Nuggets Of Knowledge, Part 1: Things I Have Learned So Far While Walking With Our LORD

Hello all, God bless you. Being somewhat new to actually following Christ–after realising that I only knew ABOUT Him, as opposed to KNOWING Him–I felt Led to start keeping a list of various things that have helped me greatly in these early stages of my walk with Him. 

As you can imagine, though, the number of precious nuggets found or mined during such an eventful and significant journey keeps increasing, and so, too, has my list. Every day, it seems! Meaning that today’s discussion is only the first installment of Things I’ve Learned–So Far!–While Walking With Our LORD.

Regardless of where you are on *your* journey With Him, I’m so glad to have you join me as I reflect upon what He’s Been Teaching me on my journey With Him.

-MB

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The first thing that I found out was that it’s not enough just to call yourself a Christian, read The Bible, and go to church on Sunday. You must endeavor to actually follow Christ, and not only follow but also get to know Him on a more intimate and personal level, as your God and your Savior. 

The goal of truly following Christ is to get to know Him and view Him as one would their best friend. 

In today’s article, I share some of what I have been learning about what it means to build a deep and powerful relationship with God.

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How do I get to know Him?:

What I have found in MY PERSONAL journey is that there are three ways one can get to know Him: reading The Bible, spending time in prayer, and worshipping the Almighty triune Being we call God.

1.       Reading The Bible is a cornerstone of building one’s faith in Christ and learning about Him. It takes a pivotal role in one’s journey of getting to know our Savior personally. 

I have tried many times to read through The Bible and failed because I started with the book of Genesis. 

While the story of the creation of the universe and of all living things is fascinating and beautiful, I have come to realize that that is not where a new believer should start. It shows you a sample of God’s power but tells you nothing of His other qualities such as His goodness, His holiness, His mercy, and His love. 

What I have found is that it’s better for those who are seeking to deepen their relationship with our Savior, Jesus Christ, to first learn about Him by reading the eyewitness accounts of His life within the four books of The Bible known as the Gospels. These books–Matthew, Mark, Luke and John–appear at the start of The New Testament.

Each of these separate books tells the story of Jesus Christ from a different person’s point of view; when one is finished reading all four, he or she has a much more detailed “sketch” of both Who our Savior IS and what He DID when He walked this earth in the flesh.

2.       Prayer is our number one form of communication with God, it is how we can begin to spend time in His Presence and get to know Him on an even deeper level than just reading about Him. 

Many people see prayer just as a way to get things from God. I can and will tell you right now that this way of thinking is totally wrong. God is not a wish-granting genie, but instead, our loving heavenly Father. 

There are times that He will give us what we want, yes, but that is not the only answer He can and will give us. As our heavenly Father, He can answer our prayers in a couple of ways.

NOTE: I cannot and will not claim to understand God so completely as to know exactly why He gives us the answers He does, but here is a theory I learned from others as I sought the answer to this question myself.

A.      Yes– this answer is the result of one of 2 things. Either He feels you are ready for what you are asking for and the time is appropriate to give it to you, or He knows you are not ready and He is giving it to you to show you that this is the case. The reason for this can vary from person to person and situation to situation.

B.      No– what you are asking for is not meant for you to have.

C.       Not yet– what you are asking for is meant for you but you have some growing to do and/or the time is not right for you to have what you are asking for.

As previously mentioned, prayer is not meant to be seen as just a way to get things from God, He is neither a genie or a short order cook. 

He is our all-knowing and all-powerful heavenly Father who delights in spending time with us. 

To my knowledge, prayer is the main way he does that. 

He speaks to us in an inaudible manner, through His Holy Spirit Who Dwells in everyone who is truly sold out to Him. 

He comforts us, teaches us, guides us, and does many, many things when we pray to Him. Most important of all though, in my opinion, is He LISTENS to us. 

We can come to Him even when we aren’t asking for something at that moment. 

In fact, I dare say He WANTS us to. He wants us to come to Him throughout the day, every single day. 

He wants to hear how our day is going. Yes, He already knows and sees it all, but He wants us to tell Him about it. 

All of this is why I think prayer is an effective way to build a relationship with our Almighty triune God, our Father in heaven, our wonderful Creator.

It is important to remember that our LORD will communicate with us through prayers and when He does, He expects us to listen to what He tells us and take it seriously. 

Just remember, you are speaking to the Creator of the universe. If He shows you respect and listens to what you say in your prayers (He always does and always will), you must show Him the same respect when He answers you. 

It is very important that you don’t begin to think you can grow in faith by just talking To Him and not listening to Him. 

If you choose to not listen To His Reply it may as well be a chat bot you are spewing information and thoughts to. It becomes a one- sided conversation where you’re just telling God stuff and treating Him as if he is just an invisible sounding board. That is most certainly not what you want to do, if closeness With Him is your desired goal. 

On the other hand, there are some who would rather talk To Him than get into His Word. 

When He talks to us, when He answers our prayers, He will refer us back to His Word. (And I’m jumping ahead a bit, but a way to check whether what you believe you’re hearing From Him IS From Him is to “test” it by checking it against His Blessed Word; What He Says to you cannot contradict The Bible, but more on that later.)

So, if you neglect reading His word, you run a substantial risk of not realizing or understanding when He HAS answered one of your prayers, or how He has chosen to answer it, or even both.

3.       Worshipping is my favorite way to draw closer to and build a stronger relationship with God. It can be done in many ways: speaking, singing, writing, dancing…you name it. 

As long as it isn’t unbiblical and it does indeed glorify God, you can do it. You can even weave it into your prayers with statements like “Almighty LORD God, I worship Your Holy Name!” or “LORD Jesus, I praise Your Holy Name. I lift Your Name on high, O LORD, there is no name higher than Yours.” 

Whatever it is you do to worship the LORD, just make sure it comes from your heart. Make sure you are doing so with the utmost sincerity.

Worshipping our God is a way that we can show Him how much we love Him and need Him. It is a way that we can pour our hearts out to Him and not only acknowledge but also exalt Him in a very simple and yet meaningful and powerful way.

Ok, I’m building my relationship with Christ, I feel closer to Him than I have ever felt before. But how do I FOLLOW Him?

This is quite an important question, one that I am still learning the answer to myself! But that is why this ongoing series of articles is ongoing. 

It’s me sharing nuggets of knowledge I pick up along the way. Some of them will fit neatly into a list or outline, while others might be woven in, without a heading or example. That’s how He Works, sometimes, working things into us that we don’t even perceive until much, much later.

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It is important to know that when following Christ, He will call you to change things about yourself and your life in order to prepare you for the glorious purpose that He has built you (and you alone) for. 

What will He change? Anything and everything that is not from Him.

I cannot tell you what He will change in you, only what He has changed in me. 

In order for Him to make any of the necessary changes in you, before you can start truly following Him, though, you must first surrender to Him. 

Surrender means to lay down, give up, give over to. 

As far as our LORD goes we have to surrender our lives to Him. 

What does that mean?

It means accepting His control over our lives. It means laying down our own will and taking up His. It means accepting that He knows best for us in all things, it means accepting His decisions in all things. 

This is contrary to what culture teaches us. 

Our LORD was very countercultural when He walked this earth, and He calls His followers (as He did when He walked this earth) to be countercultural as well. 

This means not participating in, supporting, or accepting anything that goes against His Word.

THINGS GOD HAS CHANGED IN ME (an ongoing list)

1.       He has removed my desire for unGodly media like secular music, movies and video games

2.       He has removed my addiction to adult content

3.       He has removed every trace of an interest in things like trading card games and anime (each had demonic elements in them)

4.       He has removed my desire for all alcohol

5.       He has removed my desire for all forms of weed

6.       He is teaching me to be more loving to family, friends, enemies and humanity in general

7.       He is teaching me to be more patient with people

8.       He is teaching me to be more generous without expecting any sort of benefit for myself

9.       He is teaching me to let go of my need to always be right

10.   He is helping me to curtail my temper

11.   He is teaching me to be more responsible with my finances

12.   He has taught me that nothing happens by accident or chance in our lives

13.   He is teaching me to rely on Him no matter what is going on in my life

14.   He is teaching me to be quick to forgive

Why did I just air out my dirty laundry to you like this? 

I did this because I wanted to show you rather than tell you one of the most important lessons I learned in this early stage of my walk with Christ.

ANYONE CAN COME TO CHRIST. 

YOU DO NOT HAVE TO “CLEAN YOURSELF UP” BEFORE YOU COME TO HIM. 

IT DOES NOT MATTER HOW BROKEN YOU ARE OR HOW DIRTY YOU FEEL. 

IT DOES NOT MATTER WHAT YOU HAVE DONE IN YOUR PAST. 

JESUS CHRIST WILL FIX WHAT IS BROKEN IN YOU; HE WILL CLEAN WHAT IS DIRTY. HE WILL REMAKE YOU INTO A NEW YOU IF YOU LET HIM.

It is important for us followers of Christ to know that we CANNOT do anything on our own. 

All of these changes that He has made in my life thus far have been done by Him through His Holy Spirit.

I have done NOTHING other than allow Him to change me and abide by His changes.

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Well ladies and gentlemen, this concludes this first instalment of the nuggets of knowledge series here on metanoiameans.com

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I pray In The HOLY Name Of Jesus That our LORD CREATOR Bless you and Keep you and Make His Face To Shine Upon you!