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Philip had a front-row seat. He was one of the very first people Jesus called, back in John 1, and he was still at the table on the last night before the cross. If anyone had figured out how a relationship with God works, it should have been him. And yet, on that last night, Philip leaned in and asked for the one thing he felt he still did not have: “Lord, shew us the Father, and it sufficeth us” (John 14:8).
Read that slowly. Years of walking beside Jesus, and Philip still felt like the real connection was somewhere just out of reach. If you have prayed, gone to church, even read your Bible, and still quietly wondered “how do I build a relationship with God?”, you are not behind. You are standing exactly where Philip stood, and the answer Jesus gave him is the most practical answer to that question anywhere in Scripture.
The Answer Jesus Gave Philip
Jesus did not hand Philip a method. No prayer schedule, no reading plan, no list of disciplines to master. He asked a question back, and it is a tender one: “Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip? he that hath seen me hath seen the Father” (John 14:9).
In other words: Philip, the relationship you are asking for has been happening the whole time. Every meal. Every dusty road. Every sick person Jesus stopped for while the crowd pushed to keep moving. That was Philip getting to know God. He just did not recognize it, because he was waiting for something that felt bigger.
Here is the piece most of us miss. We ask “how do I build a relationship with God?” as if God were far away and hard to read. Jesus’ answer is that God has a face, a voice, and a way of treating people, and all of it is on display in Him. You do not have to guess what God is like. You can watch.
Why “Being With” Came Before Everything Else
Mark records the moment Jesus chose His twelve closest followers, and the order of the sentence matters. He chose them “that they should be with him, and that he might send them forth to preach” (Mark 3:14). Being with Him comes first. Being sent comes second.
That is the reverse of how most of us try to build a relationship with God. We start with the doing: serve more, pray longer, read more chapters, fix the habits. Those things are good, and people who walk closely with God tend to do them. But Jesus put them second. The first job of a disciple was simply to be around Him long enough to know Him.
Think about how you got to know your closest friend. Probably not through a program. You were around each other. You saw how they handled a bad day, what made them laugh, what they did when someone was unkind to them. After a while you could predict them. That is what Philip got for free, and it is what Jesus offers you through the Gospels.
Philip’s Own Method: “Come and See”
There is a small detail about Philip that makes this even better. The day Jesus called him, Philip went straight to his friend Nathanael. Nathanael was skeptical and asked, “Can there any good thing come out of Nazareth?” Philip did not argue. He gave a three-word answer: “Come and see” (John 1:46).
That is the whole method. Not “let me explain.” Not “here are my reasons.” Just come, and look at Him for yourself. Philip knew on day one that the way to know Jesus was to spend time near Him. He only forgot, years later, that the same thing was true of knowing God.
What Changes When You Build It This Way
When “building a relationship with God” turns into “getting to know Jesus one day at a time,” a few things quietly change.
- Prayer stops feeling like talking at the ceiling. When you spent this morning reading how Jesus answered a frightened father or a grieving sister, you know who you are talking to.
- The Bible stops feeling like a textbook. The Gospels are four accounts of a real person going places and saying things. You can follow Him through a day the way Philip did.
- You stop waiting for a feeling. Philip wanted a moment that felt like “enough.” Jesus pointed him back to the ordinary days they had already shared. Your Tuesday morning counts, even when it feels ordinary.
- Trust grows from a track record, not a pep talk. After a month of watching how Jesus treats people, “God is good” stops being a slogan and starts being something you have watched Jesus do.
The Honest Problem: Where Do You Start Watching?
The Gospels are long, and a beginner who opens Matthew 1 meets a long list of names before anything happens. Most people who want this never get going, because nobody hands them a path through. That is what 30 Days Walking with Jesus is for. It walks through the life of Jesus one day at a time, so “come and see” becomes something you can actually do tomorrow morning. Each day has a short devotional video under a minute long, a full-chapter audio reading you can play while you get ready, and a PDF study guide with journal prompts so you write down what you noticed about Him. It is thirty days of being with Him, the way Philip was, in under ten minutes a day.
If you are waiting for a relationship with God to feel like something bigger before you call it real, Jesus’ word to Philip is for you too. You have been closer than you think. Now you get to look on purpose.
It is completely free. No payment, no card, no upsell, and it stays yours on any device. The words of Jesus should not sit behind a paywall, so they don’t.
If you would rather begin even smaller, this piece on starting a relationship with God smaller than you think is a good companion. For the morning Jesus cooked breakfast for a friend who had walked away, read how Jesus started with breakfast. And when your time with Him keeps getting cut short, even Jesus’ quiet time got interrupted.
Questions People Are Asking
Q: How do I build a relationship with God if I don’t feel anything when I pray?
A: Feelings are not the measure. In John 14:8-9, Philip had walked with Jesus for years and still asked to be shown the Father, and Jesus answered that seeing Him was seeing the Father. The relationship was real even when Philip could not feel it. Keep spending time with Jesus in the Gospels, and let the knowing come before the feeling.
Q: What did Jesus say about how to know God?
A: Jesus told Philip, “he that hath seen me hath seen the Father” (John 14:9). The plainest way to know God is to get to know Jesus: how He talks, who He stops for, how He treats people who fail Him. The four Gospels are where that record lives.
Q: How do I build a relationship with God as a new Christian?
A: Start the way Jesus started the twelve. Mark 3:14 says He chose them first “that they should be with him,” and only after that to be sent out. Spend a short time each day reading about Jesus before you worry about doing more. Being with Him comes first; the doing grows out of it.
Q: How long does it take to build a relationship with God?
A: There is no set timeline, and the Bible does not give one. Philip was still asking his question after years beside Jesus, and Jesus did not scold him for being slow. What matters is steady, ordinary time together over weeks and months, not a single breakthrough moment.
Q: Is reading the Bible the same as having a relationship with God?
A: Not by itself, but it is where the relationship is fed. Reading the Gospels is how you watch Jesus the way Philip did, and Jesus said that watching Him is how you see God. Pair the reading with honest prayer in your own words, and the information turns into familiarity over time.
