Find God



It's Simple to Find God

“But from there you will search again for the LORD your God.
And if you search for Him with all your heart and soul, you will find Him.”
~ Deuteronomy 4:29
 





How Can I Find God? / How Do I Find God?


If you have been asking yourself one of these questions then you've come to the right place. The first thing you want to do when trying to find God is ask for His help. You may not know where He is but He sure does know who you are and where you are. You just have to say a simple little prayer.



What is Prayer?


Prayer is simply talking to God and expressing your heart to Him. Turning our hearts to God brings us closer to Him. So, the most important thing is what's in your heart, not how good your words are. It is not about memorizing and just reciting something. Further below, I've written some prayers for people looking for God. Choose from these one that best reflects your heart or your need. See these prayers as guidelines. If you are new to prayer, just read out audibly—to God—the prayer you've chosen. If you find it easy enough, you can adapt a prayer to reflect the cry of your heart better. To God, the only right words are those that come from a sincere heart that desires to know Him.

You may pray the same prayer a few times a day, or a few times a week, but only if it expresses better than you can the desire of your heart. While it is okay to repeat certain prayers that best express what is in your heart, repeating prayers just to be repetitive (to feel like you've prayed something,) or just out of habit, is not the most effective way to touch the heart of God. When you meet your friends every day, do you tell them today the exact same things you told them yesterday and the day before and the day before that? No--of course not! Prayer, usually, is having a new conversation with God. In any case, He will always answer the prayer of a sincere heart, whether it is a new prayer or a repeated one, and He will help you.

God created us to commune with him. Because of this, we only find true peace, answers to our questions, and solutions to our situations when we talk with Him. So, make time every day to talk with God and listen to Him. In the beginning, the best way for us to listen to Him is by reading the Bible.



Does God Really Answer Prayers?



He most definitely does! Often He will do a miracle. Yes, I said 'often,' because usually we think of a miracles as being immediate, big, unbelievable. But most of the time He will answer through progressive miracles. These are miracles that happen in everyday natural ways, perfectly lining up a sequence of events in your favor, that would rarely occur in the same way for another. 

God specializes in the impossible. He will not normally do for you what you can do for yourself. Things lining up perfectly in your favor in an impossible situation is statistically highly improbable. Yet God often does this for those who have put their trust in Him (and for people who may not believe in Him yet but whom He has put on this earth for a unique and specific purpose.) And He has many different ways, that we cannot even fathom, of having His answers reach us. People who do not know how God works will call these: coincidences. So, when you pray you can expect to receive an answer. But there are two things your really need to understand:
First. God is looking beyond today. He lives in eternity and can see the future. If you trust Him, he will always do what will bring you into the victorious future He has for you. He will not do something that will lead you into a situation of emotional and spiritual defeat. You may lose a small battle but never the war. 

The problem is that we do not often know what the war is about and we do not trust God to decide what's best. We usually think that it is all about us: about what we want here and now. And if God does not do what we think He should do, then we'll do our own thing. But it is not about us. It is about His master plan—loving and blessing others through us. 

Each one of us has been put on this earth for a divine and awesome purpose, and we will never know true joy, peace and fulfillment until we reach our destiny. He wants you to live out what you were created for. He desires to make your life better, which does not necessarily mean easier. He wants to turn you from one who is unstable into a firm pillar, from one who is tossed around by the winds of circumstances into an unmovable rock, in other words, from a weakling into a conqueror. 

When we put our trust in Him and not in ourselves, He will always do what is necessary to get us to the place of victory, this is a place where your life's purpose has been accomplished. A marine does not become a war-hero by having an easy life in the marines. His training is pretty rigorous. God trains us to become victorious in this life and for eternity. 



Second. God is never too late and never too early. He's always right on time. It all depends on what He knows to be the best strategy for your generation, your calling or divine purpose and your personality. But He will show up, without fail, and at the right time (which can be much later than we are expecting Him to.) But He usually responds relatively quickly: within a year, a few months, or even immediately. 

Let me share one of my much slower experiences. In 1975, when I was in my mid-teens, I wanted to find God. I asked Him, if He existed, to show me the way. It was a very simple conversation with God. He started answering my prayer in 1983, but I didn't realize it because it was eight years later (!!) and I had already discarded the reality of God's existence and long forgotten my simple prayer. By then, my head had been filled with all the negative stuff we think about Christians and church. 

But God hadn't forgotten my request. Suddenly, I realized that I was surrounded by quite a number of very kind, caring, humble and hard working, church-going coworkers. They started inviting me to their church but I never went. I was convinced the Bible was full of contradictions and was unreliable because that is what I kept hearing. So, I decided I would read a Bible to set up my arguments against their faith and to prove them wrong. 

I searched around and finally found a Bible I could understand. As I read the Bible, I could not find the alleged contradictions and most things actually made perfect sense. All of a sudden, I began to notice and understand things in and around me, and in others, with perfect clarity. Then began a huge struggle within myself between the logic in my mind and the awakening of my spiritual awareness. After all, I was working at a university and science was our god. It is what we pursued and all we believed in and followed. It took somewhat of a supernatural experience for me to finally understand and accept Christ as my Lord and Savior. And my life has never been the same since. 

Two years after becoming a believer, God took me back, in my mind, to the night my heart had cried out to find Him, to know Him. I had asked Him to show me the way and now I realized He had heard me! He then proceeded to set things up and began to pursue me when the time was right. Then, He was patient and persistent with me. He did not give up on me. He answered my prayer! And I've never turned back. Life with God is not free of the challenges and adversities everyone else faces, but it is an exciting and abundant life full of miracles, blessings, joy and peace.
So, go ahead and just ask Him to show you the way; soon, you'll suddenly realize that He has.




Prayers to Find God

“Come close to God, and God will come close to you”
~ James 4:8

Prayer Sample #1

God, please show me the way to You. Help me find You. And, Jesus, if you are the Son of God who died to save me, please come into my life and save me! I need You and I need peace. Thank You. Amen.

Prayer Sample #2

God, if you exist and if Jesus really is Your Son who died for my mistakes, then please help me find You and help me to believe in Jesus as my savior. I am asking You, God, to please help me and change my life. If You are real, I want to know You and be saved. Thank You.

Prayer Sample #3

God, if You truly exist, I want to be Yours. I want to have a changed life and I want to be able to hear Your voice and Your guidance in my life. Please help me to find You and know You. And God, if Jesus Christ is truly Your Son, if He is really my Savior, please help me to know Him and love Him. Thank You. Amen.
Sample Prayer of Invitation to God


When you are ready to embrace a new life guided by God's love and Holy Spirit, say this simple prayer: 
"Almighty God, I confess that I am a sinner and that I need You. I believe that Jesus died on the cross for me, that he rose again from the dead, and that he is my Savior and my advocate in heaven. Thank you, Jesus, for paying the price for my sin so that I can have a new life. I give you my heart--Jesus, please change me. I invite You into my life and accept You as my Lord and Savior. God, I want you to be my heavenly Father. Please teach me Your ways, make me who You want me to be and fill me with Your Holy Spirit. I ask this in the name of Jesus. Thank You, God. Amen."

Next: Read the Bible!


The next step after praying—and this is very important—is to start reading the Bible. Read online at Bible Gateway. Scroll down to English (or to your own language, if you are not a native English-speaker.)

The Christian Bible consists of two parts: 
  1. The Old Testament (about life before Jesus came into this world and prophecies about the future) which has 39 books,
  2. The New Testament (the teachings of Jesus and life with Jesus) which has 27 books.  
At the beginning of each Testament, there is a list of the books in the order they appear. This list will let you know on which page to find any book you want to read.



Don't start with a difficult Bible. Today, there are so many Bibles that are easy to understand. If English is not your first or native language, or if this is your first time reading the Bible, I recommend one of these:
These are great, introductory and easy-to-understand Bibles for beginners that will help you learn about God, His heart, His plans and about His physical appearance on earth as Jesus. After you've read one of these, you will know enough to understand what you read in a study Bible.


Where to Start Reading?


I highly recommend you to start by first reading the New Testament beginning with either Matthew or Luke, and from John to Jude. If you would prefer a shorter/quicker reading plan (the most essential things) then read the following selections from the New Testament.


First Set
Next Set
Last Set
Matthew or Luke
John
Acts
Romans
1 Corinthians 1, 2 and 13
Galatians
Colossians
1 Thessalonians
Hebrews
James
1 Peter
2 Peter
1 John
2 John

Then read these selections from the Old Testament:
First Set
Next Set
Last Set
Genesis
Exodus
Leviticus
Numbers
Deuteronomy
Joshua
Judges
1 Samuel
2 Samuel
1 Kings
2 Kings
Proverbs
Ecclesiastes
Isaiah 1-12 and 50-66
Jeremiah
Psalms

Then re-read the New Testament but now all the way through and make sure to apply in your life the things that you've learned. After that, read the Old Testament, completely.


Fellowship and Get Baptized


Find a Bible-believing church or fellowship to become part of and continue growing. Now that you know the Bible and have begun to develop a relationship with Christ, you will be able to recognize where the healthy, mature Christians are. Many Christians are immature and live according to the examples and standards of this world. Look for a fellowship where believers are seeking to know God more every day and to be transformed by Him. They won't be perfect because they, too, are continually growing, just like you are. But they will have a heart to do God's will instead of their own and you will be able to work together to help other people find God.

And if you have the opportunity, get baptized. In God's design, we are to be baptized after we consecrate our lives to Him. In the Old Testament, baptism (washing/dunking oneself) in a river or pool was a sign indicating that someone or something was physically clean before God. Similarly, in the New Testament, baptism is a sign that we are no longer spiritually unclean since we have repented of our sins. We are to follow Jesus' example and He Himself chose to do it to fulfill God's requirements (Read Matthew 3). Baptism is a reflection that the spiritually unclean part of us has died, that we were buried with Christ, and that now we are living a brand new, spiritually clean life, a life that is no longer enslaved to sin (Read Romans 6). So, I see baptism as a physical declaration of our consecration to God.

Just know that now you are a new branch on a very fruitful vine (John 15). A fellowship is an extension of Christ in the earth. Any branch that is by itself, meaning, not connected to a tree (or a vine,) dies off. Remember this.

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