For many years, I equated intimacy with God to how long I read my Bible and prayed each day. On the days I did those for 30 minutes, I believed I was intimate with God. However, it was a twisted version of what true intimacy with God actually is, which was rooted in "Checklist Christianity."
"Checklist Christianity" is the false belief that by performing certain spiritual activities, I place myself in a position for God to bless me with His love, finances, better relationships and more. It's performance-centric rather than relationship-centric.
Intimacy with God is, at it's core, all about God enjoying us and us enjoying God. Did you know that is the main reason God created us? When we go back to Genesis 2:7, we see this intent clearly. Then the LORD God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being.
When God saved you He united Himself to you just as He did with Adam, when He breathed Himself into him. He did this so you could enjoy each other. Think about it for a moment. God enjoys you by living in you. Legalism says God loves you but just kind of puts up with you. That is critically contrary to the Gospel of Grace.
How, then, can we enjoy intimacy with God the grace way? First, we need to realize that because God is in us, we can talk with Him anytime, anywhere, about anything. We can also hear Him speaking to us in the same way. That includes times we carve out to pray, read the Bible and listen to Him. For example, Jesus spoke about entering into your closet. He was saying that we do well to have a special place we set aside for prayer and that we don't have to pray to impress people.
Where is your closet? I had a friend years ago who literally got in the closet in his room and shut the door. The only problem was that it was so dark it scared him, and his prayer time lasted about 30 seconds! Your prayer closet can be a quiet place in your home, your car, your office, a park, or anywhere you want it to be. Susanna Wesley, mother of John and Charles Wesley, forerunners of the Methodist Church, reportedly put her apron over her head and made that her prayer closet, since she could find no place to get away from her 18 children!
Yet, intimacy with God exceeds those carved out times. You can pray when you are at work, when you are on an errand, even when you are watching TV. I wanted to watch a basketball game one night and asked Jesus what he thought about that. He said to me that He liked basketball and wanted to watch it with me. We had a great time together!
Intimacy with God can also be times of quiet where you are simply aware that Jesus is communing with your spirit, though there are no words being spoken.
Intimacy with God is not about putting ourselves in a position to be blessed. It is enjoying the royal position we already have, in already being blessed with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus! (Ephesians 1:3).
Take off the legalistic glasses preventing your true intimacy with God, and put on the comfortable "Son-glasses" by believing that God enjoys being in you, so that you can enjoy Him, too? Would you stop and tell Him that you believe He enjoys you, just because He is in you?
There is so much more I want to tell you about this which I will be teaching on June 6, from 6-9pm (Romans 5). Though all of the FREE seats for that night are SOLD OUT in our office, you can still come to Romans 5 that first night if you register for ALL of the Foundation for Transformation Conference (Romans 5-8). We have reserved a few seats for people who sign up for the entire Conference which includes June 6, 13, 20 and 27.
We also have a few seats still left ONLINE that are FREE for June 6, but you need to SIGN UP HERE ASAP to insure one of the remaining ones.
Believe it! It's the Gospel.
Live Free In Christ,
Mark Maulding, President and Founder
www.GraceLifeInternational.com All Content Copyright © 2016 Mark Maulding but feel free to pass it on!
