How To Go Deeper With God [With Bible Verses]

Being a Christian is exhilarating, isn’t it? Especially when you’re new to the faith. When you’re high on God’s newly discovered love for you. It’s then that you start noticing with amazement God’s fingerprints all over your life. And you easily trust Him to have your back, to work things out, and to meet your needs.

Yes, when you’re new, your Christian walk is wonderful and thrilling.

Then the shine starts to wear off. Because the inevitable life trials come and trusting God is suddenly more difficult. Like when He seems silent. When He doesn’t answer your prayers in your way or your timing. Or when He doesn’t divert the hardships that you’d rather not endure.

But it’s those times that can leap you forward in your spiritual growth. Because that’s when you put your faith to work and become a warrior woman for God.

In fact, God tells us in His word that we need to claim His promises by growing in our faith walk.

In view of all this, make every effort to respond to God’s promises. Supplement your faith with a generous provision of moral excellence, and moral excellence with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with patient endurance, and patient endurance with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love for everyone. The more you grow like this, the more productive and useful you will be in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. But those who fail to develop in this way are shortsighted or blind, forgetting that they have been cleansed from their old sins.

2 Peter 1:5-8 (NLT)

See the warning at the end? If you don’t deliberately go deeper with God, you’ll forget about His saving grace.

So let’s explore the 2 main ways to cultivate a deeper relationship with God.

Bible Verses About Getting Closer To God Through His Word

The first way we go deeper with God is by getting to know Him better. This shouldn’t be surprising because the same holds for any relationship.

And the way to get to know God better is by getting to know His word. Because that’s where He reveals exactly who He is.

Your spiritual growth through the word is such an important issue that Jesus taught a whole parable about it. It’s called the Parable of the Sower or the Parable of the Soils, which you can find in Mark 4:1-9. Then Jesus explained the parable:

As for what was sown on rocky ground, this is the one who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy, yet he has no root in himself, but endures for a while, and when tribulation or persecution arises on account of the word, immediately he falls away. As for what was sown among thorns, this is the one who hears the word, but the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches choke the word, and it proves unfruitful. As for what was sown on good soil, this is the one who hears the word and understands it. He indeed bears fruit and yields, in one case a hundredfold, in another sixty, and in another thirty.”

Matthew 13:20-23 (ESV)

How To Go Deeper With God Through His Word

Let’s dig a little deeper into this concept of understanding God’s word. Because you may easily think this means occasionally reading your Bible, doing a devotional, or listening to a sermon and saying, “Amen!”

But the AMPC Bible breaks down “understanding” as “grasps and comprehends.” Can you “grasp and comprehend” something into which you don’t dig deeply? Hardly.

Going deeper with God means studying His word for yourself, life your life and future depend on it. Because they do.

So commit yourselves wholeheartedly to these words of mine. Tie them to your hands and wear them on your forehead as reminders. 19 Teach them to your children. Talk about them when you are at home and when you are on the road, when you are going to bed and when you are getting up. 20 Write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates21 so that as long as the sky remains above the earth, you and your children may flourish in the land the Lord swore to give your ancestors.

Deuteronomy 11:18-20 (NLT)

A Deeper Relationship With God Verses

The second main way to go deeper with God is through prayer. Again, this shouldn’t be surprising because communication — talking things out — is essential in growing any relationship.

The Lord is near to all who call on him, to all who call on him in truth.

Psalm 145:18 (ESV)

This is true, no matter what your circumstances.

Are any of you suffering hardships? You should pray. Are any of you happy? You should sing praises.

James 5:13 (NLT)

But there’s a catch. Because the thing to remember here is what prayer isn’t.

First, prayer isn’t putting in your order for what you want.

As you get to know God better, you grow to love Him so much more that you want to do what He wants more than what you want. That’s when your prayers start evolving. They become less about handing in your wishes and more about praying His will.

And this is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us. And if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests that we have asked of him.

1 John 5:14-15 (ESV)

And how do you get to know the will of God so you can pray it back to Him? Easy: you get to know Him better through studying His word.

Second, prayer isn’t you talking non-stop to God.

Yes, God absolutely wants you to pour out your heart to Him, and you absolutely should.

O my people, trust in him at all times. Pour out your heart to him, for God is our refuge.

Psalm 62:8 (NLT)

But prayer is two-way communication with God. Which means, you also stop talking and listen.

The wise are glad to be instructed, but babbling fools fall flat on their faces.

Proverbs 10:8 (NLT)

Of course, God speaks to you in different ways. So it’s also up to you to learn how to open your spiritual ears to hear Him.

Go Deeper With God Like It’s Your Job

Truthfully, going deeper with God in your Christian walk is your job.

And now, just as you accepted Christ Jesus as your Lord, you must continue to follow him. Let your roots grow down into him, and let your lives be built on him. Then your faith will grow strong in the truth you were taught, and you will overflow with thankfulness.

Colossians 2:6-7 (NLT)

So don’t neglect your job: study His word and pray fervently. Dig deep with God, because the future of your faith depends on it.

Also, God attaches lots of promises to your spiritual growth. But one of the best, I think, is that as you go deeper with Him, you face life’s trials from a position of strength instead of fear.

For I can do everything through Christ, who gives me strength.

Philippians 4:13 (NLT)

Then you’ll come through your difficulties even more deeply rooted in Him.

But he knows where I am going. And when he tests me, I will come out as pure as gold.

Job 23:10 (NLT)