In our series of Kingdom principles in our last study we looked at identity – today I want to look at intimacy with God. What comes to mind when you think of intimacy?
We have been chosen to have an intimate relationship with God Almighty.
Adopted into the family of God – Romans 8:14-16
Christianity is a life experience, based on a relationship not dead ritualism. Christ has opened up a new and living way to God. See: Hebrew 10:19-23
This morning I am asking a basic question, how can we develop intimacy in our experience with God? Intimacy with God brings life, freedom not bondage. We have been looking at some principle regarding the Kingdom of God, and part of knowing Gods kingdom expressed in our lives is having good and solid foundations.
Moses a great example of longing for more of God
Exodus 33:7-23
- ‘He pitched his tent outside the camp’ v7
You too need regular times set aside when you can embrace His presence. ‘Sir still and see the salvation of God’ ‘Be still and know that I am God’. But at times as Pentecostals we don’t know how to embrace silence and solitude, we feel we need to be doing something and we need noise. Solitude is not loneliness, loneliness is a state of mind, but I can be alone and still know God.
Some of us are so busy with the demands of life and work that we cannot hear from God, we need to learn how to break away from the rush of the business of activity, come aside and rest, knowing the unforced rhythms of grace.
Learn to know the flow of the Spirit as you rest in God
‘Anyone who thinks his time is too valuable to be spent keeping quiet will eventually have no time for God and his brother, but only himself and his follies’
- Seek the Lord with all your heart
‘Seek Me and you will find Me’ Call on Me and I will show you great and mighty things which you do not know’
- Desire intimacy v11
‘So the Lord spoke to Moses…’
Mike Bickel: ‘The church has lost her joy and affection, and consciousness of His presence, and replaced truth with activity, and substituted religious rituals for heartfelt relationship’
The presence of God was important to Moses; Moses had an intimate relationship with God. God called him ‘friend’, Moses was not ready to settle for anything lesser than God Himself. ‘If your presence does not go with us, we don’t want to go’
- Go deeper in God v12-17
Look at this conversation Moses had with God, he pressed in to know more of God, to know more of Gods ways, to have greater glory.
‘Now show me your glory’
Here is an expression of deep hunger and longing not only for the presence of God, but for a deeper revelation of God.
Revelation from God flows out of a relationship with God’
‘Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness for they shall be filled’
Do you seek the presence of the living God? God Himself is waiting for His people to push into a conscious awareness of His presence. Let us move forward desiring intimacy with our God.
Life can bring its disappointments and failures; it was no different for Moses.
Imagine how Moses felt as a Pastor as he came down from the mountain after receiving the ten commandments, the people he was leading had backslidden. He most of felt discouragement and a sense of failure, he must have been sick with disappointment, and yet his reaction is not to step back but to step up and climb into the presence of God
Moses presses in to know more of God and His ways
‘Teach me your way so that I may know You’
In hard times don’t draw back, dig deeper…you might be lonely but you will never be alone
You need Gods presence more than anything; Gods presence provides us with rest and will give us strength to overcome the adversities in life. ‘In your presence there is fullness of joy…’
Gods gracious presence makes every condition, to be a little heaven and a haven to the believing soul’
Essentials in developing intimacy
- Be obedient
‘Our relationship with God swings on the hinge of obedience, and our obedience determines the depth of our relationship with God’ Jesus said: ‘You are My friends if you do whatever I command you’
- Be pure in heart ‘Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God’
One barrier to intimacy is sin in our lives. ‘If I regard iniquity in my heart the Lord will not hear me’ Our God is a Holy God…
- Humility
Humility is the pathway to intimacy with God
Psalms 138:6, James 4:6
- Availability
Another barrier to intimacy is time, we are so busy in life, we think if we are not doing something then we are wasting time.