Step 11 - Sought through prayer, meditation, studying God’s Word, and the continuous

renewing of our minds to improve our relationship with God.

In Step 11, we seek to improve our relationship with God. Communication is a critical component in every relationship, and communication is essential for improving our relationship with God. If we are to have an authentic, intimate relationship with God, we need to experience communication with Him.

Prayer, meditation, and God’s Word all work together to allow us the tremendous gift and privilege of two-way communication with God. Frequent communication with God will frequently renew our minds and frequently improve our relationship with Him. Continuous communication with God will continuously renew our minds and continuously improve our relationship with Him. Our relationship to God (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit) is the single most important aspect of our lives. It’s why we were created. If our relationship with Him isn’t right, nothing else matters. Why wouldn’t we be continuously seeking to improve the most important aspect of our lives?

When we have a little communication on a superficial level with someone, our relationship stays on a superficial level and we never really get to know them very well. Even if this someone really wants to have a deeper, more meaningful relationship with us, we will never get to know them until we take the time to develop a deep and meaningful relationship with them. What if we only called them when we needed their help? Well, it wouldn’t be a very deep and meaningful relationship.

To develop a deep and meaningful relationship, we would have to spend time with them, sharing, listening, learning about them, and developing a relationship. It’s the same with God. Until we take the time to develop a deep and meaningful relationship with Him, we won’t have one.

God speaks uniquely to individuals, and He can do it in any way He pleases. As we draw closer to God and walk in an intimate relationship with Him, we will come to recognize His voice. Jesus compared the relationship He has with His followers to the relationship a shepherd has with his sheep.

John 10:2-4 – The man who enters by the gate is the shepherd of his sheep. 3 The watchman opens the gate for him, and the sheep listen to his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. 4 When he has brought out all his own, he goes on ahead of them, and his sheep follow him because they know his voice.

In a book by Henry Blackaby called, “Experiencing God,” Blackaby says:

“God speaks to us through a variety of means. In the present God primarily speaks by the Holy Spirit through the Bible, prayer, circumstances, and the church. These four means are difficult to separate. God uses prayer and the Bible together. Often circumstances and the church, or other believers, will help confirm what God is saying to you. Frequently God uses circumstances and the church to help you know His timing.”

For this study we will be focusing on the Bible, meditation, and prayer. Blackaby didn’t refer to meditation in his list, because he includes meditation in studying the Bible and in prayer.

The Bible – God’s Word

The Bible is God’s Word. It describes God’s complete revelation of Himself to humanity. God speaks to us through the Bible. However, a person cannot understand spiritual truth unless the Spirit of God reveals it. The Spirit uses the Word of God to instruct us in the ways of God. On our own, we can’t understand the truths of God.

1 Corinthians 2:14 – The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned.

As we learned in Step 2, Jesus promised the gift of the Holy Spirit of truth to those who believe in Him.

John 14:16-17 – And I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Counselor to be with you forever-- 17 the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept Him, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him. But you know Him, for He lives with you and will be in you.

When the Holy Spirit reveals a spiritual truth to us from the Word of God, we are having an encounter with God. God is speaking to us. We are hearing Him. Through communication our relationship with Him is improving. Jesus said this about the Holy Spirit:

John 16:12-15 – “I have much more to say to you, more than you can now bear. 13 But when He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on His own; He will speak only what He hears, and He will tell you what is yet to come. 14 He will bring glory to me by taking from what is Mine and making it known to you. 15 All that belongs to the Father is Mine. That is why I said the Spirit will take from what is Mine and make it known to you.

But, it is not enough just to hear spiritual truth from the Word of God. We must do what it says. We must respond to what God is saying to us.

James 1:22-25 - Do not merely listen to the Word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. 23 Anyone who listens to the Word but does not do what it says is like a man who looks at his face in a mirror 24 and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. 25 But the man who looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues to do this, not forgetting what he has heard, but doing it--he will be blessed in what he does.

Blackaby also suggests this process for hearing and doing revealed truth from God’s Word:

When God leads you to a fresh understanding of Himself or His ways through Scripture:

Write down the verse(s) in a spiritual journal or diary.
Meditate on the verse.
Study it to immerse yourself in the meaning of the verse. What is God revealing about Himself, His purpose, or His ways?
Identify the adjustments you need to make in your personal life, your family, your church, and your work so God can work that way with you.
Write a prayer response to God.
Make the necessary adjustments to God.
Watch to see how God may use that truth about Himself in your life during the day.

When God reveals the truth to us through His Word, we sit in the presence of a living Person. He is the Author of the Scriptures. The Author is telling us what He is doing in our lives, and He is using His Word to do it. We must take that truth, immediately apply it, and adjust our lives to Him. In doing this, we are not adjusting our lives to a concept or a philosophy, we are adjusting our lives to God Himself.

Meditation

The word “meditation” is often misunderstood especially when people link it to transcendental meditation. Meditation in this study refers to lengthy and intent contemplation. It has nothing to do with lighting incense, facing east, sitting cross-legged, and repeating a mantra over and over.

The book of Psalms refers to meditation quite often. Let’s look at a few of the Scriptures to see the subject of meditation in the Psalms.

Psalms 1:1-2 – Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked or stand in the way of sinners or sit in the seat of mockers. 2 But his delight is in the law of the LORD, and on His law he meditates day and night.

Psalms 48:9 – Within your temple, O God, we meditate on Your unfailing love.

Psalms 119:48 – I lift up my hands to your commands, which I love, and I meditate on Your decrees.

Psalms 119:148 – My eyes stay open through the watches of the night, that I may meditate on Your promises.

Psalms 143:5 – I remember the days of long ago; I meditate on all Your works and consider what Your hands have done.

God is the focus of all the meditations in Psalms—His law, His unfailing love, His decrees, His promises, and what He has done. Meditating on God, His nature and His Word increases our conscious contact with Him. As God becomes more and more the focus of our minds, our hearts, and our lives, we move into a closer relationship with Him.

Prayer

In the sixth chapter of Matthew, Jesus instructed His disciples how to pray.

Matthew 6:5-13 – “And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by men. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full. 6 But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. 7 And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. 8 Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask Him. 9 “This, then, is how you should pray: “Our Father in heaven, Hallowed be Your name, 10 Your kingdom come, Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. 11 Give us today our daily bread. 12 Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. 13 And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.”

Let’s break down Christ’s model for prayer in verses 9-13, and look at each part:

Relationship – “Our Father in heaven” – Prayer begins with a time of focusing on God as our heavenly Father and consciously entering His presence. It is good to take the time to meditate on the vastness of God whom we are talking to.

Worship – “Hallowed be Your Name” – Prayer is a time to set our minds and hearts on the nature of God and give Him praise and thanksgiving for who He is and all that He does.

Intervention – “Your kingdom come” – In prayer we have been given the privilege of asking for God’s intervention in our lives. As we surrender our self-will to His will, we can pray that the realities of His kingdom will influence our lives, our families, our friends, the church, the nation, and the world.

Surrender – “Your will be done…” – In prayer, as in life, we should have our will surrendered to God’s will in everything. We want to be very careful not to lean to our own understanding and ask God to do things our way --or the way that we think would work the best. God’s will always works best.

Provision – “Give us today our daily bread.” – Our daily bread describes all that we need. This covers all that we need physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. When we are asking God for our daily bread, we are saying in effect, “Give me what You know I need today.” God knows what we need. God knows what we need even before we ask Him.

Forgiveness – “Forgive us our debts,” – Prayer is a time of getting honest with God. It is a time to confess our sin, and allow the grace of God to touch our lives with cleansing work of Christ.

Forgiving others – “…as we also have forgiven our debtors.” – Here, we link God’s forgiveness and mercy with the forgiveness and mercy that we’ve extended to those who have sinned against us. This is a requirement, not an option.

Matthew 6:14-15 – “For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. 15 But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.”

Protection – “And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.” We need protection from our own susceptibility to temptation as well as from the enemy. In prayer we should ask for the leading of the Spirit as well as the protection of the Father.

Praying in the Spirit

Ephesians 6:18 – And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the saints.

It is important to remember that prayer is two-way fellowship and communication with God. We speak to God, and He speaks to us through the Holy Spirit. It’s not just a one-way conversation. Prayer is more than that. Prayer includes listening as well. In fact, what God says to us in prayer is far more important than what we say to Him.

Prayer is a relationship, not just a religious activity, and it’s certainly not just asking for things that we want. Prayer is designed more to adjust us to God than to adjust God to us. God doesn’t need our prayers, but He wants us to pray. We need to pray because of what God wants to do in and through our lives while we are praying. More from “Experiencing God:”

“When the Holy Spirit reveals a spiritual truth to you in prayer, He is present and working actively in you life. Genuine prayer does not lead you to an encounter with God. It is an encounter with God. What happens when you seek God’s will in prayer? The sequence is this:

God takes the initiative by causing you to want to pray.
The Holy Spirit takes the Word of God and reveals to you the will of God.
In the Spirit you pray in agreement with the will of God.
You adjust your life to the truth. (to God).
You look and listen for confirmation or further direction from the Bible, circumstances, and the church (other believers).
You obey.
God works in you and through you to accomplish His purposes.
You experience Him just as the Spirit revealed as you prayed.

So, when we pray, the Spirit of God will take the Word of God to guide us in the area of our praying.

Romans 8:26-27 – In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express. 27 And He who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God's will.

The Holy Spirit has an advantage over us. He already knows the will of God. When the Holy Spirit intercedes and prays for us, He is praying absolutely in agreement with the will of God. He then helps us know the will of God as we pray.

We know what happens when we ask according to the will of God. We receive it. And when God answers our prayer, He gets the glory, and our faith is increased.

1 John 5:14-15 – This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. 15 And if we know that He hears us--whatever we ask--we know that we have what we asked of Him.

However, we must decide that we only want His will. We must dismiss any selfish desires of our own, and in all honesty come before God seeking the knowledge of His will and His will alone. Then, as we start to pray, the Spirit of God will touch our heart and cause us to pray in the direction of God’s will.

1 Corinthians 2:9-12 – However, as it is written: "No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love Him" 10 but God has revealed it to us by His Spirit. The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God. 11 For who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the man's spirit within him? In the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. 12 We have not received the spirit of the world but the Spirit who is from God, that we may understand what God has freely given us.

And finally about prayer, we need to remember to listen. We can expect God to answer our prayers that are in accordance with His will, but we need to turn on our spiritual concentration and actively look for His answer.

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