08/15/2025
We all need to have a deep and personal relationship with God, not just a casual friendship with Him but to know Him intimately. Is our faith the product of going to church once a week and listening to stories about the amazing relationships that others have with the Lord and Jesus or do we have such a personal experience with them ourselves? Let’s pray and think about the depth of our relationship with the Lord today.
“But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God,”
John 1:12 ESV
When we are born again, we become the children of God; we enter a life of relationship with Him that should be both personal and intimate. I see believers all the time who know a great deal about God's Word but have never truly known Him. They quote scripture, go through the liturgical motions, and even pray regularly... but they have never met the object of their study, or come face to face with the God of their prayers. To those believers who actually share an intimate relationship with the living God these people are easy to spot... they are like shadows or reflections of what should be.
When I was a child, we wrote letters with pen and paper and had pen pals. There were children who lived far away that we would exchange real paper letters with, and often we would tell them things about ourselves and our lives that were very personal. Confiding in them was made easy by the fact that we really didn't know who they were... we only knew them by what they had written. Today kids communicate via the internet and email, and the world has changed to the point that such interactions can be very dangerous, but in the 1950s life was much simpler, and the school provided a list of safe contacts for us to correspond with.
I say this because our faith provides us a list of safe contact in the persons of God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit. So, many people today feel safe using this as a form of email or letter writing. God is alright with that level of intimacy for a bit, but He really wants us to know Him much more intimately than that. He doesn't want to simply be our pen pal, or an imaginary friend, He wants to interact with us, hold us, and be known by us in a very real and loving way. Do we have this kind of personal and real relationship with God? Is Jesus abiding in us and moving with us through life by knowing our hearts and personally leading us, or do we depend on the stories of others for our touchpoint with Him, and for the lessons that shape our faith? God wants much more than that, He wants each one of us to find Him dwelling within us… He wants to abide in our hearts… within ourselves!
“For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will hear you. You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart.”
Jeremiah 29:11-13 ESV
To know God, we need to move beyond learning of Him and begin to seek Him with all our heart. Many of us read the Bible like a travel guide; we dream about the places we see in our minds, in pictures, or scriptures, and can quote or recognize all the facts and sights, but we never really go there. We remain statues or fixtures in our prayer closets but never step through this portal to meet God. Our faith calls us to "come" and that means getting out of our seats at Church Service, Sunday School, Bible Study, or Small Group, and seeking Him and His Son in a very real way. Are we seeking them? Have we had face to face encounters with the divine? Have we felt the touch of angels, heard the whisper of God, or walked the road to Emmaus with Jesus? If not, then we need to get off the couch... step through he portal that prayer provides us. We need to walk out of Church on Sunday and get to know our Heavenly Father! He certainly wants to know us!
“And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, 'Know the Lord,' for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more."”
Jeremiah 31:34 ESV
One night I was at my Monday Night Intercessory Prayer meeting, and between prayers we were talking about those things of faith that no person had taught us. We spoke of truths that we had learned by interacting with God personally, and that couldn't be known any other way. I understood these to be the things we refer to as the "mysteries of the Word"; those things that are written in scripture but found by living them and walking through them with Jesus in a real and personal way. How can we introduce the touch of God to someone without having experienced it ourselves? How can we describe the sound of God's voice without having heard it? How can we speak of signs and wonders until we have seen them? There are so many revelations of God, and experiences in faith, that only come from having cultivated a real and tangible relationship with Him... and yet there are many of us who attempt to do this by ourselves, alone in our churches today. We believe we can do this by quoting those things we have read or telling stories we have heard... and yet we have no personal knowledge or experience with them ourselves. We teach the bible intellectually by treating the Word of God as if it were literature.
Which type of believer have you chosen to be? Are you a reader and dreamer of faraway places, or are you a seeker and traveler? Does your faith reside solely between the pages of the Bible, or do you use it like an instruction manual for building a real faith in soup kitchens, or as a travel guide along the dusty roads of your daily faith life? I challenge each of you to choose a real walk with Jesus Christ and the Father... let them touch you, speak with you, laugh and cry with you... I challenge you to put your pens down and go see them... touch the nail holes in the hands of Jesus, see the glory and lightning that surrounds our living God, and hear the Holy Spirit as He prays with and for you. Will you accept this challenge?
Prayer:
Father, I thank you for being real in my life; I thank you for allowing me to live within your presence personally and to speak with you face to face. I pray that you keep your hand upon me Lord, not figuratively but in a very real and physical way. I thank you for touching my spirit, my soul, and my heart. Help me lead others to seek you and know you so that they can experience you firsthand in their lives. Holy Father, you are more than a thought, a quote, or a spoken prayer, and I thank you for entering into a relationship with me, one that is full and rich in its wonders. I praise you from the depths of my heart for you are mighty beyond measure, loving beyond all understanding, and faithful without question. You are my God, my Friend, my Savior, and my Counselor. You lead me each day and speak to me regarding all things of life and faith... my love for you grows with each breath I take Father, and my faith is affirmed with each touch of angel's hands, or whisper of your voice. Keep me Father, teach me Jesus, comfort me Holy Spirit, be with me always as I seek to know you better with each passing day. I praise be your Holy name Abba, and give you all the glory that belongs to you, and you alone… forevermore.
Amen!
Rich Forbes