Welcome my sweet sister in Christ. As I type these words of encouragement, I am beaming with radiance in knowing that you have chosen to accept the greatest gift & the ultimate truth. When you first accept Jesus Christ, I know you must feel a brush of peace and a drum of excitement. You are about to walk a path of abundant life and a deep relationship with the one Lord who has longed to start this relationship with you. I wish you could feel my cheeks hurting from smiling at your willingness to boldly step forth in your walk of faith.
Here’s the thing, the Lord knows you. He knew you all along. He actually delicately designed you. Every inch and curve of you, He knows. He knows your heart and your temperament. He knows how you like your coffee or how annoyed you get at the car that drove too close to your tailgate (maybe that’s just me) ;). The Lord knows your family, your childhood, and the house you grew up in. He knows the girls that were mean to you in middle school, as well as the good friends that you met after high school that you grew to love like sisters. Your past mistakes, your deepest regrets, and your bottled-up pain. Your tiniest cute little quirks and your emotional outbreaks and mental breakdowns.
He knows. He sees you. He always has seen you and He will always know you.
But you took a step forward. You have simply invited Him in to form this relationship that He has always longed for you to step into. Whether it was a church sermon, a bible study function, or your neighbor’s backyard where you accepted your life in Christ, you sent an invitation to the Lord saying “I want to know you too.” Girl, you have no idea how pumped your Heavenly Father is.
You have accepted Christ. Now what? What do you do now?
The best part. You simply begin a relationship with Him. Your relationship with the Lord is so personal and intimate that only you and He get to explore together.
There are three things that are vital to your new relationship and spiritual life. Here are 3 beams that are vital to the structure of your relationship with God.
“For the Word of God will never fail” (Luke 1:37, NLT)
Perhaps you already have a Bible, or maybe you don’t. Either way, it is important to note that the Bible is alive and active. These words are God-breathed. It doesn’t matter how many times you open your Bible to a certain story because something new and fresh will come when you go back to it. Scriptures are the backbone and your lifeline. As you study the Word, and different books of the Bible, you may want to start memorizing scriptures. Memorizing scriptures will help enhance your prayer life, and help root you with biblical wisdom. God will show you His character and His unconditional love for you. In Ephesians 6:16 (ESV), it says “In all circumstances take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one; and take the helmet of salvation and the sword of Spirit which is the word of God.” The word of God is the sword of the Spirit.
In a different translation of the Bible called The Message, Ephesians 6:16 is phrased as “God’s word is an indispensable weapon.” Indispensable means “necessary” and “absolute.
The Word of God is absolute and necessary in your walk with the Lord. You are walking with the Lord, but you still are in a fleshly body. There will be temptations and things that your old self desired. Those temptations will still be around, however, you were made new in Christ. On top of those worldly temptations and fleshly desires, you also face an enemy. The enemy is the opposite of the Lord. The enemy will do anything and everything to distract, dispute, discourage, disqualify, disrupt, and dishonor your relationship with the Lord.
1 Corinthians 5:17 (ESV)
“Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.”
You are no longer your old self. You are a warrior for the Kingdom of Heaven. You have been anointed and called to be a part of Jesus’s ways. The way to know Jesus and your new friend, the Holy Spirit, is through the Word of God. The Holy Bible. Open the Bible, and discover pages and pages of divine wisdom, praises, spiritual encounters, and most importantly, the Truth. The Truth about who you are as a Daughter of God. The Bible is your weapon.
“Devote yourselves to a prayer with an alert mind and thankful heart” (Colossians 4:2, NLT).
Pray. Pray. Prayer is the act of submitting and speaking to God. Your prayer life is essential to your walk with the Lord because it is the way you will hear God. Jesus died on the cross for us to have a direct communication line with our Father, and that is found through prayer.
“Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus in you.” (1 Thessalonians 5:16)
Pray without ceasing. To pray without ceasing comes with a pure dependence on the Lord. Never stop praying. Our prayers are to be without hesitation and we are called to pray at any time to the Lord. We can pray in the very seats of our living room or in our car getting to the next appointment. We can pray in the coffee line waiting for our Starbucks order. We can pray for someone else. We get to pray in numbers, with friends and family. How cool is it that God gave us the opportunity to pray to Him? Through prayer, He hears us and gets to know us. Additionally, we get to know Him and hear Him personally.
“Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God.” (Philippians 4:6)
With prayer, we can make requests to God. We can ask for prayers of healing, wisdom, guidance, direction, comfort, peace, and frankly anything & everything. Knowing the Word of God helps navigate our prayer life. As you open and study the Bible, you will find Scriptures that can help you pray and inspire you to pray. You will discover the heart and character of God and become aware of what He freely gives us. The greatest gift we ever could have is Jesus, God’s one and only son dying on the cross for us. To free us from our shackles and chains.
And it doesn’t stop there.
God keeps giving. He gives us the gift of a relationship with Him. He gives us the opportunity to sit before Him and get to know Him. He gives us a book that was Godly breathed & Holy Spirit inspired so we can connect the dots to Him. He gives us prayer.
Prayer. A line of communication. A very intimate line of communication to connect with the Lord of the Lord, the Almighty. He does all of this to know you. Personally and internally know you.
So pray. Pray with all your heart. It is not to be some scripted, knowledge-induced, vocabulary-rich speech. Just reflect on what is in your heart. Start with thanking the Lord for His absolute goodness, for His mercy, for Jesus, and for prayer. There is no such thing as a poor prayer as long as it is from your heart. Prayers can be just one word or a speel of the exact feelings and questions you are feeling at the very moment. God is our Father, our Heavenly Father. He already knows what is on our hearts, and He just wants to have a conversation with you like a friend. God already knows exactly what you need even before you ask Him! (Matthew 6:8, NLT). Prayer is all about your heart posture and willingness to seek Him as your guidance & Shepard.
The last beam of the three things you need to do after you have accepted Christ is to learn about the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is a friend and counselor which is another gift to us. Our God sure is generous, isn’t he? The Holy Spirit will help us in studying the Word of God and in our prayer life. We invite the Holy Spirit to help us navigate, understand, give us words, process, and so much more. So let’s jump into the Holy Spirit and how he will help us in our walk with the Lord.
Another gift that we receive is the Holy Spirit. In John 16, Jesus has risen from the dead, He is back with His disciples. As you can imagine, His disciples love Him and very much enjoy His earthly visitation that He prophesied would happen prior to His crucifixion
The disciples get to hang out with Jesus again. Imagine that. Jesus was recently nailed to the cross, died, and rose again on the third day. You can imagine the heartbreak of watching Jesus being nailed to the cross, and then the amazement of knowing their Teacher is back amongst them fulfilling all previous prophecies.
While Jesus is with His disciples, He starts talking to them about how He is going to go back to heaven to sit at the right hand of the throne of God. The disciples’ hearts are breaking, as nobody wants THE JESUS to go back after all He just did. They loved Jesus so much, just like we do too.
But Jesus says this in John 16:7 “Nevertheless, I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you. But if I go I will send him to you. (ESV)”
Dun…Dun…DUNN.
Meet our new friend. His name is Holy Spirit :). The Holy Spirit came when you believed in the name of Jesus, and he dwells in you. He is here to help you along this journey and walk this relationship with you and the Lord out.
“But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you. “(John 14:26).
Holy Spirit is here to teach. To teach you and me how to do these things. How to walk away from our old life, and into the new life in Christ. Day by day, the Holy Spirit will teach and teach. He will help us progressively grow in our faith. We must invite him into our hearts every single day to help us out. God knew life can be hard, sometimes studying the Word of God is hard, and sometimes we have no idea what to pray, but guess what? We have a teacher, a helper, and an advocate to help us find the words to say. To search for biblical verses that will guide us. To help make big and small decisions every single day that will glorify our Father. To bring remembrance of who our Heavenly Father is and remind us to walk & act as Jesus did. We have a helper. So thank you Lord for another incredible & beautiful gift.
Welcome to the most divine relationship you will ever encounter in your life. We are gifted a book full of God’s word, prayer life, and a friend named the Holy Spirit to walk this journey with us. I pray that your heart is full of wonder and amazement at all the gracious gifts that God gives, and girl, it’s only the beginning. As you step and leap with the Lord, He will continue to reveal Himself in a personable way. A way for you to understand, see, hear, and know Him. It will take time. It will take obedience. It will take your willful desire to want to keep getting to know him consistently and continuously. Welcome to the journey of faith, sister. Through the screen, I embrace you with the biggest bear hug.
Get to prayin’ and readin’ and connectin’ with your truest friend! Till next time!
For further encouragement: Check out my other blog posts 🙂
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