Connecting with God and Others
through Scripture and Prayer
Article By Sam Ferguson
Jesus said to them, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” (Matt. 22:37-39)
Asked what commandment was most important, Jesus answered, “Love God and love neighbor” (Matthew 22:36–39). I’ve often understood this command to be about doing—do what God desires and do nice things for others, and you’ll be loving them. However, I’m coming to see that at a deeper level Jesus’s words here are about being. To love someone, as Jesus further explains, “with all your heart, soul, mind and strength” (Matthew 22:37), implies more than deeds; it also involves a meaningful connection, a relationship.
Here, therefore, Jesus teaches us not only ethics, but also anthropology. We know that in order to flourish, humans require dynamic connection with God and others. The joy of life comes not so much from what we do or have, but who we walk through life with.
The pandemic of 2020 wreaked havoc on our conventional pathways for connecting with one another. It’s been an isolating year for many. This is why as 2021 approaches we should think carefully and creatively about how we’re attending to this relational side of life, both in terms of meaningful connection with God and others.
Below are some suggestions for how to cultivate an experiential connection with God this year, and how this can coincide and fuel connection with another Christian. While neither exhaustive nor prescriptive, I hope these practical suggestions will be helpful for you, and that in 2021 you’ll take the relational design of your soul as seriously as Jesus does.
1. Turn Toward God through Scripture
In his book Towards Understanding Relationships, the late Cambridge professor Robert Hinde explains how meaningful relationships are “dynamic not static,” they are “reciprocal” and “intimate.” The “extent to which participants in a relationship are prepared to reveal all aspects of themselves, experiential, emotional and physical, to each other is a crucial dimension.”[1]
We long not only to speak about God and to God, but to hear from God. He interacts with us primarily (but not exclusively) by His Spirit working through His Word. In Scripture, God reveals myriad aspects of Himself, His plans, passions, what He is like and what He loves.
Dynamic connection with God will not happen outside of steady immersion in His Word. To aid in this, I use a Bible reading plan and a study Bible to guide me in the Word each morning. I highly recommend establishing some plan to turn to God in His Word each day to help in this. I have suggested some reading plans and study Bibles further down.
2. Have a General Rhythm for How You’ll Pray
After I’ve read Scripture, I then turn to prayer because I often find that the Word of God warms my heart and guides me in how to pray and what to pray for. A rhythm I follow for prayer has been explained with the acronym A.C.T.S. It goes like this:
Adoration:
Begin your prayer by adoring God, which is precisely how Jesus taught us to begin: “Our Father in heaven, hallowed by your name” (Matthew 6:9). As we do the same, praise, wonder at, and stand in awe of something about God’s being or God’s creation.
For example, I might sit at my desk, close my eyes, and begin: “Dear Lord, I am overwhelmed by the beauty of what you have made, the heavens, stars, earth, trees, animals and people. There is no other being who existed before all things and spoke them into being” (Genesis 1). This orients my heart, reminding me that I’m a mere mortal and God is the Almighty.
Confession:
Next, I admit my sin in the light of God’s holiness. I do this by using the Prayer of Confession from the Book of Common Prayer.
Most merciful God, we confess that we have sinned against you in thought, word, and deed, by what we have done, and by what we have left undone. We have not loved you with our whole heart; we have not loved our neighbors as ourselves. We are truly sorry and we humbly repent. For the sake of your Son Jesus Christ, have mercy on us and forgive us; that we may delight in your will, and walk in your ways, to the glory of your Name. Amen.
When I get to the line “We have not loved you with our whole heart,” I pause and think of the specific things I’ve loved and wanted more than God—the praise of man, accomplishments, and so on. When I pray the words “we have not loved our neighbors as ourselves,” I stop to think of people in my life that I’ve harbored ill-will toward or those I’ve overlooked due to my own self-interest. I specifically ask God to forgive me for these sins.
Thanksgiving:
I then turn to gratitude, or thanksgiving. I bring to mind the blessings in my life and thank God for them: The Gospel, the promise of eternal life, my parents, my job, my health, my eyesight, my friends, and so on. This reorients the heart away from what we don’t have, to instead focus on what we do have.
Supplication:
Only after adoring, confessing, and thanking do I turn to asking, or supplication. Here I set before God my requests, the things I desperately need His help for and the people who are on my heart.
There are many rhythms for how we turn to God; A.C.T.S. is helpful for me.
3. Connect to God alongside a Friend
It is stunning that after relaying “the great and first commandment,” whereby humankind is called to humbly and joyfully connect to their Maker (Matthew 22:37–38), Jesus can speak of a second command that is “just like it” (Matthew 22:39). How can anything be at all comparable to relating to God Almighty?
God has made us in such a way that our relational needs run vertical and horizontal; we are made not only for relation with God, but also for relation toward others, “to love neighbor” (Matthew 22:39). And the latter need is just like the former!
You will know a richer connection with God if you involve another Christian (spouse, sibling, roommate, friend) in your quest. Likewise, your relationship with this friend will be deepened if you are engaging each other within the context of your connection with God. These are mutually reinforcing and enriching relationships.
We are not made to walk the Christian life alone. And no matter how different our life stages or circumstance may appear, beneath it all we are traveling the same narrow path and need the encouragement of fellow travelers.
In preparation for the New Year, ask a friend if they would commit to this priority of communing with God alongside you, as a fellow traveler. Talk to them about your plan (more on specific plans below) and agree on regular times to check in with each other—whether by Zoom or over coffee or by taking walks together. Make it your aim to do purposeful spiritual good to each other; press past surface-level and ask how your hearts are doing, what sins may be lingering, and how close you feel (or don’t feel) to God. Encourage and pray for each other.
I will now share two practical tools that will help cultivate your relationships with God and another Christians this year: a Bible reading plan to do together, and Study Bibles to help you along the way.
Bible Reading Plans
Encounter with God
Encounter with God, put out by the trusted organization Scripture Union, has long been a resource used by The Falls Church Anglican. It’s a guide through the Bible that also offers study points, questions and applications. It is available in print or there is an online version. Find out more here, or contact our church office if you’d like a paper copy mailed to you.
Essential 100
The Essential 100 takes you through 50 Old Testament and 50 New Testament passages that show you the overarching themes and story of the Bible. It’s a great way to start out in grounding yourself in the biblical story. You can create a free online plan, and do so with a friend, here: online E-100. The plan gives you the texts to read plus a simple guide for connecting with God through the passage: pray, read, reflect, apply, pray. You can also download and print out a one page version of the readings here, PDF E-100
Two-Year Bible Reading Plan
This is the plan I’ve been using for ten years. I like it because it takes you through the entire Bible—every passage—in two years. Along with one reading from the OT or NT each day, the plan also cycles through the Psalms and Proverbs, so each day you have (1) your reading moving through the Bible and (2) a Psalm or Proverb to read. I especially like this feature of having a Psalm or Proverb each day. I recommend using a study Bible if you do this plan (more on recommended Bibles below). You can read about the plan here, and download the PDF Two-Year Plan.
One-Year Bible Reading Plan
Then there is the classic one-year plan. This plan was prepared by the 29-year-old Scottish minister, Robert Murray M’Cheyne, who presented it to his church on December 30, 1842 with the following address:
MY DEAR FLOCK,—The approach of another year stirs up within me new desires for your salvation, and for the growth of those of you who are saved. “God is my record how greatly I long after you all in the bowels of Jesus Christ.” What the coming year is to bring forth, who can tell? . . . Those believers will stand firmest who have no dependence upon self or upon creatures, but upon Jehovah our Righteousness. We must be driven more to our Bibles, and to the mercy-seat, if we are to stand in the evil day…. It has long been in my mind to prepare a scheme of Scripture reading, in which as many as were made willing by God might agree, so that the whole Bible might be read once by you in the year, and all might be feeding in the same portion of the green pasture at the same time.
M'Cheyne would die just months after offering this to his flock, and his legacy lives on as thousands continue to follow this guide into the rich pasture of God’s Living Word. You can download a PDF version with M’Cheyne’s full letter here: M’Cheyne one-year plan with original letter.
Invest in a Study Bible
There are many wonderful English versions of the Bible: The New International Version (NIV), the English Standard Version (ESV), the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV), to name just a few. A study Bible includes the text of Scripture, but also summaries of books, charts, timelines, graphics, notes and helpful essays. The purpose of a study Bible, and why I highly recommend them, is to read the parts of Scripture in the light of the whole story of Scripture, and to have helpful and theologically-sound explanatory notes for tough passages.
Here are two I recommend:
1. The NIV Zondervan Study Bible
I’ve been using this in my morning quiet times for a few years and I love it. The general editor of the project is D.A. Carson, one of the leading biblical scholars of our day, and a devoted follower of Christ. At the bottom of each page there are helpful notes to explain tough passages. It also includes wonderful charts, pictures, and timelines. Several essays by Christian thinkers such as Tim Keller are in the back, covering topics such as “The Gospel” and “The Mission of God.” I especially like these essays because they are developed through Biblical theology, meaning they follow themes across Scripture. You can find the study Bible on Zondervan’s website here.
2. The ESV Study Bible
Another excellent study Bible is the ESV study Bible published by Crossway. It has many of the features of the NIV Zondervan. One difference is that the essays in the back of the Bible are organized by systematic theological categories rather than biblical theological categories. Both are important and are good ways of approaching topics in the Bible. You can find the ESV study Bible on Crossway’s website here.
Friends, make 2021 not so much about what you do, but who you do life with. Set relational goals in line with our Lord’s wisdom; make an intentional plan to connect with God through His Word and prayer, and do so alongside a friend. This foundation of connection with God and others shapes and fuels everything else we do.
[1] Robert A. Hinde, Towards Understanding Relationships. European Monographs in Social Psychology, 18 (London: Academic Press, 1979), 35, 114.
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