OUR INTIMACY WITH GOD

 

"Then God said, 'Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness;...'" Genesis 1:26 NASB

LIFE PRINCIPLE 1

OUR INTIMACY WITH GOD - HIS HIGHEST PRIORITY FOR OUR LIVES - DETERMINES THE IMPACT OF OUR LIVES.

   One of our greatest needs is to know we are loved. Each of us has to feel certain, deep down in our hearts, that someone loves us, cares for us, and has our best interests at heart.

   That is how God designed us. He wants us to know He loves us with a passionate intensity too deep for words.

   God created human beings with fellowship in mind - first with Himself, then with others. But we cannot fully love one another until we have ourselves experienced the love of God. We experience His love when we willingly surrender to His call to be our Savior, Lord, and Friend.

   There are at least three reasons God seeks our surrender:

He loves us and desires our fellowship and worship.

   As long as we hold something back from God, we cannot know Him completely or fully experience His love. When we surrender to Him, we get all of Him. 

He wants our service for Him to be effective and fruitful.

   The more we know and love Jesus, the more effective our service will be. The closer we draw to God, the more impact our lives will have. The more energetically we nurture our relationship with the Lord, the greater the positive mark we will leave behind.

He waits for the freedom to bless us.

   God is omnipotent, but He will not violate His own principles. He draws us to Himself so we can experience His love and forgiveness. He asks for our willing surrender so He can give us the best blessings He has to offer.

So why do we resist? With all this in mind, why does anyone resist surrendering to God?

   Pride is the key reason most people resist surrender. They think they know better than God and that they can handle their lives better than He can, so they keep Him at a distance.

   Others do not surrender because they fear what God will do (or not do) for them, They think that if they give Him control, He'll make them do exactly what will make them most miserable.

   Still others refuse to surrender to Christ because they believe Satan's lie, which tells them God is judgmental and will punish them for their mistakes.

   All of this is completely false! God always has our best in mind. He will refuse us no good thing when we gladly submit to His will (Romans 8:32). He tells us, "'I know the plans that I have for you,' declares the LORD, 'plans for welfare and not for calamity to give you a future and a hope'" (Jerimiah 29:11).

   It only makes sense to surrender to God, because when we do, we grow close to Him - His highest priority for us - and we begin to have an impact on our world.

Dr. Charles F. Stanley continues with a personal example from the life of Anne Graham Lotz. . .  

Do you want to know the Savior and live in the fulness of His blessing each day? You can. David wrote, "They who seek the LORD shall not be in want of any good thing" (Psalm 34:10).

When you accepted Jesus Christ as your Savior, He not only forgave you but also made you into a new creature. You were no longer standing at a distance from God but then were able to draw near to Him. . 

   He knows your weaknesses, and if you will tell Him you want Him to take control of your life, He will come to you in a mighty way and bring hope and light to your situation, no matter how dark and hopeless it may feel (Isaiah 55:6.7).

Stanley, Charles F. Life Principles Daily Bible: Biblical Principles for Each Day of the Year. Nashville, Thomas Nelson. 2011. page 2.

The Way to Hear God Better

Matthew 17:5

⁵ While he was still speaking, a bright cloud covered them, and a voice from the cloud said, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased. Listen to him!”    NIV Bible Gateway.com     

Our ability to hear the Lord is directly related to our relationship with Him. For example, without hearing the call to repentance and salvation in Jesus Christ, an unbeliever cannot become part of God's family Unless this vital step has been taken, nothing else God does or says to that person will make a difference.
   But what about believers? How does a Christian's closeness with God impact his or her listening? This is primarily an issue of identification. Once we receive Christ as Savior, then we certainly have salvation and are eternally secure in Him. But beyond that, God wants us to grow and mature in our faith.
   We grow in Christ by identifying ourselves more and more with Jesus. That continual process bings us closer to God. And so when we pray, we are not talking to some distant god out there somewhere. Instead, we are praying to a God who loves, sustains, and molds us into His own image.
   That changes how we approach Him, doesn't it? Instead of crawling face down before Him, mourning and wailing because of our sin and pleading for His mercies, we can come to Him boldly and joyfully assured that He loves us, forgives us, and rejoices in our prayers.
   When we have unimpeded fellowship with the Father, we definitely hear Him better. As we grow closer to Him, our spiritual hearing continues to improve. Through Jesus, we can have unimaginable clarity and intimacy in our two-way communication with almighty God. Let the Lord know that is your desire. 
Stanley, Charles F. "The Way to Hear God Better." In Touch: Daily Readings For Devoted Living September 2016. Atlanta: In Touch Ministries. page 15.
 

A. W. Tozer 1897 - 1963

Two of his many books, The Best of... offers excerpts of 12

    In the introduction on page 7 of The Best of A.W. Tozer, a statement from Dr. Tozer summarizes what he believed and what he tried to do during his ministry. "I guess my philosophy is this: Everything is wrong until God sets it right." In his writing Tozer calls us "to see that real world of the spiritual... He implores us to worship God that we might become more like Him." page 9 of the introduction.

 Keys to the Deeper Life by A.W. Tozer

If Paul Were Preaching Today

With the words “That I may know him” Paul answered the whining claims of the flesh and raced on toward perfection. All gain he counted loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus the Lord, and if to know Him better meant suffering or even death it was all one to Paul. To him conformity to Christ was cheap at any price. He panted after God as the heart pants after the waterbrook, and calm reason had little to do with the way he felt.

Indeed a score of cautions and ignoble excuses might have been advanced to slow him down, and we have heard them all. “Watch out for your health,” a prudent friend warns. “There is danger that you become mentally unbalanced,” says another. “You’ll get a reputation for being an extremist,” cries a third, and a sober Bible teacher with more theology than thirst hurries to assure him that there is nothing more to seek. “You are accepted in the beloved,” he says, “and blessed with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ. What more do you want? You have only to believe and to wait for the day of His triumph.”

So Paul would be exhorted if he lived among us today, for so in substance have I heard the holy aspirations of the saints damped down and smothered as they leaped up to meet God in an increasing degree of intimacy. But knowing Paul as we do, it is safe to assume that he would ignore this low counsel of expediency and press onward toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. And we do well to follow him.

When the apostle cries “That I may know him,” he uses the word know not in its intellectual but in its experiential sense. We must look for the meaning-not to the mind but to the heart. Theological knowledge is knowledge about God. While this is indispensable it is not sufficient. It bears the same relation to man’s spiritual need as a well does to the need of his physical body. It is not the rock-lined pit for which the dusty traveler longs, but the sweet, cool water that flows up from it. It is not intellectual knowledge about God that quenches man’s ancient heart-thirst, but the very Person and Presence of God Himself. These come to us through Christian doctrine, but they are more than doctrine. Christian truth is designed to lead us to God, not to serve as a substitute for God.

… What the deeper life advocates are telling us is that we should press on to enjoy in personal inward experience the exalted privileges that are ours in Christ Jesus; that we should insist upon tasting the sweetness of internal worship in spirit as well as in truth; that to reach this ideal we should if necessary push beyond our contented brethren and bring upon ourselves whatever opposition may follow as a result.

… Also in this writing Tozer stated, “I believe that the imperative need of the day is not simply revival, but a radical reformation that will go to the root of our moral and spiritual maladies and deal with causes rather than with consequences, with the disease rather than with symptoms… Most evangelicals no longer initiate; they imitate, and the world is their model… We are busy these days proving to the world that they can have all the benefits of the Gospel without any of the inconvenience to their customary way of life. It’s ‘all this, and heaven too.’ … To beg for a flood of blessing to come upon a backslidden and disobedient Church is to waste time and effort… God is not interested in increased church attendance unless those who attend amend their ways and begin to live holy lives.”

…We must return to New Testament Christianity, not in creed only but in complete manner of life as well. Separation, obedience, humility, simplicity, gravity, self-control, modesty, cross-bearing; these all must again be made a living part of the total Christian concept and be carried out in everyday conduct. We must cleanse the temple of the hucksters and the money changers and come fully under the authority of our risen Lord once more. And this applies to this writer and to this magazine as well as to everyone that names the name of Jesus. Then we can pray with confidence and expect true revival to follow.

This was gleaned from an article from the Series in Christian Life published by Zondervan Publishing

Read more of Tozer's books for your own growth!!!

Intimacy With Our Heavenly Father

John 1:12-13

12 But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God; 13 who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God. RSV https://www.biblegateway.com

  From the very beginning, God intended to have an intimate, loving relationship with His children. What evidence do we have that this is His desire?

   His Son. One reason that Jesus Christ came to earth is for us to know and relate to God the Father. The Bible tells us that Jesus is His exact representation; His words and works were the same as God's (John 5:19; 12:50). Therefore, when we look at the Son, we are seeing the character of our heavenly Father.

   Invitation. Through the Scriptures, God invites us to join His family. He took care of all the arrangements; the only thing we have to do is say yes (3:16).

   Adoption. The closest tie we can have with one another is family. At salvation, we are adopted into the Lord's family. This relationship with our heavenly Father lasts for an eternity and provides us with support, encouragement, and love.

   Friendship. By calling His disciples "friends" (15:15), the Lord revealed a new aspect to their relationship, which applied to future followers as well. Jesus is a forever friend - one who will never desert or turn away from us.

   His Presence. From the moment of our salvation, we are indwelt by the Holy Spirit. He is even closer to us than any earthly kin can be.

   The heavenly Father invites us to join His family through faith in Jesus. This is our highest calling - to believe in Christ and to live for Him all of our days (20:31). Once we become God's children, His Spirit will work in us to make our family resemblance stronger in thought, word, and deed.

Stanley, Charles F., In Touch: Daily Readings for Devoted Living. March 2016. Atlanta. page 48.