What Does It Really Take to Prioritize Your Relationship with Christ?

Relationships are key to life on this planet. It gives us encouragement and motivation for the day ahead when we know there are people among us who need our love and support, just as we need theirs.

But the most important relationship we need in our lives, today and always, is one with our Savior, Jesus Christ. He is the only one who knows what we need, who we can be, and what lies ahead for us in Heaven.

Prioritizing your relationships helps them bloom and grow into valuable aspects of your daily life. The same is true for your relationship with Jesus. Without bringing Him into your life each day, your relationship with Him will become stunted, not the necessary tool you need to get through the day.

So, what steps do we take to prioritize our relationship with Christ, to really make an effort to keep Him front and center in all our decisions, intentions, and feelings?

What Is a Relationship with Christ?

Before we venture into what it means to prioritize a relationship with Jesus Christ, we need to learn why it is important for us to have a relationship with Him at all.

As we have learned through the four gospels, as well as throughout the Bible, Christ is God embodied as a human who came to Earth to reveal God’s plan for humanity and to take our sins to the cross through His death, burial, and resurrection. When we learn of this truth and believe that Jesus did those acts for our salvation, we open the door for Jesus to enter our hearts and make us into new creations (2 Corinthians 5:17).

From there, in any situation and for any matter in our lives, we are able to access Jesus, God, and the Holy Spirit all in one relationship. We also change internally to align more with Jesus’s heart, which changes us externally to reflect God’s character to those around us. Peace in impossible situations, blessings coming from out of nowhere, and a strong sense of inner guidance are among the advantages that emerge when we become eternally connected with the Lord.

Steps to Prioritize This Relationship

As you can see, knowing Jesus personally through a thriving relationship has so many amazing changes that come with it. And in any relationship, helping it thrive requires taking certain steps.

However, in a relationship with Jesus, it is slightly different from one with a physical person. Jesus is visible in our lives in other ways that require different ways to prioritize the connection with Him.

That word prioritize, according to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, is to list or rate goals, tasks, or projects in order based on importance or when you need to accomplish them first.

The first step to take in prioritizing your relationship with Jesus is make sure you have accepted Him into your heart as your Lord and Savior. You need to make sure that you have accepted His presence and sacrifice into your heart, making this commitment known to all through water baptism. Water baptism signifies that you are dying to your old way of life (in sin) and embracing a new way of life (free from sin).

Once you have made this commitment, the next step of prioritization is to look at your life and see what changes you need to make now that you are in a new relationship with Jesus. It could be stopping harmful habits you were indulging in. changing your attitude toward life and people, or even making a complete life change to embark on a new path God has for you.

Whatever this next step is, you will know it is Jesus leading you when you feel a prompting in your soul to see your life from a new perspective and the desire to not let anything come between you and God.

Spiritual Prioritizing

Once you have accepted Christ and made changes to your previous way of life, the next step will be bringing Christ more into your life through prayer, Bible study, worship, and service.

Prayer allows you to unite with Jesus in quiet times of solitude, opening your heart to Him by sharing everything on your mind: good, bad, and ugly. When you take time with Jesus in prayer, you also have the benefit of learning what is on His mind for the situations you are facing.

Bible study is another great way to prioritize your relationship with Christ, as it gives you the truth about who Jesus is, what God had Him come to Earth to do, and what we as Christians have to look forward to in the future.

Worship is a deeper way to experience Jesus, releasing all inhibitions to be open and vulnerable before the Lord. This can be achieved as you listen to worship music at church, personally at home, or even while walking around in nature. Worship can happen anywhere and at any time, as long as you have a willing heart to take the time to praise Him.

Finally, service brings the chance to show your relationship with Christ to others. This could be serving in your church or in ministry, or it could even be holding the door open for someone, paying for a person’s meal, or sharing your testimony with someone who needs to hear it. The service comes from the heart of Christ, who lived to serve as well.

What these small actions do is move Jesus further up in your list of priorities, until He is above career, family, personal time, even yourself. Though some may scoff at this change in your priorities, when you place Jesus above everything else, He takes care of the things and people that matter to you as well.

When Jesus is prioritized first, peace will infiltrate all the other areas of your life: career, family, and all of life. You will know by placing Him first, everything else will be under His watch, and you will discover how to love and care for what you value most in a better way.

Prioritizing your relationships is a helpful way to ensure that the relationships that matter most to you are put at the top of your focus, love, and care, and the same is true for your relationship with Christ. Once you realize all He has done to be in relationship with you, you will feel the pull to do and be all you can for Christ.

So, today, make that first step of prioritizing your relationship with Christ by welcoming Him into your heart. You will never expect what will come into your life through this open door.

Photo credit: ©Getty Images/Vichien Petchmai

Blair Parke is a freelance writer for BibleStudyTools.com and freelance book editor who wrote her first book, "Empty Hands Made Full," in 2021 about her journey through infertility with her husband. She previously worked for eight years with Xulon Press as an editor. A graduate of Stetson University with a bachelor's in communications, Blair previously worked as a writer/editor for several local magazines in the Central Florida area, including Celebration Independent and Lake Magazine and currently writes for the Southwest Orlando Bulletin. She's usually found with a book in her hand or enjoying quality time with her husband Jeremy and dog Molly. You can order her book at Christian Author Bookstore - Xulon Press Publishing and visit her website at Parkeplaceediting.