It is an admirable quality to be enlightened in our day and time, but too view of us really understands what it means. The catch phrases, self-aggrandizing, and feel-good affirmations have found a very cozy and welcoming space in our Christian dialogue. Without our realizing it, many of us have substituted this for the razor-sharp, plainly written truth of God’s Word. We’ve lost the stomach to hear about the consequences of our sin and we run from the subject because its uncomfortable. More often than not in these modern times, watered-down is the quality that describes much of what we hear about God, His requirements, and love. What we may not realize is that the righteousness of God is beyond our notion of perfection. If we’re not able to continually stay humble with a heart of repentance, we can’t be as enlightened to the goodness of God’s blessings and the gratitude He requires for them as we should be.
We want access to God because we recognize all the wonderful ways in which He blesses us. We want to communicate with Him, and we want Him to communicate with us. We want His healing touch, and we want the power and deliverance that comes from His Holy Spirit that works within us. The one thing we neglect is that all this extraordinary bounty comes from knowing and believing the truth of God’s Word. It is only by the truth of His Word that we can be close to God, because Psalm 138:2 tells us that He has magnified His Word above His name. Jesus Christ told us in John 8:32 that the truth is what sets us free. We can’t be set free by believing something isn’t true. We must know and believe God’s Word to grow in Christ and to develop the kind of intimacy with God that He desires.
Walk with God
Colossians 2:6(ESV) so simply tells us, “Therefore, as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him.” We know that the physical presence of Jesus Christ is no longer within the earth. He is in heaven with our Heavenly Father, but even though his physical presence isn’t in the earth, he left us a gift that is much better for our spiritual grow and maturity. He left us the Holy Spirit who lives inside every born-again believer. The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of Christ, so to walk with Christ, we must walk by the leadership and guidance of the Holy Spirit. Jesus said in John 16:13(ESV), “When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come.”
Jesus Christ also said in John 16:8(NLT), “And when he comes, he will convict the world of its sin, and of God’s righteousness, and of the coming judgment.” We have made a mistake in grossly underestimating how much sin offends God. Sinfulness is not a natural state of being, and the mindset of sin takes us out of God’s Will. God gave us free-will choice, and when the devil tempted Adam and Eve, they could have made a completely different choice. They choose to entertain the devil and bow to him through sin. They gave him their dominion and authority. Had they made a different choice; we would be living a completely different reality today.
When Adam and Eve sinned, they were separated from God, because this is what sin does. Sin interferes with the plan and Will of God for our lives, and it keeps us from the blessings we desire most. God sent Jesus Christ to give his live on the cross as a sacrifice for our sin. Through Christ, God has handled the sin issue, and even though we’ve given our lives to Christ and accepted him as our Lord and Savior, many of us still give in to the temptation of sin. Most people do not even acknowledge that sin is a problem. They feel entitled to do whatever they choose, right or wrong, and they don’t feel obliged to God to seek His forgiveness.
Establishing intimacy with God requires us to let the Spirit be at work within and it also requires us to acknowledge and pay attention to that work. If we choose to walk with God and remain close to Him, the Spirit living on the inside of us will convict us of our sin. We must recognize this as part of the Spirit’s work. Walking with God is joy everlasting, and through the Spirit, we’ll have an increased awareness of anything that impedes our joy, including the sinfulness that keeps our blessings at bay. This awareness is not to weaken us but to strengthen us. As we confront the thing that has held us back, the Spirit will help us conquer it so that it no longer separates us from the life God wants us to have.
Talk with God
We know that God communicates with us through His Word and through the Holy Spirit within. He communicates through the situations and circumstances of our lives, and sometimes He gives us a Word of knowledge or prophecy that can profoundly impact the way we think and approach life. His prophecy that is revealed in Acts 2:17(ESV) tells us, “And in the last days it shall be, God declares,
that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams.” We’re witnessing the manifestation of this in real time. Many believers receive divine revelation and guidance through the Holy Spirit by dreams and visions. So, our Heavenly Father can communicate with us in many ways. However, the level of intimacy we establish in our relationship with our Heavenly Father is dependent on the quantity and quality of how we communicate with Him.
He set the bar for our intimate communication in 1Thessalonians 5:17, where He tells us to pray without ceasing. This doesn’t mean that He expects us to abandon our other responsibilities in life. God is conveying the heart and mindset we are to have about communicating and communing with Him. Through our humility, faith, and gratitude, our whole lives should be a prayer before God as we seek and honor Him in all that we do. God’s Will is that increasingly we are reflecting His character. Life experiences will continually ask us to examine how we’re doing with this. They will prompt us to release the sinful things that hold us back so that we have new priorities, perspectives, and passions that reveal our identity in Christ.
As we walk and talk with God, we must recognize that the humility to surrender to Him and to uncloak ourselves of sinful behaviors, thoughts, and attitudes is required. His goodness and righteousness must be deeply anchored within our hearts, because are being perfected in Christ with every moment of each passing day. The Holy Spirit is doing a work within us, and we need to pay attention. Intimacy with God demands that we partner with that work by praying often, studying and reading His Word, and being motivated to be as close to Him as we possibly can. ■
Scripture quotations marked (NLT) are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.
English Standard Version (ESV)
The Holy Bible, English Standard Version copyright © 2001, 2007, 2011, 2016 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
“Establishing Intimacy in Your Relationship with God”, written by JMack, 4theChristianMan.com© 2023. All rights reserved. All praise and honor to God through Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior.