Did you ever wonder why God created you? You know He didn’t need to. God was perfectly content in every way and maintained wonderful fellowship within the Trinity. I believe God created us because He wanted to shower His creation and lavish them with His love. God manifested His love to us by creating you and me in His image and then allowing an overflow of this love to be the basis for us to enter into an intimate relation with Himself.
Adam and Eve, before the fall, had this intimate relationship with God but when they sinned, intimacy was shattered and their relationship with God severed. But praise God, Jesus Christ died on the cross, to reestablish our relationship with the Father as well as give us the ability to experience intimacy with God.
Sadly, many Christians know about Jesus, but in the words of Pastor John Piper: “Knowledge about Him will not do. Work for Him will not do. We must have personal, vital fellowship with Him; otherwise, Christianity becomes a joyless burden.”1 You see when we accepted Christ into our hearts we entered into a special relationship with Him that can only grow as we spend more time with Him though prayer, reading our Bible, worship, and a vibrant devotional life. Being busy with Christian activities is nice but intimacy with Christ can’t come about until we spend quality time in His presence.
If your walk with Jesus seems like a “joyless burden” then perhaps you need to ask God how to get into His presence. If you really want to have intimacy with Christ, then you need to make time alone with Him. Why not start by spending more time in prayer, and instead of just asking for things, thank Him for saving you, praise Him for what He does, and adore Him for who He is. In addition, start a regular time of daily Bible reading asking the Holy Spirit to illuminate it pages to your heart. And if you haven’t developed a vibrant personal devotional time, where you just spend daily time getting to know our Savior, I implore you to start now. There are many good devotionals that you may want to incorporate into your daily quiet time.
Intimacy with Jesus takes time each day but the rewards are worth it. Joy, peace, and communion with the Creator of the universe will become yours in abundance and in the process you can make (Psalm 16:11) one of your life verses. This amazing verse says: “You will show me the path of life; In Your presence is fullness of joy; At Your right hand are pleasures forevermore.”
In order to show you what intimacy with God is like, how to develop it, and what you are missing out on when you get so busy that you have little time for God, why not mediate on the following quotes. They just might be what you need to seek God in a deeper way.2
“Solitude with God repairs the damage done by the fret and noise and clamour of the world.” ~ Oswald Chambers
“To fall in love with God is the greatest romance; to seek him the greatest adventure; to find him, the greatest human achievement.” ~ Saint Augustine
“The Spirit of God is jealous over us; He doesn’t want superficial fellowship, but genuine intimacy.” ~ John Bevere
“It is dangerous to be so busy that you have no time to wait on God.” ~ Aiden Wilson Tozer
“Remember: He WANTS your fellowship, and He has done everything possible to make it a reality. He has forgiven your sins, at the cost of His own dear Son. He has given you His Word, and the priceless privilege of prayer and worship.” ~ Billy Graham
“If God is not at the center of your life, something else is.” ~ Timothy Keller
“Nothing in or of this world measures up to the simple pleasure of experiencing the presence of God.” ~ Aiden Wilson Tozer
“There will never be anything more exciting or wonderful than being close to God.” ~ Rick Joyner
“You can’t truly rest until every area in your life rests in God.” ~ Aiden Wilson Tozer
“If we knew how much God loved us and was for us, we’d talk to Him all day long.” ~ Donald Miller
“My aim each day is to adore God more than anything else.” ~ Aiden Wilson Tozer
“When life caves in, you do not need reasons — you need comfort. You do not need some answers — you need someone. And Jesus does not come to us with an explanation — He comes to us with His presence.” ~ Bob Benson
“Let me revel in this one thought: before God made the heavens and the earth, He set His love upon me.” ~ Charles Spurgeon
“A life of intimacy with God is characterized by joy.” ~ Oswald Chambers
“The Bible in the memory is better than the Bible in the book case.” ~ Charles Spurgeon
“The One who saved your soul longs to remake your heart. Let’s fix our eyes on Jesus. Perhaps in seeing Him, we will see what we can become!” ~ Max Lucado
“I feel it is far better to begin with God, to see His face first, to get my soul near Him before it is near another. In general, it is best to have at least one hour alone with God before engaging in anything else.” ~ Edward McKendree Bounds
“Once the joy of intimacy with God has been experienced, life becomes unbearable without it.” ~ J. Oswald Sanders
1 Desiring God: Meditations of a Christian Hedonist by John Piper – Bible Portal
2 All of the following quotes are from the website below:
TOP 25 INTIMACY WITH GOD QUOTES (of 234) | A-Z Quotes (azquotes.com)
Brother, thanks for the reminder! Intimacy with God is truly the greatest treasure. Love the quotes.