Beginning a relationship with God is easy! You don’t have to work for it. In fact, because He paid the ultimate price for the relationship, you can’t earn or purchase it.
Here’s how a relationship with God works. First, He draws you. In John 6:44a, Jesus says, “No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him.” Any desire you have to seek the Lord comes from God Himself. On your own, because of your inherited sin nature, you would never seek Him. “There is no one who understands; there is no one who seeks after God” (Romans 3:11). Consider the woman at the well in John 4. She, like every person, was a sinner. She was not looking for God. She just came for water. Because God desired to reach her and her city, He moved His Son to the well at just the right time to engage her in conversation and draw her to Himself.
Once you recognize yourself as a sinner in need of a Savior, you simply accept the free gift of salvation God offers, which Jesus paid for on the cross. Ephesians 2:8-9 says, “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast.” When we admit to God that we are sinners, understand we cannot save ourselves, and acknowledge that Jesus died to pay the penalty for our sins and was raised from the dead on the third day, we receive His salvation. “For I delivered to you first of all that which I also received; that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures” (1 Corinthians 15:3-4). “…If you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved” (Romans 10:9).
How do you have a relationship with God? Simply pray in faith and ask Him to forgive you of your sin and to save you, and He will. Then thank Him for saving you.
