God speaks. He is here.
He is listening. He cares about
all of us. He continually wants to teach
us and draw us closer to Himself at the same time. There is a new-ness in my heart that I can’t
really describe right now, but God has been taking me to the “next
level” on many things right now, mainly intimacy, freedom, raising up a
generation, and a new understanding of who I am in Christ. It’s been rough and I definitely don’t know
everything there is to know, but He has revealed SO MUCH to me and has made me
SO excited about Him and what He is doing in and around me. Follow my journey in to these new levels – I
pray that God will speak to you as He has been speaking to me.
My whole life I’ve been
afraid of intimacy. I’ve been afraid to
allow people in to the deepest and darkest parts of me, fearful that they
wouldn’t like what they saw or that they would get bored with the real me or
that I would be rejected in some way.
I’ve become really good at having relationships without being
intimate…so good that such a mentality has taken over almost every
relationship in my life, including my personal relationship with Christ. I didn’t like it when people could see
through me and tell that I was struggling with one issue or another because it
meant they were getting too close for comfort.
I liked to take the easy way out, to hide behind walls I had set
up. I’ve learned through experience that
walls don’t keep people out that do actually want to get in. True friends are the ones that are willing to
take a chance and break through the walls to get to the real you. True friends don’t give up when you say you
don’t want to talk. True friends keep
pressing, and pressing…and pressing because they care about you and want only
the best for you.
Intimacy with the Father
comes only from pressing in – He wants all of us and asks for us to desire Him
and to want Him with our whole hearts.
Many Christians have a relationship with God, but they don’t take the
time to get to know His heart. They
don’t want to get to know Him. They
don’t want to be open to what He is speaking or hear what He is saying. I lived most of my life like this: I knew
that in order to get to heaven I had to have a personal relationship with Jesus
Christ, and so we had a relationship, but I didn’t care that much if I was
growing and I definitely didn’t want to get too deeply in to the real heart
issues.
The oil of intimacy comes
from a personal reality with Holy Spirit, which in turn tenderizes our hearts
to feel more of God’s love by increasing the revelation of Jesus to us and
increasing the reality of who we are. We
have to want the oil, because it does not come freely to everyone. Salvation is free, but intimacy with Christ
comes from our relentless pursuit of a deep relationship with Him. In Matthew 25 Jesus tells the parable of the
ten virgins: five of them were wise and took extra oil for their lamps when they
were waiting for the bridegroom, and five of them were foolish and didn’t plan
ahead. They were unprepared for the
Bridegroom because they were not intimate with Him. In the end, the foolish virgins were unable
to attend the wedding feast because they had to go out and find oil. The church today is much like the foolish
virgins: they want the ministry, the big results, the numbers…but don’t want
to put in the time getting to know the Bridegroom. Those who are foolish pursue their ministry
before the oil – they are the “do-ers,” but the wise are in pursuit
of the oil and allow ministry to flow out of that (they are the
“be-ers”).
Our whole month in Cape Town was focused on
simply being with God. At that point, I
didn’t get it. I didn’t want to just
“sit and be” as was suggested – I like doing things, I like to be
able to see results, to have something tangible to be able to look back at and
say “I did that, that was my ministry.” I’m beginning to change, though. It’s still not the easiest thing in the world
to “just be” when every fiber of my being wants to be out just doing
something, but God has rewarded my “being” with so much more intimacy
than I’ve ever had before. I’m learning
to press in to Him: to start my day just sitting in His presence, seeking His
face, resting on His chest, feeling His heart-beat.
Oil has to be earned. You can’t just do a whole bunch of things and
expect to automatically become intimate with Christ; instead, you press in to
Him continually desiring to become more and more intimate with Him. My relationship with Christ has been there
for a while, but it’s now becoming more than just an acquaintance – I am
growing in intimacy with Him and falling more and more in love with Him
daily. And it’s had an effect on my relationships
with others as well – I am more open with my teammates, friends, and family, I
don’t try to hide behind walls, I find joy in spending time with others instead
of being drained by it. I still struggle
with being and not doing, with sometimes wanting to crawl in a hole and hide
because I just don’t really want to tell people what’s going through my head,
but God is good and as He draws me closer to Him the rest becomes easier as
well.
