Intimacy with God

 

Again, I’m going to try to share with you something big that the Lord has shown me through His Word.  I fear I won’t be able to convey the gravity of it and I know I run the risk of misrepresenting prayer.  That is not my intention.

I have written much here in this blog about the Word of God and the importance of reading it.  It really is the primary way we become intimate with God.  Many of our prayers are a ‘one-way’ exchange where many words flow from us to God ward.  The word is how God speaks back to us, mostly.

But prayer is a two-sided coin.  All of us, even children are familiar with the one side, the intercessor side.  And to keep you from thinking I’m trying to tell you not to pray,  I’m going to cover that side of the coin briefly.

I did a post last year called “If God Knows Everything, Why Bother Praying?”  The gist of the post is that we are to pray because Jesus did, because we are commanded to, and because answered prayers are a testimony of God's goodness.  There’s more and it is linked if you care to read it.  But even that post doesn’t cover intercessory prayer, just why we should pray.

Intercessory prayer is a plea to God to meet your needs and the needs of others.  Those needs could be as simple as ‘daily bread’ or as profound as the salvation of your loved one.  We are indeed, commanded to pray and it is assumed we will do so when Jesus said, “When you pray, don’t babble like the pagans…pray like this…” (Matthew 6:7,9).  He followed this up with The Lord’s Prayer.

James tells us that we have not because we ask not, and when we do ask, we ‘ask amiss’ (James 4:3).  So, with all this being said, let us intercede for ourselves and others.  Furthermore, knowing the heart of God that He ‘is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance,’ let us not stop our heartfelt intercession for the souls of the lost.

I say all that, again, so no one will accuse me of telling you not to pray.  The Bible says to “Pray without ceasing,” (1 Thessalonians 5:17).  Okay, I’m done with that now and I think we are ready to move on to the point of this post, intimacy with God.

Let us go to the book of John, chapter 11 and look at the story of Lazarus a little.  We are only going to look at the big picture but really, you should study it out.  There is a lot going on with Lazarus.  I just want to relate his story to prayer.

If you are unfamiliar with this story, Jesus is at the end of his ministry.  He is about to head out to Jerusalem where He will be crucified.  We are down to the wire here.  He had also received word that his friend, Lazarus, was sick but Jesus delayed His departure.

Lazarus died, and Jesus knew it.

Jesus told His disciples that they would stop by Bethany because His friend had gone to sleep and they were going to stop and wake him up.  This so that God could be glorified and that they could believe.  Unfortunately, they still didn’t get it.

So, they get there.  Martha came out to meet them and said, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother wouldn’t have died.”

Jesus told her plainly, “Your brother shall rise again.”

She said, “Of course, I know that he will rise again in the resurrection.”

Jesus said:

“I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live.” John 11:25

Martha calls Mary out and they go through the same thing: “Lord if you had been here my brother wouldn’t have died,” etc.

Jesus told them to roll away the stone that covered the opening to the tomb.  Martha said, “Lord, he’s been dead for four days, by now he stinks!”

What does any of this have to do with prayer?  Everything!... and nothing.

Jesus called the dead stinking Lazarus forth from the grave, alive and fighting to get out of his grave wrappings (think mummy).  How much faith do you think Lazarus had while he was dead?  None!

What about his sisters?  Did they show faith? No!

Jesus called forth Lazarus from the grave and not one person on earth believed for it.  Jesus tells us in the story that He did it for the glory of God, and that they might believe.  No one prayed.

I mentioned earlier that prayer is a two-sided coin and we are all familiar with that intercessor side.  What I’m trying to convey to you is the intimacy side.  There are no buttons you can push, no special words you can say, there isn’t a magic formula to use to get God to answer prayer.  Just show up.  

Prayer is about building a relationship with the creator of the universe, getting His heart instead of your own, moving past childish wish lists. I believe if Mary and Martha had been closer and more intimate with Jesus, they would have met him leaping with joy rather than mourning the loss of their brother.  They would have realized The Resurrection was coming up the road.

God knows what you need.  He told us so.  The following is an excerpt from the Sermon on the Mount.  Don’t forget that this is the Son of God, the Word, talking.

“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear.  Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes?  Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them.  Are you not much more valuable than they?  Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?  And why do you worry about clothes?  See how the flowers of the field grow.  They do not labor or spin.  Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these.  If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you-you of little faith?  So do not worry, saying’ what shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’  For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them.  But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.  Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself.  Each day has enough trouble of its own.” Matthew 6:25-34

I know this is a long passage, but don’t you love it?  Jesus, creator of the universe, tells us that our heavenly Father knows what we need.  The above verses come on the heels of The Lord’s Prayer in which the Lord tells us we need only to ask our heavenly Father for our daily bread because, according to the verses above, our father knows our needs, he provides for the birds, are we not more valuable to him than they?

God created Adam and Eve way back in Genesis and would come during the cool of the day and fellowship (Genesis 3:8).  There was intimacy there.  Not only that, everything was provided for.  They didn’t have to ask God for a banana, they just reached out and picked it.  I’m sure it didn’t even occur to them that they might be hungry the next day because they knew they were provided for.

Adam and Eve were close to God in a way that was lost at the fall.  When they ate of the fruit of the tree, what was the first thing God said?

“And the Lord God called to Adam and said unto him, “Where art thou?” Genesis 3:9

Are we to assume that the omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent God didn’t know where Adam was?  Of course not.  What was God showing us by asking this question?  He was showing that Adam was now separated from God.  The intimacy was lost.

This concept is the foundation of  The Old Testament.  We are separated from God.  We were separated by sin.  This is illustrated also with the veil in the tabernacle and the temple. 

Hang on, I forgot that my readers may not be familiar with the Bible.  The Tabernacle was a portable place of worship that could be picked up and carried with the Israelites as they wandered in the wilderness on the way to the promised land.  This story can be found in the book of Exodus.  The first half of the book is the deliverance and beginnings of the wanderings of the people of Israel.  The second half of the book lays out the building of the Tabernacle and the priestly vestments.  

Think of that, half of the book of Exodus was preparing for what the people would have to do to be able to have any relationship with God; and the entire book of Leviticus is dedicated to the duties of the priests to carry these things out. That’s a lot; and even then, God was behind the veil, unreachable.

Jesus restored our relationship at the cross.  When He died, and rose again, He made a way for us to ‘come boldly before the throne of grace’ (Hebrews 4:16).  I really think that, as Christians, we fail to grasp the magnitude of the cross.  We are like Martha, looking to the future.  We have no problem believing in the big picture that includes the end of the age and the resurrection.  What we have a problem believing is for right now.

The cross restored the Garden for every individual that would believe if we would step into that intimacy with God.  It is why the Bible says that all the promises of God are yea and amen.  It is finished!  It is done, over.  The victory has been won.  All that is left is for us to walk in it.  How do we accomplish that?  Intimacy with God, that’s how.

We don’t need to beg God.  We ask for His provision because it is an acknowledgement that it comes from Him anyway.  We know from whom our blessings flow.  All good and perfect gifts come down from the father of lights in whom there is no darkness nor shadow of turning.  

This doesn’t mean that we are to be arrogant.  As a matter of fact, God hates arrogance.  This was the problem with the Pharisees.  Instead of seeing their need as sinful people in need of God’s mercy, they saw themselves as superior to everyone else because they didn’t flip a light switch in the Sabbath (pardon the anachronism).

We come before God knowing that we were lost without Him.  Everything we are is bound up in Him…and He loves us anyway.  He wants to be intimate with us.

This is why David was a man after God’s own heart.  David sought God every time he was faced with a big decision.  Should I fight, Lord, or not?  Should I stay or should I go?  He couldn't touch the Ark of the Covenant, but that didn't stop him from resting in the shadow of its wings.  He meditated on the Lord, He talked to the Lord.  He loved the Lord and was intimate with Him.

When David sinned, he was genuinely repentant and wept before the Lord asking for forgiveness.  If you doubt this, you can read the story of David and Bathsheba in 2 Samuel 11 and 12.  David committed BIG sins.  

Then go and read Psalm 51 where David pours his heart out before God asking for forgiveness.  In that Psalm, David says:

“Against thee, thee only, have I sinned.” Psalm 51:4

You may wonder how he could think that he only sinned against God after committing adultery with Bathsheba and then having her righteous husband killed.  It is because no matter how you have wronged someone else, all sin is an affront to God.  It is His standard of behavior we have violated.  

How did David even know that what he did was wrong?  God made it known to him, through the testimony of creation, through His Word, through His prophet, and (according to the Psalm) by the threat of removing His presence from David.  David lost the intimacy he had once shared with God, just like Adam.

Okay Guys, guess what intimacy brings? Intimacy brings fruit. 

“Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth!” Genesis 1:28

This command was given to Adam and Eve, but it was carried on through to every one of us when Jesus said:

“Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature.” Mark 16:15

We are given the same command in the spiritual that Adam and Eve were given in the physical.  That command is to become intimate with God, make spiritual babies, multiply. and subdue the earth for the sake of our King. 

Develop intimacy with God.  It does start with baby steps but the more you do, the more intimacy you have.  Don't stay at an immature, 'gimme gimme' place.  Get the heart of God through praise, worship, His Word, and spending time with Him.  That's when real intercession kicks in.  At that point, you will be praying God's will and His heart.