Intimacy: Deeping Our Lives

Essential Discipline Number One
Again, I give credit to Charles Swindoll for his book, "So, Do You Want To Be Like Christ?"


Let's begin.


We live in a society that tries to diminish us to the level of the antheap so that we scurry mindlessly, getting and consuming. It is essential to take counteraction…Every one of us needs to be stretched to live at our best, awakened out of dull moral habits, shaken out of petty and trivial busy-work. – Eugene Peterson


a. How necessary is change. We’re so grateful we’re not where we once were more than 10 years ago, not only geographically but also spiritually and personally. Growth is change but, as we will see later, not all change is growth.
b. How essential is perspective. Life seemed so complicated, so difficult while living it back then. But glancing back over our shoulders, things looked very different because we were different.


GROWING BEYOND EARLY LOVE VERSUS LEAVING IT

Let’s shift gears from the geographical and the physical realms to the spiritual and the personal. In so doing, let me remind you of an ancient church that you and I would probably have attended had we lived in that city at the end of the first century. It was among the best churches of the era. The church is named simply “the church in Ephesus” (Revelation 2:1). This is what the Lord Himself had to say about this church and He sized it up:

I know your deeds and your toil and perseverance, and that you cannot tolerate evil men, and you put to the test those who call themselves apostles, and they are not, and you found them to be false. Revelation 2:2

Here is a church that worked diligently and was known for its zeal and discernment. They would have nothing to do with apostolic pretenders. This discerning group of believers formed a church famous for its doctrine. It was biblically sound and probably had strong leaders, with many courageous people willing to take a stand in opposition to wrong. They gave no time to folks who were phony. They were zealous and firm and relentless in their pursuit of truth. So far, so good. However, all was not well in the Ephesian church.

Verse 4 begins with the linguist call a particle of contrast: but. For three verses we read nothing but commendable things, attributes of a local assembly of believers that would have drawn you and hundreds of other first-century worshipers like you to the church at Ephesus. “But I have this against you,” the Lord says with a sigh. “You have left your first love.”

John R. W. Stott’s What Christ Thinks of the Church adds:
They had fallen from the early heights of devotion to Christ which they had climbed. They had descended to the plains of mediocrity. In a word, they were backsliders… Certainly the hearts of the Ephesian Christians had chilled.

CHILLED. What a horrible way to describe the heart of a Christian!

Stott continues, “Their first flush of ecstacy had passed. Their early devotion to Christ had cooled. They had been in love with Him, but they had fallen out of love.”

How much had changed since Paul had penned his last comment to that church in his letter to the Ephesians: “Grace be with all those who love our Lord Jesus Christ with incorruptible love” (Ephesians 6:24)

In that benediction, I feel and longing in the great apostle’s heart that the Ephesian Christians experience no waning of love. By the time John wrote the book of Revelation 30 years later, Paul’s dreams were dashed. Jesus said, in effect, “You left that love. You once had a love that was incorruptible, but you abandoned it. You once enjoyed a devotion that was consistent, meaningful, satisfying. In fact, the warmth of your love transformed your thinking and your attitudes; it revolutionized the way you related to Me, to your heavenly Father, to your brother and sisters. But you have cooled off.”

Let’s go on a brief spiritual pilgrimage together.

Journey back in your mind to your first day as a brand-new believer in Jesus Christ. Return to that time when your love was budding and emerging into full bloom. Remember when you would speak of Christ and it would ignite your heart with an exciting burst of zeal and delight? Remember when prayer was new and untried, and you felt its power as you communed with the Almighty? Remember when the Bible was that delicious Book of truth filled with delectable insights you had never known before? Remember when sharing Him with someone else represent the highlight of your week? Remember when your devotion was consistent, fulfilling, enriching…deep?

What happened to all of that? When you ponder those questions—not just in passing, but taking time to concentrate as you ponder them—perhaps you feel like one of the Ephesian Christians whom Jesus urged, “Remember from where you have fallen, and repent and do the deeds you did at first.” (Revelation 2:5)
Your spiritual life may be in need of some major changes. A new perspective is essential in order to rekindle that first-love kind of relationship where God is real again, where you and He are on much closer speaking terms. The kind of intimacy that doesn’t require a stirring message from the pulpit and doesn’t depend upon a great worship event or concert but simply exists as a natural part of your walk.

INTIMACY WITH GOD REQUIRES ACTION

Distance from God is a frightening thing. God will never adjust His agenda to fit ours. He will not speed His pace to catch up with ours; we need to slow our pace in order to recover our walk with Him. He will not scream and shout over the noisy clamor; He expects us to seek quietness, where His still, small voice can be heard again. God will not work within the framework of our complicated schedules; we must adapt to His style. We need to conform to His way if our lives are to be characterized by the all-encompassing word godliness.

Godliness is still our desire as believers, isn’t it?

But the great question is, how? How do busy people, living fact-paced and complicated lives, facing relentless pressures, consistently walk with God? Whatever would be included in the answers, we can be assured that they will not come naturally, automatically, quickly, or easily. I do not think a person on this earth has ever been automatically godly or quickly godly or easily or naturally godly. “This world is no friend of grace to help up on to God.” Everything around us is designed to make us dissatisfied with our present condition.

Henri Nouwen said that while he was driving through LA on one occasion, he felt like he was driving through a giant dictionary—words everywhere, sounds everywhere, signs everywhere, saying, “Use me, take me, buy me, drink me, smell me, touch me, kiss me, sleep with me.” He found himself longing to get away from all those words, all those giant signs and sounds. Why? Not because there was something innately wrong with those things—some, but not all. He grieved that it was all so empty, so devoid of God.


So how do we pull it off? How, in a world bent on distracting us from growing deeper in our first love always enticing us to pursue the pointless, do we find closeness with God? How do you and I become more godly? The word is DISCIPLINE. The secret lies in our returning to the spiritual disciplines.

1 Timothy 4:1-8

Paul was sitting alone in a dungeon when he wrote this letter to Timothy. His younger friend was serving as pastor of a church—interestingly, the church in Ephesus. This instruction came sometime after the letter wrote to the Ephesians and before the letter Jesus wrote to that same church in Revelations 2.

It is so easy to get religious instead of godly.

The general public may have this marvelous idea about how godly we are, when if the truth were known, many of us would have to say, “I am stagnant, and I have been that way longer that I want to admit.”

What is missing? Stop and think. It’s that “first love,” the great fountain that both generates the spiritual disciplines and feeds on them.

The almighty, awesome God loves it when we are intimate with Him. So, our goal is intimacy, and according to Scripture, intimacy with God requires spiritual disciplines.

The cause of the distressed human condition, individual and social—and its only possible cure—is a spiritual one.

The Kingdom of God as real part of our daily lives. But the hardest thing in the world, it seems, is for God to have our full attention so that intimacy with Him glows from within and can be seen by others as a passion that is authentic. A humble spirituality that leaves us, the clay, willingly soft and malleable in the hands of the Potter, our sovereign God.

I want depth, I don’t want heights. I want substance; I don’t want speed. I want fulfillment in my walk with Christ, not just talk about my fulfillment. I want to be able to think theologically and biblically, not be entertained with theological theories and biblical stories.

Superficiality is the curse of our age. The doctrine of instant satisfaction is a primary spiritual problem. The desperate need today is not for a greater number of intelligent people, or gifted people, but for deep people. - Richard Foster

Don’t suspect for a moment that our environment makes us deep. Hanging out at church hoping it will transform you into a deep Christian is only slightly less foolish than expecting enough time in a garage to turn you into a car. Our environment—even a spiritual nurturing one—won’t change us. The Spirit of God working on our volition changes us. Furthermore, we become more malleable in the hands of the Spirit when soften by the disciplines. Inevitably God works through those disciplines to create people with depth—people with a greater capacity for wisdom.

WITH WISDOM COMES CHRISTLIKENESS

We need wisdom, not just knowledge. God is willing to give wisdom, but not on our terms. As we go deeper, He begins to entrust us with more and more of His mind. In the process we become more like Christ.

When tragedy strikes, we don’t need more intelligence. We don’t need a great number of skills. We need depth. Job 23:10-12…Paul- 2 Corinthians 12:9..

Philippians 3:10…For my determined purpose is to know Christ…

INTIMACY WITH GOD MUST BE INTENTIONAL

Intimacy is the state of being intimate, belonging to or characterizing one’s deepest nature. Intimacy is marked by a very close association, contact, or familiarity. Relationally, intimacy is a warm and satisfying friendship developing through long association on a very personal and private level.

How distant are you from God right now? Has your closeness with Him chilled? Could that be why your worship has become perfunctory? Do you sing the songs while thinking about something else?

Discipline is training that corrects and perfects our mental faculties or molds our moral character. Discipline is control gained by enforced obedience. It is deliberate cultivation of inner order.

So how are intimacy and discipline connected?

Intimacy – Goal
Discipline – Means to that end

Our great tendency in this age is to increase our speed, to run faster, even in the Christian life. In the process our walk with God stays shallow, and our tank runs low on fumes. Intimacy offers a full tack of fuel that can only be found by pulling up closer to God, which requires taking necessary time and going to the effort to make that happen. Remember, Paul said that his “determined purpose” (discipline) was that he might “know God more intimately and personally” (the goal).

Intimacy and discipline work together—and in the process, in a very real way, the means (discipline) leads to the very satisfying end (intimacy).