Growing Closer To God Through Intentional Relationships Part 2 — A ‘Time With God’ Devotion

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Transcript

Good morning. All this week we’re talking about how to grow closer to God through intentional relationships, and you know what we mean by that word intentional, it means on purpose, right? You’re not just letting things happen, you’re choosing for things to happen.

And we said yesterday it’s so important to choose the friends, the peers, the people who you hang out with who are also hungry for God and wanting to grow closer to God. And as you get close together, you’ll spend time talking about God, encouraging one another, and growing spiritually. Here’s the lesson for today. Build accountability into your relationships.

Build accountability into your relationships. Now let me first just give you the principle. It comes right out of John 3:19-21.

It says this, “and this is the judgement. The light has come into the world”.

“And people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil, for everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light lest his works should be exposed.

“But whoever does what is true comes to the light so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God”.

Well, we all know this principle, right? When you’ve done something that’s not right, you don’t want it to be known.

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It starts out when you’re kids, of course, you don’t want your parents to find out, but this is a principle of life. Things don’t seem nearly as bad when we’re doing them, right?

In our own minds, they’re not so bad in the middle of the action. But when they come into the light, then it’s really clear that was bad, that shouldn’t have happened, and we don’t like that feeling, right? So we try to keep those things in the dark, but spiritual growth happens when you start bringing those things into the light and seeing how ugly they are, right? And when you have to talk to someone else about those things,

That’s rough. And you don’t want that to happen again. It’s like positive peer pressure, encouraging you to walk with God. In 1 John 1, starting in verse 5, here’s what John says again. “This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you that God is light”.

“And in him is no darkness at all. If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practise the truth. But if we walk in the light as He Himself is in the light, we have fellowship with one another” – you see the principle there, bringing things into the light with one another.

“And the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin. If we say we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves, and the truth is not in us. But if we confess our sins, He’s faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar and his word is not in us”.

Not only that, but if you say that you haven’t sinned to Christian friends around you, everybody knows you’re blowing smoke, right? Because it’s just not true. My experience with accountability in my life has been so powerful all through my life. I’ve found people.

A few other guys I can meet with each week and be accountable to about my spiritual journey over the past week. We build it around four questions.

The first is we memorise scripture together, two verses a week, memorising a passage until it’s done, and we quote our verses with one another, an easy level of accountability.

Secondly, we talk about our daily time with God during the week. How many days have we spent time with God in His word? And how did it go? Were we connecting with God? What is God saying to us?

Third, my witness for Jesus during the week, who have I talked to about Jesus who doesn’t know Him yet?

And fourth, each one of us comes up with a question that is the thing we would least want to be asked about but most need to be asked about, and that can change as you gain victory in that area of your life over time.

Doing this in my life has been one of the most significant factors in my spiritual growth, and I hope it will be so for you as well.

I’m John North.

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