How to Have a Personal Relationship With God?
We have learned some basic truths about God and Yeshua, including:
that the all-powerful Creator of heaven and earth is both loving and forgiving toward us.
that Yeshua came to earth and gave his life as a ransom to save us from the consequences of our sins.
Now we will learn how to enter into a personal relationship with God. God already knows you. You can know God, too. Learn how in this section.
Repentance and Faith
Now that we have seen who Yeshua is and what he has done for us, how can we know God personally and experience the forgiveness of our sins and the fullness of life (which the Bible calls “salvation”) that God offers? The answer is by simply placing our trust in Yeshua as our sin-bearer, turning from our sin and to Yeshua.
When we place our faith in Jesus as our sin-bearer, we are at the same time turning away from our sins. Another way to say this is that when we trust in Jesus, we are simultaneously repenting of our sins. Repentance (teshuvah in Hebrew) simply means turning around from going in our own direction and turning instead to God. When we place our trust in Yeshua, we are simultaneously confessing our sins to God, which in the Bible simply means to agree with God that what we’ve done is wrong. We are turning away from our own broken, evil nature, and turning to God for help and healing. As we do so, He creates in us a new nature and a new faith-filled heart. The Hebrew Bible describes what God does when this happens:
“The time is coming,” declares the LORD, “when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah. It will not be like the covenant I made with their forefathers when I took them by the hand to lead them out of Egypt, because they broke my covenant, though I was a husband to them,” declares the LORD. “This is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after that time,” declares the LORD. “I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people. No longer will a man teach his neighbor, or a man his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD,’ because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest,” declares the LORD. “For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more.” (Jeremiah 31:31–34)
“I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your impurities and from all your idols. I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.” (Ezekiel 36:25–26)
King David was someone who experienced this spiritual cleansing as he confessed his sins, which included adultery and murder-by-proxy. Psalm 51 depicts the king as turning to God and away from his sins. It is worth reading the first part of the poem:
Have mercy on me, O God,
according to your unfailing love;
according to your great compassion
blot out my transgressions.
Wash away all my iniquity
and cleanse me from my sin.
For I know my transgressions,
and my sin is always before me.
Against you, you only, have I sinned
and done what is evil in your sight,
so that you are proved right when you speak
and justified when you judge.
Surely I was sinful at birth,
sinful from the time my mother conceived me.
Surely you desire truth in the inner parts;
you teach me wisdom in the inmost place.
Cleanse me with hyssop, and I will be clean;
wash me, and I will be whiter than snow.
Let me hear joy and gladness;
let the bones you have crushed rejoice.
Hide your face from my sins
and blot out all my iniquity.
Create in me a pure heart, O God,
and renew a steadfast spirit within me.
Do not cast me from your presence
or take your Holy Spirit from me.
Restore to me the joy of your salvation
and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me.
Then I will teach transgressors your ways,
and sinners will turn back to you. (Psalm 51:1–13)
A story and an invitation
This is a beautiful portrait of confessing sin and trusting in God’s forgiveness. Likewise, the New Testament gives another picture of what it is like to turn from our sins and to God. Here is the full story:
Jesus continued: “There was a man who had two sons. The younger one said to his father, ‘Father, give me my share of the estate.’ So he divided his property between them.
“Not long after that, the younger son got together all he had, set off for a distant country and there squandered his wealth in wild living. After he had spent everything, there was a severe famine in that whole country, and he began to be in need. So he went and hired himself out to a citizen of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed pigs. He longed to fill his stomach with the pods that the pigs were eating, but no one gave him anything.
“When he came to his senses, he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired men have food to spare, and here I am starving to death! I will set out and go back to my father and say to him: Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me like one of your hired men.’ So he got up and went to his father.
“But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him.
“The son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’
“But the father said to his servants, ‘Quick! Bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. Bring the fattened calf and kill it. Let’s have a feast and celebrate. For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’ So they began to celebrate.
“Meanwhile, the older son was in the field. When he came near the house, he heard music and dancing. So he called one of the servants and asked him what was going on. ‘Your brother has come,’ he replied, ‘and your father has killed the fattened calf because he has him back safe and sound.’
“The older brother became angry and refused to go in. So his father went out and pleaded with him. But he answered his father, ‘Look! All these years I’ve been slaving for you and never disobeyed your orders. Yet you never gave me even a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours who has squandered your property with prostitutes comes home, you kill the fattened calf for him!’
“‘My son,’ the father said, ‘you are always with me, and everything I have is yours. But we had to celebrate and be glad, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’” (Luke 15:11–32)
Did King David, or the younger son in the story, think that confessing their sins to God would be the moment before the hammer falls, leading to a merciless God’s punishment? Not at all! Rather, turning from our sin in repentance and confession brings great joy to God. When we agree with Him that we have sinned and cast ourselves on Him like a little child, He is overjoyed!
You can place your trust and faith in Yeshua by means of voicing a prayer like this one (silently or aloud). Of course, it’s not the recitation of a prayer that brings us salvation, but what the prayer expresses of your heart’s desire:
“Dear God, I confess that I have sinned against you many times and I want to turn from my sins by trusting in Yeshua as my atonement and sin-bearer. I believe you provided Jesus as the full payment for my sin. Today I give my life to you. I surrender my life to become your follower and receive you into my life as my Lord and Savior. Thank you God for cleansing me of sin and for sealing my name in your Book of Life forever. Thank you for the gift of eternal life. Help me to trust you and follow you every day. Amen.”
Remember, Jesus said, “All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never drive away.” (John 6:37). God’s love has made a provision for your and my sin, and by putting our faith in Yeshua, we are promised that He will never abandon us.
Not only are our sins forgiven through Jesus, but the New Testament also frequently speaks of faith or trust in him as leading to eternal life:
For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. (John 3:16)
(Yeshua speaking) “I tell you the truth, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be condemned; he has crossed over from death to life.” (John 5:24)
“I tell you the truth, he who believes has everlasting life.” (John 6:47)
And this is his command: to believe in the name of his Son, Yeshua the Messiah, and to love one another as he commanded us. (1 John 3:23)
I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life. (1 John 5:13)
What a wonderful gift—to be cleansed from our sins and to enjoy life with God forever! There is one more thing about faith that bears repeating: it is simple, childlike trust, the kind of trust reflected in the prayer above. We don’t earn forgiveness from sin, or a relationship with God, or eternal life, by being “good people” or by somehow conjuring up a certain feeling. We cannot “buy” this relationship. It is not a reward for doing good deeds, or mitzvot. If that were the case, we’d all fall short of the mark! Instead, it is a gift from God, as Paul explains:
For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God. (Ephesians 2:8)
“Grace” means undeserved favor. We don’t earn eternal life; we don’t work for a relationship with God. It’s a simple, undeserved gift, because that is the kind of God we believe in. He gives us such a gift only because of who He is. If you said and meant the prayer above, then you received forgiveness of your sins and eternal life as a free gift that God has given you.
And if you prayed the prayer above, before you go to sleep tonight tell another believer in Jesus that you have decided to follow Yeshua. They will be glad to encourage you and pray for you in your new life with God. If you don’t know another believer in Jesus, we’d love to chat (click on the chat icon below) with you and pray with you and be the ones to encourage you in the new adventure you’ve begun.
