I. INTRODUCTION – UNDERSTANDING INTIMACY
A. Foundations
1. Summary of Definition
There are three general facets of the reality of intimacy with God we all desire so deeply.
a. Invitation – the revelation of His burning desire to be in relationship with His people at a deep level (not just
legally or functionally). This is embodied in His identity as a Bridegroom.
b. Substance – at the heart of intimacy is relational knowledge, which we will be developing in the next section.
c. Overflow – the growing degrees of love, communion, and pleasure that we experience as a result of our
knowledge of Him.
2. Confusion
a. In addressing the question of how we grow in intimacy it is important to understand the relationship between
these three aspects above.
b. While the desire for greater intimacy with God is common to us all, across the body of Christ there are many different
conceptions of precisely what it means.
c. This creates a significant hurdle in discussing it and an even greater problem when pursuing it. We need to have
clarity on what it is we are seeking if we are to find it.
3. Defining Premises
a. One of the most common misconceptions of intimacy is that it mostly consists of either the first category
(the call to it) or the third category (arena of sentiments within the soul).
b. Yet in reality intimacy is primarily comprised of knowledge (the second category). All of us know this
intuitively in the context of human relationships but often fail to apply this concept to our desire for intimacy with
God. The people who we say we are the most intimate with are those with whom we know and are known deeply.
c. Thus when referring to the knowledge of God we are speaking of relational knowledge, not merely factual
knowledge. God is not an object which we can acquire information about – He is a person/identity who is to be
known.
d. Experiential love and affection are absolutely critical in our relationship with the Lord but we must
understand that these are the fruits of intimacy, not the substance of it. The reason we love is because we
know, and it is knowledge that begets affection.
e. Love then compels us to seek after deeper knowledge, which then causes the interior furnace of charity
to burn all the brighter. Yet if at any time we cease our pursuit of knowledge, the cycle is broken and our
affection will wane until ultimately we are stagnant.
f. It is at this point that we can actually have bitterness toward the message of intimacy that once wooed
our souls so powerfully, and all because of a failure to discern the way to perpetuate the ordering, or movement,
of relational growth.
B. Moving Forward
1. Possibility
a. The first step in growing in intimacy is to recognize that is not only possible it is normal. From God’s perspective
the widespread lack of nearness to Him and corresponding absence of sacrificial love for Christ and neighbor is a
massive deviation from the purpose of His heart.
b. Thomas Dubay clarifies this point:
Living things grow in visible creation. Acorns develop into oak trees, tadpoles into frogs, babies into adult men and
women. We are so convinced that things slowly mature to a fullness of life that if we were to notice that a three-foot
sapling suddenly stopped growing, we would immediately and without any need for reasoning about it conclude that
something had gone wrong…Many of us do not understand to be applicable on the supernatural level what we fully
grasp on the natural level. We are not alarmed about truncated spiritual development. Yet Jesus said that He came
not only that we might have life but also that we might have it abundantly, and St. Paul insisted that we are to lives
so intensely that we are to be filled with the utter fullness of God and nothing less.
2. Clarifying the Question
a. With the framework above in place, the question of “how do I grow in intimacy with God?” becomes
synonymous with “how do I grow in the knowledge of God?”
b. The answer to our desire for intimacy, then, is to discover the single-greatest source of the revelation of
God, for it is revelation that bridges the gap between the truth of His identity and our state of ignorant need.
In other words, revelation is the means by which we acquire knowledge.
3. Journey
a. Unfortunately, although this discovery is neither difficult nor mysterious, it is so profoundly neglected in our day.
b. The treasure of the knowledge of God is not a question of purchasing the right teaching series, attending a
certain service, living in particular place, experiencing a vision, or finding a specific book.
c. Scripture makes it very clear that the very height of God’s self-disclosure (revelation) is found in beholding a
Man named Jesus.
II. HEIGHT OF REVELATION
1 God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets, 2 has in these last
days spoken to us by His Son, whom He has appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the worlds;
3 who being the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person, and upholding all things by the word
of His power…Heb 1:1-3
27 All things have been delivered to Me by My Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father. Nor does anyone
know the Father except the Son, and the one to whom the Son wills to reveal Him. Matthew 11:27
1In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with
God…14And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us… John 1:1-2, 14
2… resulting in a true knowledge of God's mystery, that is, Christ Himself, 3in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and
knowledge. Colossians 2:2-3
6 For it is the God who commanded light to shine out of darkness, who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the
knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. II Corinthians 4:6
18No one has seen God at any time; the only begotten God who is in the bosom of the Father, He has explained Him.
John 1:18
19 For it pleased the Father that in Him all the fullness should dwell… 9 For in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead
bodily… Colossians 1:19, 2:9
III. GROWING IN INTIMACY
A. Application
1. Real Growth
a. If intimacy in large part consists of knowledge, and the way we know is by revelation, and the summit of
revelation is in Christ, then we may come to a very important conclusion: the substance of intimacy is the prayerful,
adoring study of the person and work of Christ within the context of a life of obedience.
“If the believer would enter into a better, deeper, fuller knowledge of God he must prayerfully study the person and
work of the Lord Jesus Christ as revealed in the scriptures! Let this be made our chief business, our great delight,
to reverently scrutinize and meditate upon the excellencies of our Divine Savior as they are displayed upon the
pages of Holy writ. Then, and only then, shall we ‘increase in the knowledge of God’. The ‘light of the knowledge
of the glory of God’ is seen only ‘in the face of Jesus Christ.’”
b. Study here is not a dry, academic endeavor but refers rather to the way one studies the beauty of a flower or
a breathtaking landscape in order to drink it in as much as possible.
c. If we desire to grow in the knowledge of God, to find Him and love Him, we must do so by actually fixing our
attention and affection upon Christ and not simply mentioning His name.
d. Biblically it is described as the posture of listening/hearing or beholding/gazing – the practice of the one
needful thing.
2. Practice
a. We must use Scripture as a launching point for savoring and meditating upon the life of Christ, the revelation
of His glory/beauty, and His marvelous deeds.
b. Jesus was the preoccupation of the apostolic Church. Reflection on His beauty, zeal for His name, and an
ardent expectation of His return consumes page after page of the New Testament. So, too, if we desire authentic
intimacy real, purposeful time must be spent in adoring consideration of all that the Bible reveals about Him.
B. Crisis
1. Seeking God
a. Lacking this foundational understanding, countless Christians relate to God as though the Incarnation has not
happened and seek to know God in a manner more reminiscent of the Old Covenant than New Testament reality.
b. Many are sincere but misdirected in their pursuit of intimacy with God. Unless Jesus is the focal point, all
movements toward the Divine will at the least end in frustration, if not confusion.
c. John of the Cross (16th century Catholic saint) addressed this issue in his own day as men were seeking
revelations and experiences:
“God could reason as follows: If I have already told you all things in My Word, My Son, and if I have no other word,
what answer or revelation can I now make that would surpass this? Fasten your eyes on Him alone because in Him
I have spoken and revealed all and in Him you will discover even more than you ask for and desire. You are making
an appeal for locutions and revelations that are incomplete, but if you turn your eyes to Him you find them
complete. For He is My entire locution and response, vision and revelation, which I have already spoken, answered,
manifested, and revealed to you by giving Him to you as a brother, companion, master, ransom, and reward.”
d. Reading books, attending conferences, and listening to teaching may all be potentially edifying uses of time
and may be filled with many, many references to “God” but can result in virtually no enlargement of the heart if it
does not result our vision being set upon Christ with ever diminishing distraction.
e. In this light the pandemic of burn-out and disillusionment within the body of Christ becomes less enigmatic.
One can invest themselves with great fervor in religious activities but their spiritual growth will be stunted and their
heart unsatisfied if their pursuit is not an overtly relational one centered on the man Christ Jesus.
f. As we call a generation to wholeheartedness it is imperative to realize that unless Jesus is central in their
study, devotion, and discipleship they will likely be unmotivated and disenfranchised within seven years, entrenched
in a life of boredom and compromise.
g. The reason is not because they were unwilling but rather that they were attempting to live a radical expression of
Christianity devoid of Christ. They were seeking to embrace a Biblical, sacrificial lifestyle apart from a preoccupation
with the Beautiful One who alone can render the difficult way reasonable and sweet to our souls.
IV. OVERFLOW
A. The Bridegroom
1. The bridal paradigm (and Song of Songs) is reduced to hollow sentimentality and rhetoric apart from a dynamic
connection to the living knowledge of Christ as revealed in the Scripture. We must know who the Bridegroom is in truth.
10 My beloved is white and ruddy, chief among ten thousand….16 His mouth is most sweet, Yes, he is altogether lovely.
This is my beloved, and this is my friend, O daughters of Jerusalem! Song 5:10-16
2. Love demands totality and our love for Jesus should naturally insist upon entrance into all the treasures of
knowledge that have been made accessible to the redeemed. Now and forevermore He is to be our magnificent
obsession. In this way we move from being infatuated with the idea of intimacy to actually being in love with the person
of Christ.
B. Fashioned
1. In a way far more real than we can conceive through our dim sight in this present, evil age we were created to
love Jesus - distinct even from the way in which we were fashioned for relationship with the Father and Spirit. As His
bride we are His inheritance, His possession, and His delight.
23 And you are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s. I Corinthians 3:23
10 I am my beloved’s, and his desire is toward me. Song 7:10
15 Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ?...17 But he who is joined to the Lord is one spirit with Him…
19 Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you
are not your own? 20 For you were bought at a price… I Corinthians 6:15-20
8 For if we live, we live to the Lord; and if we die, we die to the Lord. Therefore, whether we live or die, we are the Lord’s.
Romans 14:8
2. The result is that the deepest recesses of our being will come alive when we begin to gaze upon His glory and
search out His depths. For the first time we truly touch the bliss of entering into the purpose for which we created.
Most people (and many Christians) spend their entire lives in futility, desperately spilling themselves out upon all the
world and the Church has to offer in an attempt to answer the ache within them.