What does it mean to have a relationship with God?

• To have a relationship with God is different from simply working for God
• Invest in your personal relationship with God, because He is also your Father

·       When you invest in this relationship, your service becomes an act of gratitude and honour and not just a simple fulfilment of a Schedule

·       Take care of your life by taking care of your relationship with God

 Reading the Bible – a Christian who doesn’t read the Bible is a misguided follower

• Look for the evidence, in what God has left us: the Bible
• You can’t read the Bible like a storybook
• Don’t be fooled, know the truth – Nehemiah’s central point, following Ezra, is about rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem. During various attempts to put fear into Nehemiah and prevent the building of the walls, there was one time when they came with a speech:

Nehemiah 6:10 – ‘Later, I went to visit Shemaiah, son of Delaiah and grandson of Metabel, who was being held at home. He said, ‘Let’s meet in the temple and lock ourselves in.

inside. Your enemies are coming tonight to kill you!’ I replied, ‘Would I, the governor, run away? And not being a priest, how could I enter the temple without losing my life? No, I would never do such a thing!’ I soon realised that it wasn’t God who had spoken to him; Sanballat and Tobias had bribed him. They’d done it to frighten me into sinning by

me to sin, fleeing to the temple so that they would have something to accuse me of.

If Nehemiah didn’t know what the Truth was, if he didn’t know what sin was, if

he didn’t know and was just going to follow the apparently correct political speech, he was going to sin and do something that wasn’t right in God’s eyes

• It’s not because you have thousands of followers on social media, and because you have lots of material things and money that you’re telling the truth 1 John 4:1

Speeches that exalt the ego more than

make you aware of your mission, is not the Word

It’s living by faith

• Faith leads you to accept God’s mission, even if it’s not favouring you as you thought, but because God says so, you go. If you accept God’s calling, thinking about how much you can be favoured, if you live, pray and sow for your own benefit, think about: Do you want the honour of carrying Jesus or the credit for carrying Jesus? Don’t use Him for your own things, you are a vehicle for the progress of the Gospel and not for yourself to be exalted
• Mary and Joseph accepted God’s calling. And where is the honour of Mary, who accepted the calling? And Joseph who helped?

It’s guarding your heart

• Regardless of what people in the Church and your references say
• Don’t take God’s Holy Spirit to places where he is not honoured and can be made sad.

It’s going to church

• There’s no such thing as ‘following Christ’ without going to church

Hebrews 10:25 – not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as is the manner of some, but exhorting one another, and so much the more as you see the Day approaching.