm.
My hopes for His Promises.
My afflictions for His Balm of Comfort.
My questions for His Answers.
My confusion for His Knowledge.
My doubt for His Assurance.
My nothingness for His Awesomeness
The temporal for The Eternal.
And the impossible for The Possible

Making a consistent time each day or at least a little each day at different times will help you in your spiritual walk. It doesn’t really matter where or when, just that you do it.

 “Something is better than nothing, and always aim for more”

It’s up to you whether you decide to be a flower that appears for a little while but when the heat comes, you shrivel up or whether you become an oak tree that lasts and lasts, becoming stronger and mightier with each passing year. An oak tree spreads it branches and shades things around it. We can be like an oak tree and influence those around us, especially our families and those closest to us. Or we can be a flower that only lasts a little while.

Jeremiah 17:7-8 Blessed is the man that trusteth in the LORD, and whose hope the LORD is. For he shall be as a tree planted by the waters, and that spreadeth out her roots by the river, and shall not see when heat cometh, but her leaf shall be green; and shall not be careful in the year of drought, neither shall cease from yielding fruit.

When we put our roots down in the Word of God and feed on what He has to say to us, we will be blessed and we will not be afraid of the drought because we have His blessed promises to cling to. Our roots are nourished by the river of His Word.

As mothers and wives and women who want to deepen our relationship with the Lord, we have to get creative with how we arrange our time in order to put God highest on the priority list. My grandmother always had an open bible on her bread bin in the kitchen and every time she had a spare moment or was working on that particular kitchen counter, she would read a few verses. She was before the time of audible bibles and apps.

Then you have Susanna Wesley who used to throw her apron up over her head and sit in her chair to get time alone with God. Her family knew better than to interrupt her at this time.

When I was a teenager, I used to climb onto the roof of our house and pray and spend time alone with God, or I would take a long walk through a beautiful pine forest below our house, talking with God and listening to what he wanted to say to me. So, it doesn’t really matter where or when you spend your time alone with God, but it does matter that you do it if you want to grow spiritually.

We’ve talked about having hearts devoted to God. The word devotion means ardent affection or zealous attachment. We should have a zealous attachment and an affection for God’s word.

Job 23:12 Neither have I gone back from the commandment of his lips; I have esteemed the words of his mouth more than my necessary food.

Spiritual food is so much more important than physical food. We should see God’s Word as something we can’t live without.

“We can hinder the time that should be spent with God by remembering we have other things to do. I haven’t time. Of course, you have not time! Take time! Strangle some other interest and make time to realise that the centre of power in your life is the Lord Jesus Christ!”           Oswald Chambers

For us to really grow, we have to be determined to spend time in prayer and study. We have to make an effort to put God at the top of our priority list. As I’ve said before, give him your ‘to do’ lists and let him order them.  

“It's one thing to have a goal, but it's quite another thing to actually accept the challenge, develop a strategy to press for the goal, make the sacrifices, pay the price to move forward, and blessing of blessing, to realize some part of it.”
― Elizabeth George, A Woman After God's Own Heart