Give Your Relationships to God: Pt. 2 — A ‘Time With God’ Audio Devotion

Subscribe to the ‘Time With God’ Podcast

Transcript

Good Tuesday morning. As we get started on this day, let’s start it the same way we start each weekday morning at this time, listening to God.

It’s so great to realize that we can listen to God, that God who is alive, is speaking to us, and the best place to go if you want to hear from God is to open your Bible.

And as you read, say, God, what do you want to say to me today because I’m listening. I want to build my life around your perspective on life, not just around your perspective, but around my relationship with you and what you want to do in my life and what you want to do through me in this world.

That’s when life becomes great.

Well, we’re talking all this week about giving one of our most precious things to God.

And that is our relationships with the people in our lives. Give your relationships to God.

And we’re recognizing that in the Bible there’s always around the lives of the people who God is working in – there is this sense of intentionality about their relationships with others. They know that as God is working in their lives, he wants to work through them in the lives of the people around them.

And this is a real mind shift for us, isn’t it, not to just have relationships, but to have intentionality in our relationships, a sense of sentness from God. God has sent me into this person’s life. How does he want to use me in this conversation that I’m having with this person today?

Hope 103.2 is proudly supported by

Well, we see a great picture of that in Jesus’s encounter with his first followers. In John chapter one in the Bible, it talks about John the Baptist, who was already having ministry before Jesus came on the scene and had followers and disciples. This is what it says.

The next day again John was standing with two of his disciples, and he looked at Jesus as he walked by and said, Behold the Lamb of God.

Those two disciples heard him say this, and they followed Jesus. Jesus turned and saw them following and said to them, What are you seeking? They said to him, Rabbi, which means teacher, where are you staying?

He said to them, come and you will see.

So they came and saw where he was staying, and they stayed with him that whole day, for it was about the 10th hour.

And one of the two who heard John speak and followed Jesus was Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother.

The first thing he did was find his own brother Simon and said to him, We have found the Messiah, which means Christ. He brought him to Jesus. Jesus looked at him and said, You are Simon, the son of John. You shall be called Cephas, which means rock or stone, and which means Peter translated into Greek.

The next day Jesus decided to go to Galilee. He found Philip and said to him, Follow me.

Now Philip was from Bethiada, the same city as Andrew and Peter. Philip found Nathaniel, his friend, and said to him, We have found him of whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.

Nathaniel said to him, Can any good thing come out of Nazareth? Philip said to him, Well, come and see.

Jesus saw Nathaniel coming toward him and said to him, Behold an Israelite indeed, in whom there is no deceit. Nathaniel said to him, Well, how do you know me?

Jesus answered him, Before Philip called you when you were under the fig tree, I saw you.

Well, isn’t this great? Here Andrew encounters the Messiah. He encounters Jesus and knows this is a turning point in his life. He doesn’t just hang with Jesus though. He immediately goes and finds his brother.

Peter and says we’ve found the Messiah and brings him to Jesus. The next day Jesus calls Philip to follow him, and Philip doesn’t just say, OK, let’s go. He says, Hang on, Jesus, I need to go find my friend. And he goes and finds his friend and brings him to Jesus.

I want to tell you God has put your friends in your life because He wants to use you in their lives. If they already know the Lord, He wants to use you to help them grow in their relationship with God and to find their place in God’s plan in this world. If they don’t know Him, He wants to introduce himself to them through you.

I’m John North.

To go deeper in your faith, visit AFCI.com.au.

Feature image: CanvaPro