7 Practical Things To Do To Have An Overflowing Relationship With God
Hey, sweet friend.
If you’re reading this, I reckon that you have this deep desire in your heart to know God, to love Him, to serve Him, and to share His love with others.
You want to have a more intimate relationship with God. You want to believe what He says and not what the world says. You want to overcome your insecurities and your fear and the other 1,001 obstacles that are currently staring you in the eye. You want to completely live for God, pour out your life as a pleasant offering to Him, and follow Him through thick and thin. You want to show people who He is and love, serve, and minister to them.
You want to have an intimate relationship with God so you can lead others to have an intimate relationship with God.
But you’re stuck in phase one: learning how to have an abundant, overflowing, powerful, intimate relationship with the King of kings.
You’re in great company, friend, because that’s all of us.
Knowing what to do in your relationship with God can be super hard sometimes. Trust me, I know. You have so much information coming in from social media and Pinterest and your friends and your church. Sometimes its hard to know what to focus on. Sometimes you know what to focus on, but you’re not sure how to actually do it.
And then there’s finding time to do it and getting motivated to do it and blehhhhh.
Enter: me.
In this post, I’m going to tell you 7 key things that you NEED TO BE DOING to know God, to please Him, and to have Him overflow out of you and into others. These are 7 practical things that you can start doing TODAY that will strengthen your connection with God, fix your eyes on Him, help you be free from your chains, and start living the abundant life you’ve always wanted.
Start with these 7 things, and I promise that you will have a deeper relationship with Yahweh and you will start building His kingdom.
1.) Read or listen to the Bible
I know, so obvious. But, for reals, this is one of the most important steps.
How are you going to have an intimate relationship with God if you don’t listen to Him, if you ignore His Words to you? His Words are so precious, and His whispers of love and encouragement are exactly what your heart needs.
Get in the Bible, friend. Really.
To be honest, I used to never read my Bible. I honestly hated doing it because I thought that it was so difficult and boring. But once I started reading it, man, everything changed. I realized that the Bible is definitely NOT boring. It is alive, and it spoke to me in ways that nothing else ever could.
When I started reading my Bible daily, my heart changed, my mind changed, and my entire life changed.
Friend, I urge you with every fiber of my being to get in the Word every single day.
Practical Steps:
Every morning when you wake up, spend 2 minutes praying and 3 minutes reading your Bible.
Every night before you go to bed, spend 2 minutes praying and 3 minutes reading your Bible.
Download a free Bible app, and read it while you’re waiting in line. I recommend YouVersion.
Listen to the Bible on the way to work or school. I recommend Dwell!
2.) Study the Bible
There is a difference between reading and studying the Bible, and both are SO crucial to your relationship with God.
When you study the Bible, you start to see hidden gems in the text that completely rock your world. To really understand the truth of what God is saying to you, you need to know the context, the real meaning of the words, the author, the setting, everything.
Practical Steps & Resources:
At least 2 times a week, choose a Bible verse and verse map it. (More verse mapping tips on Pinterest!)
Use a handy-dandy Bible study from places like She Reads Truth, Proverbs 31 Ministries, or IF:Gathering
Use Blue Letter Bible (free).
2.) Get In Silence & Solitude
The world is loud, and often times we can’t hear God’s voice above the noise. We NEED to be able to be still with Him and hear His voice, recognize it, and obey it.
When we’re still with God, we know God more intimately.
Practical Steps:
For 5 minutes (or more) everyday, get alone in a quiet place.
Turn off your phone, your music, don’t do chores or anything else.
Just sit there for 5 minutes in stillness and quiet, and ask God to give you listening ears and a receptive heart.
3.) Declare Truth
Okay, you need to be standing on the promises of God and declaring truth, or the enemy will eat you for breakfast. For reals. He is a liar, and he will do everything in his power to knock you off your feet.
Those insecurities can be overcome when you believe in what God says and REMIND YOURSELF of it.
Those fears can be overcome when you stand on God’s promise of provision.
To go out into the world with boldness and live for God, you have to believe what He says. (P.S. How are you going to know what He says if you’re not reading or studying the Bible???)
Practical Steps:
When you wake up in the morning and head to the bathroom to get ready, look in the mirror and declare truth over yourself.
Write truth on your mirror, post it on your fridge, stick it on your dashboard, whatever. Just make sure you see it.
Declare things like: “I am fearfully and wonderfully made, I am a new creation, I am forgiven, I am loved, I am victorious, I was created with a purpose, etc.”
Find those truths for yourself when you read the Bible and keep a journal full of them. When your faith is getting shaky or fear is knocking at your door, open up the journal and declare (out loud!) what God says about you.
4.) Surrender To God Every Morning
I have a tendency to wake up and immediately start stressing over everything that I have to do and what’s coming and OH CRAP I forgot about that. You, too?
One thing that I’ve started doing is waking up every morning and immediately start thanking God and surrendering my day and my life to Him. It realigns my heart with Him and with what really matters in the long run: pleasing God.
Practical Steps:
Every morning when you wake up, before you do anything else, literally get on your knees on the ground in surrender. If you’re unable to get on your knees, lift your arms up in surrender.
Pour out your heart to Him, choose to surrender to God’s will, trust Him with whatever is stressing you, and tell Him that you’re available for whatever He has for you.
5.) Pray Fervently
Don’t just ask for things. Don’t just ask for small things, although asking for small things is great! Ask for big things, too.
Pray passionately. Pray loudly. Pray with reckless abandon. Pray with tears and sobs and maybe even shouts. Don’t worry about offending God; He welcomes your heart and emotions as long as you’re willing to give them to Him.
POUR OUT YOUR HEART SO THERE’S ROOM FOR GOD TO POUR IN.
I used to wonder what the big deal about praying is. I mean, why do I have to pray if God has already decided and knows what’s going to happen?
Well, I learned that you pray so that your heart will be aligned with God’s, not the other way around.
You pray so that you will know God’s heart and your desires will align with His own.
Practical Steps:
Set aside 20 minutes 3 times a week get alone and to pray fervently.
Ask the Holy Spirit to give you the words to say, to move your heart closer to God’s, and to pray through you.
If you don’t feel like praying, ask God to change your heart and make you want to meet with Him.
These podcast episodes in Conversations by Lisa and John Bevere are fantastic on teaching you why fervent prayer is important and how to do it. Check this one, this one, and this one out.
6.) Sing Praises
We can so easily get stuck in a negative and selfish mindset because of the world around us. But when we take time to look at the beauty and goodness of our Father, our entire perspective changes.
Practice gratitude.
Practical Steps:
Play worship music as you get ready in the morning or while you cook or exercise. I recommend singing so that you’re paying attention to the words and also declaring the truth ;)
Praise God for every single beautiful thing you see.
Make sure your first thoughts and your first words every morning are praises to God, as well as your last ones.
7.) Serve Others
God is love. He invented it; He is it. When we love others, we are showing them His love and loving Him at the same time.
When we serve others, we are pleasing God AND impacting the kingdom for His glory. I mean, that’s kind of a win-win, don’t you think?
Practical Steps:
Hold the door for people.
Offer to help them with their things.
Donate to charities.
When someone asks for prayer, pray right then and there.
Offer to pay for someone’s meal or gas.
Friend, you are made for more. You are made for intimate relationship with our Savior, for building His kingdom, and for letting His love overflow out of your heart and into others.
It’s your purpose, and I want to help you pursue it.
my king, i pray for my sweet friend reading this. she wants you, lord. she longs for you as a deer longs for water. she wants to have an intimate relationship with you and to love you forever. she wants to surrender her life to you, live for you, and share your love with others. she wants to build your kingdom. oh, father, let it happen. pour your spirit on her, help her seek you and love you, and teach her how to build your kingdom. bless her, father, and use her for your glory. in jesus’ name, amen.
Oh, hey, and if you’re super busy and don’t know how to have an intimate relationship with God when you’ve got 1,001 things to do, I wrote a post telling you a few ways that you can cultivate a relationship with God, even when you’re super busy! Check it out here.
