Intimacy: March 13, 2013

TODAY’S WORD FOR WEDNESDAY MARCH 13, 2013.

INTIMACY

DEFINITION:

A close, familiar, and affectionate personal relationship.

SCRIPTURE:

For 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. Jeremiah 29:11.

KNOWLEDGE AND EXPERIENCE:

One of our greatest needs is to know we are loved and feel loved. We look for intimate love in our spouses, children, family and friends. But far too often the needed love is not there, which sends people looking for love and intimacy in the wrong places. Every believer should desire intimacy with God. Intimacy with God is His highest priority for our lives. We also need to understand that the intimacy we have with God determines the depth of the impact He has on our lives.

In the passage from Jeremiah (above), Jeremiah was counseling the Children of Israel in Babylon to live like colonists and settle in because they were going to be there for 70 years. Furthermore, they were to seek peace and pray for the prosperity of Babylon, their temporary home. They knew that their own welfare depended on the peace and prosperity of Babylon. God assured them that He had a planned future of blessing for Israel.

Jeremiah assured the Israelites that even though they were living in exile far from the land God had chosen for them, they were not exiled from the intimacy of God’s love and care. As believers we need to feel certain God loves us, cares for us, and has our best interests at heart. This is how God designed us. We want to feel loved. He wants us to know He loves us with a passionate intensity too deep for words and beyond our understanding.

God created us with fellowship in mind. First, this fellowship was with Himself, and then with others. We need to understand that we cannot fully love one another until we have experienced personally the love of God. We will experience His love when we willingly surrender to His call to be our Savior, Lord, and friend.

Intimacy with God requires surrender. There are three reasons God seeks our surrender.

First, He loves us and desires our fellowship and worship. We cannot hold something back from God and expect to know Him and fully experience His love. When we surrender to Him fully, we get all of Him.

Secondly, He wants our service for Him to be effective and fruitful. The more we know and love Jesus the more effective will be our service to Him. The closer we are to God, the more impact our lives will have on what God wants us to do.

Thirdly, He waits for the freedom to bless us. God is omnipotent, but He will not violate His own principles. Having intimacy with God is what God wants from us. He draws us to Himself so we can experience His love and forgiveness. He asks us for our willing surrender to Him so He can give us the best blessings He can offer.

When we as believers are offered all of this, why does anyone resist surrendering to God? Pride is the key reason. Most people think they know better than God and they can handle their lives better than He can, so the result is that they keep Him at a distance. Others do not surrender because they fear that God will make them do things that will make them miserable. Others believe Satan’s lie that God is judgmental and will punish them every time they make a mistake if they surrender to Him.

These are just excuses. God always wants His best for us. Surrender to God and take advantage of the intimacy He will provide for you.

LEARNING:

Our memory verse for this week is found in I John 1:9.

If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

PRAYER:

Help me not to drift away from You in my devotion to You. Continue to draw me closer to You so that I may experience the intimacy of your love and receive the blessings that You have for me.