Posts Tagged ‘bride of Christ’

Defining Bridal Intimacy: Desire (Burning Hearts Gathering 5/9/12)

Posted by Tim

Part 5 in the series:  Gospel Identity: Belonging to God

We’re continuing to look at the revelation of the Bride of Christ, specifically beginning to look at what it tells us about what love looks like of the sort that God gives and desires, and our heart requires. Defining what “intimacy with God” actually looks like lets us actually begin to live a life of experiencing it, not just hearing about it or longing for it. We’re going to look at three elements of what bridal intimacy looks like in the next few weeks. This week, it’s to desire, to be followed by to know and to cherish.

Burning Hearts Gathering – 5/9/12 – Defining Bridal Intimacy: Desire (17.0MB 60min)

Notes

Vision for Intimacy As the Bride of Christ (Burning Hearts Gathering 5/2/12)

Posted by Tim

Part 4 in the series:  Gospel Identity: Belonging to God

As we continue to look at the pictures God gives of how He relates to us, we move this week to the Bride of Christ. God relates all of redemption’s story to us as a King preparing a wedding for His Son. And in then that picture, we find God’s motivation in all He is doing, and we find the meaning of our days here on earth and what destination we should be aiming for at the end of them. As the Father prepares for His Son a Bride made ready in love.

Burning Hearts Gathering – 5/2/12 – Vision for Intimacy as the Bride of Christ (19.8MB 69min)

Notes

40-Day Focus Week 6: Response

Posted by Tim

As we head into the final days of this 40-day focus I want to recap what we’ve looked at over the last weeks, and also deal with a very important question: “How then shall we live?” Given what we’ve seen that God is doing and desiring to do, what’s our response?

God is not resting

God has something burning in His heart for His church. Something glorious far beyond what we currently understand to be normal Christianity. Something that is simultaneously the greatest glory we could ever be invited into, and an invitation that requires the making of a costly choice. God is calling forth a Bride.

The glory of that reality is that God intends to win the heart of His church. God intends to awaken us to the place where our hearts are alive and we see the beauty of who He is and what He’s done and we’re fully undone in love before Him. He intends to awaken us to the glory of who we are that we would live as a kingdom of priests before Him. That we would live as those in whom He delights, those He created for His presence, those whom He created to minister to Him. That we would live the glory of the reality that we were created to touch God. The glory of what’s coming is that God wants to invite us in to the fullness of partnership with Him. He wants to invite us into oneness with Him even as Jesus prayed in John 17 – for our hearts to be fully one with His even as He is fully one with the Father’s.

This glorious bride, burning in love, walking in full bridal partnership, heart connected with His heartbeat, soul pierced by the beauty of who He is and what He’s done, life lived in the power of Christ and of His indwelling spirit… she is the work of Christ, who gave Himself for her to present her to Himself pure and spotless, and she is the work of the Bride, who makes herself ready in love. For the sake of love, God gives us a part to play. For the sake of love He’s waiting for our hearts to respond, to say yes to what He’s invited us into. He’s waiting for the friends of the bridegroom to rise up and to call the bride to make ready. “The bridegroom is coming. Go out to meet him.” (Matthew 25:6)

Accepting God’s Proposal

There’s a condition to this invitation. God does not believe in cohabitation. We will not experience intimacy with God until we embrace being His bride. The condition of the invitation is complete abandonment – giving ourselves fully to the First Commandment, giving ourselves fully to loving the Lord our God with all our heart, all our soul, all are mind and all our strength. The condition is withholding nothing from the God who has withheld nothing from us. When we understand that God is calling forth a bride, gratitude from a distance is no longer an appropriate response. When we see what God is inviting us to there’s only one way to respond to the invitation. We forget our people and leave behind our father’s house, for the King desires our beauty (Psalm 45:9-10).

Agreeing with God’s Agenda

In Isaiah 62, God reveals the jealous jealousy that’s burning in his heart, His vision for the end for which He will not rest – that He would take his people and cause their righteousness to shine like the dawn, and cause their salvation to go forth as a burning lamp. That He would rewrite our identity until we are called His delight, and His Bride.

He also reveals what the required response is in the human heart. What’s our part in this drama? He says in verse 6, “I have set watchmen on your walls O Jerusalem. All day and all night they shall never be silent. You who call upon the Lord, take no rest and give Him no rest until He establishes Jerusalem and makes it a praise in the earth.” The first response that God calls us to is to set ourselves in place upon the wall. To get where we can see what God is doing, what’s burning in His heart, and then we lay hold of that same cry (and it lays hold of us) and we give ourselves no rest and give Him no rest until it has come to pass. The first requirement is that we agree with Him in intercession – that we get ahold of the agenda of God and we begin consistently calling upon Him to bring it to pass.

Proverbs 29:18 reminds us that “without vision the people cast off restraint.” Without prophetic revelation of what God is doing we live as though God is doing nothing. He calls us to stand upon the wall to agree with what’s in His heart so that it will ever be before us that this is where we’re going and this is where God desires to take us. It’s His agenda and He won’t rest until He brings it about, but He requires that we take ownership of it – that His agenda become our agenda. He wants us standing and crying out for the things that he’s crying out for.

Entering His Courts

In verse 10, He gives a second charge: “Go through, go through the gates; prepare the way for the people; build up, build up the highway; clear it of stones; lift up a banner for the peoples.” He gives us the charge to press in through the wilderness to the courts of the Lord. To enter into His sanctuary, to set ourselves in His presence. We are to make ourselves a people of one thing, who insist upon meeting with the Lord not only on occasion, but as an ongoing reality. Like David to make our one aim to “dwell in the house of the LORD All the days of [our lives], To behold the beauty of the LORD, And to inquire in His temple.” (Psalm 27:4) There is a response on our part to the invitation of intimacy and of partnership – of oneness with God. There is a point where we must say yes in our hearts and match our desire with God’s, not only a yes that allows for it to happen, but a yes that makes it the very vision of our lives and the guiding principle of how we live – “One thing I have desired of the LORD, That will I seek.” The yes in our hearts becomes a yes in our actions, our hunger translates into a change in lifestyle, and we set apart ourselves for the purpose of entering into our glorious calling to encounter God.

Building the Highway

And it’s not an individual invitation only. The call is to “prepare the way for the people; build up, build up the highway; clear it of stones; lift up a banner for the peoples.” This is a specific assignment for a specific group of people who are called to prepare the way of the Lord, but it’s also a general call to the people of God. God is zealous for His Church – not that a few would taste of what He has prepared for us, but that every saint, from the weakest to the strongest, would enter into the depths of what’s in His heart.

This is what I call “the No Child Left Behind” move of God. Things that only a few have entered into in generations past, depths of God’s heart that only a few saints have laid hold of, God is now inviting His entire bride to step into. And more than inviting, He is urgently beckoning. The time has come for the Bride to begin to make herself ready, and He wants no one to stay camped out in their current location and miss what He’s giving. As individuals we take that charge to press into the courts of the Lord. As a community, as the church of Christ, we must lay hold of that charge to prepare the way for the people, to build up a highway, to lift up a banner – to call and encourage and lead and exhort and strengthen each other in our pursuit of our Bridegroom.

Setting Our Sights on the Destination, Taking the First Steps

I don’t fully know what it will look like as we begin to walk in this reality, and I don’t know of anyone that does. Will our Christian walk change? Absolutely. Will our church gatherings change? Absolutely. Picture a people walking in the things that we’ve been talking about – hearts alive in love and encountering Jesus, hearts that know who they’re created to be and that know what’s in the heart of God – just try to make that people sit quietly in the pews for what we call church today; just try to make them live Americanized Christianity. It’s going to change. When and how we don’t fully know, but we do know the first steps. We make ourselves a people of one thing: we put Jesus at the center and we really give ourselves to an ongoing lifestyle of gazing on Him and interacting with His heart. As we do, it will produce a people with burning hearts, and those burning hearts will drive us through the changes.

We may not be able to see the whole journey, but we can see the first steps and we can see that He is zealous to bring us to the end. If we will say yes to the end destination, He will do the rest. If we will set our hearts on becoming the Bride made ready – fully given in love and fully experiencing His love – then He will meet us and take us there. We have only to say yes and to take the first steps – giving ourselves to the place of encountering Him. If we will make our lives about living before Him and living in Him, He will shape us and change us to make us ready.

40-Day Focus: Week 5 – Bridal Identity – Partnership

Posted by Tim

Week 5 we’re looking at the other half of what it means to be joined to Christ as His Bride – partnership. His desire for us is that we be one with Him, and in that is a glorious invitation to know His heart.

40-Day Focus – 3/30/10 – Bridal Identity: Partnership – One with Christ / Praying for the Spirit of Prophecy and Intercession  (16.3MB 36min)

Week 5 Focus Article: Bridal Identity – Partnership

40-Day Focus Week 5: Bridal Identity – Partnership

Posted by Tim

Last week we began looking at how God is breathing on the Church’s identity as the Bride of Christ. More than just shifting our activities, this move of God is reshaping our identity. As God begins to reveal what it means to be the Bride of Christ, it is reshaping our view of God and of ourselves, of what we’re here for and of where it’s all going. The more our minds are renewed according to God’s vision, the more we begin to actually be transformed into who we were made to be (Romans 12:2). This is how Jesus makes ready His Bride – by washing us with the water of His Word (Ephesians 5:26-27). We seek a greater revelation of the invitation because it’s as God reveals more fully who He made us to be that we are able to say yes and allow Him to complete the work in us.

Partnership
One of the most fascinating things about the passage in Revelation 19:7 that we’ve been looking at is that at the end of the day, the Bride makes herself ready. God gets the praise because it’s only by His omnipotent power, but human beings in voluntary partnership with God will play a significant role in seeing it come to pass.

“And I heard, as it were, the voice of a great multitude, as the sound of many waters and as the sound of mighty thunderings, saying, “Alleluia! For the Lord God Omnipotent reigns! Let us be glad and rejoice and give Him glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and His wife has made herself ready.” And to her it was granted to be arrayed in fine linen, clean and bright, for the fine linen is the righteous acts of the saints.” Revelation 19:6-8

That concept of voluntary working alongside God’s purpose highlights the second major theme of Bridal identity – partnership. Partnership and intimacy are at the heart of the Bridal identity, of the marriage relationship, and of the prayer and worship movement. While it is simple enough and clear enough to say that it’s all about love, intimacy and partnership flesh out what exactly that love looks like. While ‘love’ can take on any number of expressions, as God reveals more and more of what it means to be the Bride of Christ the depth, width, length and height of that love begin taking on definition. God’s desire for intimacy tells us that Jesus, beyond just having a general, warm, compassionate love for us, actually desires us and enjoys us. God’s desire for partnership adds yet another significant dimension.

One with God
The reality of who we are in Christ because of His love is truly exceedingly, abundantly above and beyond what we can ask or imagine (Ephesians 3:20). It would be more than enough that Jesus should desire that we be with Him (John 17:24), but Jesus doesn’t stop there. The fullness of His desire is that we would be one with Him.

“I do not pray for these alone, but also for those who will believe in Me through their word; that they all may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You; that they also may be one in Us, that the world may believe that You sent Me. And the glory which You gave Me I have given them, that they may be one just as We are one: I in them, and You in Me; that they may be made perfect in one, and that the world may know that You have sent Me, and have loved them as You have loved Me.” John 17:20-23

This is an almost unthinkable reality – that we should be one with Jesus as He is one with the Father. The mystery of the Trinity – three Persons, but one God, perfectly united – is the type of relationship into which we are invited. In Christ we are joined to that perfect fellowship. It’s how God defines marriage from the beginning – setting the imagery in place that He would later apply to Himself and His church.

““For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the church.” Ephesians 5:31-32

There is something powerfully unique about the marriage relationship that if we lay hold of its application to our relationship with God totally shifts how we view life in Christ. Marriage is a voluntary joining of two individuals to form one new whole – the implications of which (at least in the ideal) are staggering. In all things and in all ways, the two become one. There are no separate possessions, no secrets, no personal agendas, there are no boundaries on the marriage relationship – each fully belongs to the other. Unlike any other relationship, it is not a relationship bounded by a common interest or particular gathering place. We are not joined in certain shared activities or ideas, or at certain places or certain times, we are joined in all things at all times.

The idea that in Christ we have such a relationship with God is incredible, but Biblically very clear – not only that all that we are is to be opened to God, but that God has opened all that He is to us. He has withheld nothing from us but “has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ” (Ephesians 1:3). He hides nothing of His heart from us but “has revealed them to us through His Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God.” (1 Corinthians 2:10) He does nothing independently, but rather longs for us to “be filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding” (Colossians 1:9) and “does nothing, unless He reveals His secret to His servants the prophets.” (Amos 3:7) God’s desire for us is not that we love Him from a distance as we go about our lives and He goes about His, but that He would be deeply and intimately involved in our story and we would be deeply and intimately involved in His.

Friendship with God
The most awesome reality about Christianity is that we do not have to guess as to how God desires to relate to men. Besides the whole history of Scripture pointing us to God’s willingness and His desire to work with men in accomplishing the work of redemption, we particularly have the testimony of Jesus’ time on the earth to show us exactly how God desires to interact with His followers. We know that Moses spoke with God face-to-face as a friend (Exodus 33:11), but when God appeared in the flesh in Christ, He made clear that was not an honor reserved for the highest of saints but His intention for any who would listen. Jesus calls out 12 ordinary men – uneducated fishermen and hated tax collectors – and proceeds to walk with them for three years. To them and to as many as would draw near, Jesus shared the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven (Mark 4:10-12) and revealed things yet to come. He rejoiced with His followers (Luke 10:17-21), cried with them (John 11:32-35), and prayed with them (Luke 9:27, Matthew 26:37-38). Not only did Jesus get intimately involved in their lives, but they became intimately involved in His – laboring alongside Him during His time on earth and alongside His Spirit to establish His church after His ascension. Jesus describes them as His friends.

“No longer do I call you servants, for a servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I heard from My Father I have made known to you. You did not choose Me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain, that whatever you ask the Father in My name He may give you.” John 15:15-16

That friendship with His followers has never ended, in fact it is even more real now by His Spirit than when He was with us in the flesh (John 16:7). Jesus still beckons His people to be His friends and partners in the work that He is doing. It is no mistake that the Great Commission is ended with “I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” (Matthew 28:18-20) It is not an assignment to fulfill for Him, it is His great vision that we are to complete with Him. The disciples with Jesus right there in their midst knew their chief assignment – to hear what He was up to and to partner with it. How much more us with His Spirit now dwelling inside us!

The Spirit of Prophecy
At the heart of the friendship Jesus desires with us is knowing what our Master is doing. It is no mistake that the outpouring of the Spirit at Pentecost that begins the New Covenant is specifically referred to as an outpouring of prophecy – and it is this promise that will come to fullness in the last days as the spirit of prophecy rests upon all of God’s servants.

“And it shall come to pass in the last days, says God, That I will pour out of My Spirit on all flesh; Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, Your young men shall see visions, Your old men shall dream dreams. And on My menservants and on My maidservants I will pour out My Spirit in those days; And they shall prophesy.” Acts 2:17-19

The spirit of prophecy is not just the “thus sayeth the Lord” predictions of the future, but rather that knowledge Jesus is talking about in John 15 where we hear God’s Word in such a way that we are in tune with what God is doing – what His agenda is for the earth and for men, and where and how He is acting towards that end. More and more we are seeing that spirit manifest in pockets of the church – men and women catching hold of the grand vision of what God is doing and surrendering themselves and their personal agendas to be a part of the greater kingdom move of God. The Holy Spirit is reemphasizing the role of prayer in the church because the place of prayer is where we hear that word and how we align ourselves with God’s agenda which is going to become crucial. As God begins bringing His agenda to completion it is our glory to be working alongside Him, and it is dangerous to not be.

The Spirit of Intercession
The spirit of prophecy is closely connected with the spirit of intercession. All of the Old Testament prophets functioned in both. They heard what was on the Lord’s heart and both declared it to the people and cried out for their nation in intercession to see judgment withheld and mercy released. As we take our place in intercession, the Spirit reveals to our hearts God’s glorious agenda that we might otherwise miss (Romans 8:26-30). This is the core of our partnership with God – hearing what is on His heart and agreeing with it. While we’re tempted to use prayer primarily as a means to get God involved in what we’re doing, God is stirring prayer that is aimed to get us involved in what God is doing – intercession.
(Rob spoke in detail on how we partner with God in intercession this weekend – see his teachings and notes from Friday and Saturday)

There is a great picture of this in Matthew. Jesus feels compassion for the multitudes and longs to see them cared for. He shares that longing with His followers and instructs them to pray – to cry out to God that He would do just what God had just told them He wanted to do. Then the power is released and the disciples are sent out with an anointing from on high, a commission and a message.

“But when He saw the multitudes, He was moved with compassion for them, because they were weary and scattered, like sheep having no shepherd. Then He said to His disciples, “The harvest truly is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Therefore pray the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest.” And when He had called His twelve disciples to Him, He gave them power over unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to heal all kinds of sickness and all kinds of disease.” Matthew 9:36-10:1

Intercession is where we enter into a depth of relationship with God that is not bounded by our particular circumstances but searches out all that is in His heart. As we stand in the place of prayer seeking the Lord’s heart as it relates to real time and space, we encounter a glorious part of God’s heart that both causes us to love Him more and changes our hearts to align more with His. As we line our hearts up with His will, God releases kingdom power – whether through us or someone else or an act of God – and the kingdom advances. As we enter into our role in partnering with what God is doing in the earth through intercession, our story becomes bound up in His as it was meant to. Partnership in intercession opens the boundaries that restrict our interaction with God to certain narrow spheres and sets over our time here on earth a shared purpose in forwarding the kingdom with God.

Training for Reigning
God is stirring His Bride to make herself ready, not only for her wedding day, but for her marriage – for an eternity with Him. He is preparing us for an eternity of ministering to Him in intimacy, and He’s preparing us for an eternity of reigning with Him in partnership – He’s teaching us how to pray. Reigning with God was part of our created purpose from the beginning (Genesis 1:26), and it will be restored in the end (Revelation 22:1-3). It’s a part of the revelation of who we are that is about to lay hold of the saints and awaken a new song at the wonders of what God has done in Christ.

“Now when He had taken the scroll, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb, each having a harp, and golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints. And they sang a new song, saying: “You are worthy to take the scroll, And to open its seals; For You were slain, And have redeemed us to God by Your blood Out of every tribe and tongue and people and nation, And have made us kings and priests to our God; And we shall reign on the earth.”” Revelation 5:8-10

Scriptures for meditation: Ephesians 5:25-32, John 15:1-17, John 16:12-15, Acts 2:17-21, Revelation 5:8-10

40-Day Focus: Week 4 – Bridal Identity – Intimacy (Pt2)

Posted by Tim

Week 4 we’re looking at what it means to be the Bride of Christ, and specifically how we were created for intimacy with God. We are a kingdom of priests made to minister unto God and we are His temple, His dwelling place.

Thursday night we focused on why we set ourselves apart as a priesthood, looking at Psalm 65.

40-Day Focus – 3/25/10 – Bridal Identity: Intimacy – Priests to the Lord / Psalm 65  (9.1MB 20min)

Week 4 Focus Article: Bridal Identity – Intimacy

40-Day Focus Week 4: Bridal Identity – Intimacy

Posted by Tim

“…the Bride has made herself ready…” Revelation 19:7

A couple weeks ago I mentioned the two major things that I see God doing as He begins to move the Church towards that reality: 1. Revealing the beauty of Himself as the Bridegroom God to make us long for that day. 2. Revealing who we are as the Bride of Christ that we would understand where we’re going. Last week we covered the first – how God is revealing Himself as the author and finisher of the great drama of redemption and capturing our affections and our passions in a great worship and prayer movement. This week I want to begin looking at the second: God is pouring out a revelation of who are we in Christ, and specifically, who are we as the Bride of Christ.

Scripture is remarkably clear, not only about God’s desire for relationship, but about what specifically that relationship looks like. Using images that we would all be familiar with, we’re called His children, His body, His house, His friends, His temple, His garden, His servants, His army… One image in particular, though, is the Spirit’s image of choice at the end of the story. It’s not the Spirit and the friends that cry come, or the Spirit and the army… it’s the Spirit and the bride. Why is that? Perhaps because more than any other image, the image of bride and Bridegroom captures the fullness of what God wants to accomplish in His church. The image of the bride captures the two themes contained in all the other images – intimacy and partnership – and wraps them in the language of love, passion and desire – the central message behind the story of redemption.

Made to touch God

This week I want to fix our thoughts on the first of those two central elements of our identity – we were made for intimacy with God. At its simplest intimacy simply means nearness – we were made to be with God where He is (John 17:24). God did not create and then step back to observe, He created the world, set man in it, and then set Himself it – walking in the garden with Adam in the cool of the day. God’s end objective is a return to that nearness (and even more so) by the work of redemption as God again dwells with man (Revelation 21:3). The fundamental reason we were created was to be with God. More specifically, though, not to just be with Him in physical proximity, but to be aware of His nearness and joyously so, and for Him to be joyously aware of our nearness. We were made for fellowship with God – interaction with God in a way that touches our hearts and touches His.

God has been working from beginning to end to have for Himself a kingdom of priests – a people created to minister to Him in the presence of His glory. There are awesome parallels in the Old Covenant that begin to give us a picture of what New Covenant Christianity is all about. The very first thing God does after saving Israel from the hands of their oppressors is to offer them a covenant, and at the center of that covenant He asks them to build the tabernacle – the place of meeting.“And there I will meet with the children of Israel, and the tabernacle shall be sanctified by My glory. So I will consecrate the tabernacle of meeting and the altar. I will also consecrate both Aaron and his sons to minister to Me as priests. I will dwell among the children of Israel and will be their God. And they shall know that I am the LORD their God, who brought them up out of the land of Egypt, that I may dwell among them. I am the LORD their God.” Exodus 29:43-46 In the New Covenant, we are the priests (1 Peter 2:9) – God is jealously reclaiming His house as a place of meeting and His people as a priesthood set apart to minister to Him. God Himself desires to dwell among us and the revelation is coming that it was for that very reason that He delivered us.

I sometimes try to imagine what it would have been like to “go to church” in the days of Moses. I suspect it would have been slightly easier to remember why you’re there – it would be awfully difficult to have gone to the tabernacle and had your attention mostly on the priest, or the Levites playing their instruments, or the crowd of fellow worshipers… the giant glory cloud coming out from the Holy of Holies would likely have prevented that. The truth is our modern form of corporate gatherings allows very little time for what the central purpose of the tabernacle was – meeting with God. It’s something we need to be aware of, and consciously working to shift – to get in the mode of coming together to meet with God – very much aware of the presence of the Guest of Honor. Jesus is zealous about our remembering that His house is meant to be a place of meeting for God and man, and not treated otherwise – “My house will be called a house of prayer.” Matthew 21:12-13

Made to host God

Besides being the priesthood, the glory of the New Covenant is that we are also the temple (1 Corinthians 6:19). We were made to host the presence of God. I believe there’s coming a shift to presence-based ministry – where our focus is first inviting the presence of God and creating an atmosphere that is welcoming to Him and then doing the works of ministry. In Jeremiah 2, the prophet describes a terrifying reality – the glory of the Lord has departed the temple and the people aren’t even asking “where is the Lord?” Instead, they go on about doing the stuff… without God. God is stirring up an urgent insistence in the hearts of His people that we must first acquire the presence of God, and then move. A cry is arising like that of Moses (Exodus 33:15-16) that God’s presence is all that we have that distinguishes us from the world and we refuse to be without it.

With that cry comes a great shift in the way that we operate – with an intentional focus on welcoming God’s presence and creating an atmosphere suitable for God. From the beginning, it has been our chief assignment. Adam was assigned to tend the garden (Genesis 2:15) – the place where God met with man. The Israelites received regulation after regulation on how to maintain the tabernacle – why? Because it is no common thing for the presence of God to be among us and we are to honor His presence by intentionally laboring towards hosting Him. There is a new wave of holiness coming – not out of regulation, but out of reverence over the awesome invitation to host God’s presence. God is calling His people to step into the role of priesthood – ministering to Him and maintaining the fires of sacrifice that invite His presence.

The fruit of intimacy

Biblically and practically, intimacy promises us three great benefits: fruitfulness, joy and unity. Intimacy with God is the cure for powerless Christianity, it’s the cure for boredom and anxiety, and it’s the cure for division and compromise.

Our power comes only from connecting with God. It is His power in us that releases power to heal and conviction in preaching. ““Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in Me. I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing.”” John 15:4-5 As we prioritize intimacy in our lives and ministries, we will see more and more of the activity of God.

Our joy comes from our hearts connecting with God’s in the way they were made to. Nothing can ever satisfy the human heart apart from connecting with the heart of God. God is just plain too jealous to let it. He created us for Himself and He will fully satisfy every desire of our heart, but nothing else ever will. As we enter more and more into who we are as a kingdom of priests, there is a great wave of joy coming – “in Your presence there is fullness of joy and at Your right hand are pleasures forevermore.” Psalm 16:11

Our unity with God, and then with each other comes from our being joined to Him (John 17:20-23). If we look more like the world or our particular group’s ideals than like God, it is the inevitable result of being in closer contact with others than with God. There are only two ways out of that – get farther from the world (move to the desert) or get closer to God. As we awaken to the glory of who we are as the temple of the living God, not only near Him but in Him and Him in us, our closest fellowship will become with Him, and He will become our greatest influence.

Highest praises

Part of the vision God has given me for my life is awakening the song of Revelation 5. I believe we’re beginning to hear whispers of it, but I can see in my heart the day that it fully lays hold of us and becomes a glorious roar of praise. God is awakening an awareness of the glory of who we are in Christ Jesus – more than delivered, more than forgiven, more than saved – redeemed unto God as a holy priesthood. Before this thing is done, that’s the reality that is going to fill our hearts with highest praises for the Lamb of God.

“Now when He had taken the scroll, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb, each having a harp, and golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints. And they sang a new song, saying: “You are worthy to take the scroll, And to open its seals; For You were slain, And have redeemed us to God by Your blood Out of every tribe and tongue and people and nation, And have made us kings and priests to our God; And we shall reign on the earth.”” Revelation 5:8-10

Scriptures for meditation: Psalm 65:1-4, Psalm 132, John 15:1-17, Revelation 5:8-10, Revelation 21:1-4

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