Growing an intimate daily relationship with God is the very best thing we can do. Yet how do we do this? Many struggle to find any sense of God, let alone an intimate one.
While I can’t tell you how your particular relationship might go, I can tell you what will stand in the way of your intimacy with God.
1. Trying to prove up or come clean before God
I’m not sure how we miss this, but the gospel is all about the reality that we cannot come clean before God. And when we try to prove ourselves worthy or okay to stand before the throne, we have just rejected the gospel.
This more than anything will keep you apart from God. We cannot come clean before God. That is the whole point for which Christ died. Simply come before God in whatever state you are in, and allow the grace of Christ to wash you clean.
2. Denying how bad it has been
There is a bit of a disease in the Church that goes like this, “Well, my hurts have been so minimal compared to so-and-so. I’m okay”
Guess what – if you have been hurt or harmed in any way in the past, you are not okay. Hurt and harm were never originally intended for you. And fact is, the hurts and harms done to you are part of what Christ died for.
Not only did Christ come to bear the weight of your sin, he came to bear the weight of the sins done against you. And when we deny the hurts and harms in our own lives, no matter how small, we are not allowing Christ to do his full job. We are denying part of the cross.
Intimacy is about accepting into our entire being the work of Jesus Christ. So be honest today about how bad it has been. Don’t trivialize your hurt and Christs death.
3. Trying to live just you and God
Fact is our greatest healing and health comes to us in the context of the body of Christ. When it comes to inner healing, much of what we have experienced cannot be fully touched without a few key folks in the body of Christ standing alongside.
Trying to find freedom and healing all by yourself won’t work. Having said that, do choose wisely and carefully whom you will disclose yourself to. Pray about it. Seek out the options. Wait on the Lord’s direction.
But then go for it. Ask for help. Enter into reconciliation with your heavenly Father. Set aside all the stuff you are holding up between you and God. Allow grace to penetrate.
And intimacy will grow.
Cyndy Lavoie 