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How To Develop An Intimate Relationship With God – Viral Believer
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How To Develop An Intimate Relationship With God

God’s Relationship With Man

Our heavenly father wants you to have an intimate relationship with Him!

No restoration is complete unless you are not only restored out of something but restored to something. That restoration is the ability to have a deep and personal relationship with God.

I want to show that God has more for you in this life than just wholeness. More than to give you back what was lost.

More than to give you freedom from all the things that have held you back, but His purposes were far higher than that. That purpose is that you discover how to have a love relationship with God.

image of the Apostle John resting his head on Jesus

Notice what the prophet Joel says in the verse below.

Joel 2:28-29

Then, after doing all those things, I will pour out my Spirit upon all people.Your sons and daughters will prophesy. Your old men will dream dreams, and your young men will see visions.29 In those days I will pour out my Spirit even on servants—men and women alike.

I will pour out my spirit and what? There will be prophecies, dreams and visions right?

What is the one thing that all these things have in common?

Communication between God and His people!

You see, I do not believe that God was giving gifts so we could look and sound super spiritual. I think it is much more fundamental than that!

I believe God was giving gifts to open the channel, the doorway, or in our modern vernacular, the cell towers for communication between Him and us!

Those different methods of communication are the steps to intimacy with God!

God Desires A Relationship With Us

Now for many years, I thought that the purpose and goal of the Christian life were to do good works and that included the works of Jesus, including power gifts.

I focused hard on getting rid of all my sin, of serving in every way I could, and learning all that the book (The Bible) had to say.

Now all of these things are good. But they are not supposed to be the focus or purpose of our lives.

If we make any of these things the purpose of our life, we fall into a sort of religious idolatry. We either make our perfection our God, our service our God, or our intellect and knowledge our God.

God wants to be God, not these other things.

I found out only after a long time in my wilderness, that although being good is right, what Jesus wants is for us to be His; His beloved, His bride. His most intimate relationship.

The goal of the Christian life is to develop a personal relationship with Jesus Christ!

Developing Intimacy With God

Now I understand, and especially with us men, that the word intimacy makes us uncomfortable. It is touchy-feely. It brings with it the connotation of romance and vulnerability.

And your right. It does.

That seems to fly in the face of an awesome and holy God that nobody can touch or understand; An all-powerful God that can swallow up sinners with a blink of an eye.

Again, you’re right.

So how can this be that God wants us to be intimate with Him?

Genesis 3:8-9

When the cool evening breezes were blowing, the man and his wife heard the Lord God walking about in the garden. So they hid from the Lord God among the trees. 9 Then the Lord God called to the man, “Where are you?”

Notice God said, where are you?

This shows that God desires a relationship with us. God was seeking out Adam and Eve to sit down and spend time with them. It was their fear that caused them to hide.

And notice why!

Because they were naked. It would have been intimate! There would have been nothing hidden! Total transparency!

God started with man, fellowshipping and communicating with mankind in total transparency.

It was the man who started covering up, started creating distance between himself and God.

And we know this was caused by what?

Sin.

And so God had to speak in harder and harsher ways over the years as mankind slowly backed away from intimacy with God.

And the worship of God became more and more formal and more and more structured until it was to such a level of relationship that it resembled more of a prisoner being sentenced by a judge than it did being in a love relationship with God.

But this was not the heart of God!

God started with and has always cried out for man to come close to Him, but sin still stood in the way.

Until the day when everything changed.

John 1:14

So the Word became human and made his home among us. He was full of unfailing love and faithfulness. And we have seen his glory, the glory of the Father’s one and only Son.

Jesus Became The Example Of Having A Spiritual Relationship With God

God the Son, Jesus Christ came to eat, breathe, live and touch our world.

He came to walk right beside us.

He came and lived right with us! He slept with us, laughed with us, and even showered with us! Whatever the case may be. You get my drift.

Those are things that are transparent and intimate.

He walked in our midst and became the living example of not only how God desires to be in a relationship with us, but how to have a relationship with God.

He gave us hands-on instruction!

I want to highlight just a few examples of how Jesus modeled how to have intimacy with God.

How To Build A Relationship With God

Prayer

Prayer is just talking with God. He went out to pray alone.

Matthew 14:23

After sending them home, he went up into the hills by himself to pray. Night fell while he was there alone.

Mark 1:35

Before daybreak the next morning, Jesus got up and went out to an isolated place to pray.

Luke 5:16

But Jesus often withdrew to the wilderness for prayer.

Jesus spent time communicating with the Father. Many of us think that prayer is some ritualistic thing that we do and that there is specific formulas or methods we have to use to pray.

Not so!

It is communication between God and us, and also many times between God and us. It is 2-way communication. And when you understand that, then it is not a problem anymore to pray for an hour, or two or even four.

In my relationship with God, I spent many years not turning on the radio in my truck but instead of turning to the spiritual frequency of the Holy Spirit and doing nothing but talking and listening to God.

Not even putting on praise music, but just talking and listening to God; Inviting His presence to come to where I was and hang out with me. I just spent time being one with God.

Speaking What He Speaks

John 12:49-50

I don’t speak on my own authority. The Father who sent me has commanded me what to say and how to say it. 50 And I know his commands lead to eternal life; so I say whatever the Father tells me to say.”

This is very important because most of us think or have been taught that Jesus did the things He did because He was God and knew the outcome. That in some way He was operating out of His Divinity.

But according to this scripture and others, He was following the lead of God the Father, and not acting out of his own volition.

Jesus is both fully God and fully man modeled both sides of being in a relationship with God.

He modeled how God loves us and wants to have a personal relationship with us, and he modeled how to have a relationship with God.

As believers, we are called to a place of intimacy with God. It was not just to save your backsides from Hell that Jesus died, but it was to establish a way for God to be intimate with us and for us to be intimate with God.

Having an intimate personal relationship with us was the goal of God!

And what was that doorway, that avenue, that cell tower so to say, that God provided so that we could be intimate?

The Holy Spirit Enables God’s Relationship With Us

John 14:15-21

“If you love me, obey my commandments. 16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, who will never leave you. 17 He is the Holy Spirit, who leads into all truth. The world cannot receive him, because it isn’t looking for him and doesn’t recognize him. But you know him, because he lives with you now and later will be in you. 18 No, I will not abandon you as orphans—I will come to you. 19 Soon the world will no longer see me, but you will see me. Since I live, you also will live. 20 When I am raised to life again, you will know that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you. 21 Those who accept my commandments and obey them are the ones who love me. And because they love me, my Father will love them. And I will love them and reveal myself to each of them.”

If you are uncomfortable or resistant or scared of this precious 3rd person of the Godhead, then you have some serious time ahead of you on your knees.

I am sorry that this method is not of your choosing or liking.

It was not my idea; it was God’s. He chose the method and relationship we must nurture and establish.

But I am confident of this.

If you set out in your heart that you want to be as intimate as humanly possible with God, you will get to the point that you will love the way and method He has chosen.

He does know best.

Won’t you start today being “all in” with God?

Won’t you make today the first day of your new focus and goal in your Christian life?

Will you choose intimacy? Will you accept a deep personal relationship with God?

God created man for relationships. I encourage you to start your relationship with him today.

If you would like to know how to start a relationship with God. I recommend you go to the Peace With God website. They will show you how to take your first step in building a relationship with God.

Pastor Duke Taber
Pastor Duke Taber

Pastor Duke Taber

All articles have been written or reviewed by Pastor Duke Taber.
Pastor Duke Taber is an alumnus of Life Pacific University and Multnomah Biblical Seminary.
He has been in pastoral ministry since 1988.
Today he is the owner and managing editor of 3 successful Christian websites that support missionaries around the world.
He is currently starting a brand new church in Mesquite NV called Mesquite Worship Center, a Non-Denominational Spirit Filled Christian church in Mesquite Nevada.