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To be very brief for now (more will be posted here soon), there are a few Scriptural basics I'd like to share with you concerning maintaining a healthy relationship with your Savior, Jesus Christ.
First of all, as Christians we have become "adopted" by God as His children. As such an intimate relationship requires, we must spend time with our heavenly Father. Prayer, meditation, and intercession are all ways we can spend time with God.
Prayer is not simply taking our requests to God, tho that is one aspect of prayer. Prayer is also thanking God for His goodness, praising Him for His mercy and forgiveness, or simply speaking our heart to Him.
Meditation is when we sit in silence and either contemplate a Scripture, a passage, a lyric, an aspect of God's nature, or something God has specifically done for us. Meditating on something specific, or sporatic ideas about the Lord can be very intimate and touching times where we grow stronger in our faith. I recommend toggling randomly between prayer and meditation daily, as an act of love and devotion to the One who has created you, cleansed you, and called you out of the darkness and into His glorious light!
Intercession is simply an act of "standing in the gap" between a problem and The Solution (God) on behalf of someone else. This can be done physically, for example, a lawyer is a type of intercessor... but I am referring here to the act of intercessory prayer. This is a form of prayer in which we come to God and plead a case for someone who is upon our heart. We may be praying for God to heal them, protect them, set them free, or lead them to the knowledge of a personal relationship with Him.
Secondly, in order to maintain a healthy relationship with our Lord we must spend time growing in the knowledge of God. A great way to do this is setting a time for daily reading (even if it's not a long time). For those who do not enjoy reading, I would suggest taking one small passage of Scripture a day, maybe just 2 or 3 verses a day (starting with the gospel of John and continuin thru the New Testament). Then meditate briefly upon what you've read and maybe even pray about it and ask God to show you ways to apply that verse or passage to your life.
Finally, for now, we must be willing to allow God to ever change us! Notice that Jesus never just asked anyone to "accept" Him. He always asked for those who would be His disciples to "FOLLOW" Him! Simply believing that Jesus was God in the flesh, died for us, and forgave our sin does not mean we are "saved" from the laws of sin and death (judgement). If we truly believed such, we would take the time to build a strong relationship with Him, meditating in His Word, spending time with Him, and endeavoring to become more like Him each day. The seal of those who are truly redeemed is the fact that they are growing spiritually, always moving forward in their relationship with God.
More coming soon....
