I. INVITED INTO THE ETERNAL INTIMACY OF THE TRINITY
In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God…Jn. 1:1
A. Before time began, the God of love was. And in the intimacy between the Father, Son, and Spirit, no need or lack has
ever existed. For all is summed up in God and in Him is all life, all light and all love. It was out of this perfect wholeness
that God created humanity—not to fill a void in Himself, but to share His fullness. (pondering our non-necessity)
B. In Him there is no absence but only presence, no vacancy but only fullness. Thus, we know that He did not create
humanity out of His need but out of His desire.
C. Love Eternal
1. Have we ever considered what kind of love has dwelt for all eternity in the holy circle of Love Himself—between
Father, Son and Holy Spirit?
2. From everlasting, far beyond the scope of where the human mind can stretch, the Father has loved the beloved
Son, the express image of Himself, with ardent affection. Long before time came into existence, the Son has continually
erupted with exploding love for His Father. And the Holy Spirit, the One who is the very breath of the Godhead, He has
loved Father and Son with incomprehensible zeal and jealousy, just as also the Father and Son have loved the Spirit of
God with depths descending and heights mounting unendingly. Delighting with all delights and enjoying with all pleasure,
the Three Persons of the Trinity have shared in love perpetually from eternity—a whirlwind of tumultuous affections, pure
as God is pure and consuming as God is all-consuming.
3. It is a love of entirety—a love that has poured out everything without reservation, restraint or withholding. This love has
eternally given everything.
D. The idea that we have been invited into the sharing and the fellowshipping of God’s own intimacy seems
preposterous and appalling if we have considered it rightly—for it is just so.
But now in Jesus Christ, you who once were far off have been brought near…” Eph. 2:13
Father I desire that they would be with Me where I am... Jn. 17:26
E. Intimacy Depends on Likeness
For what fellowship has righteousness with lawlessness? And what communion has light with darkness? 2 Cor. 6:14
1. The basis for intimacy is likeness. That is why we were created in His image. God cannot commune with that which
is unlike Him. Likeness is the basis for all interpersonal intimacy.
2. We are in part like God because we were created in His image but due to our sinful nature and sinful choices, we
are unlike Him.
3. Because of sin both in nature in and choices, our intimacy was breached, causing us to look more and more unlike
God. God’s command for us to be holy is not just a command that flows out of His love for purity. Rather, it is the shout of
God for intimacy with His people. The pursuit of holiness is the pursuit of intimacy.
4. Therefore, it is as we are transformed, that we come into greater union with God. Within the relationship, God is
not the One who changes—we are. In order to have intimacy, we must become like Him.
II. HOLY INTIMACY
A. A Real Man
That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked
upon, and our hands have handled, concerning the Word of life— 2 the life was manifested, and we have seen, and
bear witness, and declare to you that eternal life which was with the Father and was manifested to us… 1 Jn. 1:1,2
1. Imagine a real day in your future—the day you finally see Him face to face. I believe some of us will actually be
on the earth, looking up, when He splits the skies in His Return. Out of heaven will step a Real Man, with real form,
with fire in His eyes and a voice like the sound of rushing waters. In that glorious moment, when faith becomes sight,
you will look upon His face of the God-Man Jesus Christ.
Behold, He is coming in the clouds and every eye will see Him…Rev. 1:7
At that time they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory. When these things begin to take
place, stand up and lift up your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.” Lk. 21:27
2. The One we love is coming again, this time to receive us to Himself (Jn. 14:2, 3). We are going to enter into an
embrace of presence and love that our minds have not imagined. We will behold in fullness the heart and Person of the
voice that we have so come to know.
No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him. 1 Cor. 2:8
3. When your eyes meet His for the first time, what kind of memory, of familiarity, will you experience in that gaze?
When you stand before Him face to face one day soon, will the intimacy that you have known with Him in this life of earth
resound with real substance through the corridors of Eternity? What lives before the throne of God? What crosses over?
But you are not willing to come to Me that you may have life. Jn. 5:40
4. No person on the earth can develop this intimacy with Jesus for us. It is something to be cultivated in the
aloneness and sacredness of every individual heart.
5. The Journey of intimacy with God that we emb¬ark upon in this life is about Eternal Intimacy—what begins now
will never end for all the ages. This moment called time is the hour God has ordained for us to grow in intimacy under
the pressures of pain and the gropings of faith.
B. The Dire Need of Intimacy with Jesus
1. A cry is going out across the globe for what is real, for the knowledge of God in its raw form. Who knows this One?
Who has been with Him?
2. We are after union with God as our primary reason for living. What does the fullness of God mean in the age of
which God is ordained that we see dimly as in a mirror? We pray, “God, in this age called time, what will You give to a
human heart that is fully abandoned to You? How far can I go, how tenderized can my heart become?”
C. The Word Provokes us
Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth – for your love is better than wine. Song 1:2
Because your lovingkindness is better than life, my lips shall praise you. Psalm 63:3
8 Oh, taste and see that the LORD is good; blessed is the man who trusts in Him! Psalm 34:8
8 They are abundantly satisfied with the fullness of Your house, and You give them drink from the river of Your
pleasures. Psalm 36:8
“These things I have spoken to you, that My joy may remain in you, and that your joy may be full. John 15:9-11
that the genuineness of your faith, being much more precious than gold that perishes, though it is tested by fire,
may be found to praise, honor, and glory at the revelation of Jesus Christ, 8 whom having not seen you love. Though
now you do not see Him, yet believing, you rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory, 9 receiving the end of your
faith—the salvation of your souls. I Peter 1:7-9
…may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height— 19 to know the
love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. Ephesians 3:18-19
D. Desperate Search
1. We search for the knowledge of God as though seeking it as silver or searching for it as for hidden treasure
(Prov. 2:1 - 5). He gives Himself to those who diligently seek Him (Heb. 11:6). He gives Himself to the hungry.
2. Intimacy is a journey—it requires time, seasons, and highs and lows. It does not come automatically but must
be cultivated over the years of day in and day out pursuit of God.
3. If we want to have oil in our hearts and to shine like burning lamps at the end of the age, we will not have much
time for a whole lot of other things. Time is life. Our hearts are not neutral—they are either getting more tenderized or
more calloused every seven-day-period of our lives. This softness or hardness of heart is determined much by our time.
4. Jesus’ words “watch therefore” is a call to a life of prayer (Matt. 25:13). Our constant fight is to maintain a life of
watching. We swim against a strong and steady current in this struggle. We are unaware of the sort of vigilance a life
of watchfulness takes. How do we avoid becoming superficial—imagining we are closer to God than we truly are? First,
we must recognize our barrenness and resolve to enter into His fullness through a life of watchfulness. This won’t
happen with one resolution—it’s a constant fight.
5. Of greatest importance is simply that we persevere over decades, that we not give up in the midst of delay, and that
whether we meet mundane prayer or massive encounter, we continue to pursue Him day after day.
III. LIVING A LIFE OF INTIMACY WITH GOD
Moving out of the great vision of the love of God and more into the application of wholehearted love, we consider how it
looks to live lives that are in pursuit of deeper intimacy with God.
A. A Life of Prayer
1. We must position our cold, weak hearts in front of the fire of His Love. We have to come near to the fire of His
affection and interact with His love in a very personal way. We position our hearts daily whether we “feel” His love or not.
There will be days that our hearts flow like rivers and days where all is silent.
2. As we search for Him and He gives us no apparent answer, the experience of barrenness in prayer is often so
difficult for our desirous hearts. We hope for exhilarating prayer yet instead we find ourselves watching the clock.
3. The testimony of these prayers from the Eternal Eyes is that they matter. They indescribably count in the ascent
up the mountain of the knowledge of God. They are the normal days between the extremes.
4. He has composed our journey to not only include times rich with sound and emotion but also all the “ordinary” times of
emotionless stillness.
But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of
those who diligently seek Him. Heb. 11:6
He who sows to the Spirit shall reap eternal life. Gal. 6:8
B. The Lord’s Response to our Prayers: He Rejoices
1. The key in “watching” is that we know what HE looks like. He is filled with immeasurable joy and kindness. He is
not angry and frustrated with us when we become before Him. Rather, He listens for our voice. He looks for our face
and He beckons us to draw near (S.S. 2:14).
2. We must also know how the One who we wait on perceives us. In order for our hearts to become tenderized in
love, we must wait on a God who we know is Himself in love with us. We must wait on a God who we know desires us or
we will wait with a wrong heart.
C. Ravished God
You have ravished My heart, my sister, my spouse; you have ravished My heart with one look of your eyes, with one link
of your necklace...S.S. 4:9
1. In this passage (S.S. 4:9) Jesus gives insight into what transpires in His own heart with each weak glance toward
Him and with every small choice of our will to love Him. So many of these weak glances and small choices are made in
the place of dryness, when we feel nothing.
2. God does not define our love by emotion by what we feel as we do. He is the One who measures love and what
we call barren He often calls fruitful; what we call wasteful He often calls well spent.
3. The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof yet He has committed the affections of His heart to be overcome
by the likes of you and me.
D. Precious Prayers
1. We stand on our tiptoes on the precipice of time, peering into eternity with a steady gaze, ever searching the
horizon for the One who lives outside of time. It is this gaze that overcomes Him and sends Him into this whirlwind of
poetic song: “Turn your eyes away from Me! They’ve overcome Me!” (S.S. 6:5). This is what is happening in the spirit
while we struggle to believe on the earth.
(Jesus Christ) whom having not seen you love. 1 Pet. 1:8
2. These faint movements of the heart, made in times of such grey shadows, move His heart like no other time. Each
choice He records, each glance He remembers. And one very real day in our future, He will open up the book of
remembrance and remind us of each one.
Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believed. Jn. 20: 29
E. Precious Tears
1. He will remember our tears. He will one day wipe each one away forever. I believe He keeps them in a bottle so
as to bring to remembrance each one. These “tears of our testimony” are indescribably precious to Him. We only have
one life on the earth to cry them and then forever they are the treasures of our intimacy’s history. Though their lifespan
is temporal and not eternal, they are the witnesses of our love during the age of faith, when we believed through a dark
night and loved without seeing.
2. The divine exchange is that we “remember His love” in our seasons on the earth and then for all eternity He will
remember our love.
You number my wanderings; put my tears into Your bottle; are they not in Your book? Ps. 56:8
And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall
be no more pain, for the former things have passed away. Rev. 21:4
IV. HUNGER AND LONGING
A. Hunger
1. A very real part of the journey of prayer is the process of hunger or longing required by God. We cannot move
forward without this essential movement of the heart before God.
2. It is so necessary that we perceive this to be a gift from the Lord so that when we encounter the difficulty of it,
we can know its value, its purpose and its necessity.
Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted…Blessed are those who hunger and those who hunger and
thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled. Matt. 5:4, 6
B. Divine Longing
Father, I desire that they also whom You gave Me may be with Me where I am, that they may behold My glory which You
have given Me…Jn. 17:24
1. From the whirlwind of Trinitarian love – humanity was brought forth. Our existence emerged from the Desire of
God. We were formed to be brought into the fellowship and the communion of the Trinity. Though we will remain the
creation, He has willed (Father I desire) that we would with Him where He is.
…for the Lord’s portion is His people. Deut. 32:9
…You shall be My special treasure. Ex. 19:5
2. God is searching for something that He has positioned Himself to not have unless we choose to give it to Him.
But the hour is coming and now is when the true worshippers will worship Him in spirit and in truth; for the Father is seeking
such to worship Him. Jn. 4:23
For the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to show Himself strong on behalf of those whose
heart is loyal to Him. 2 Chron. 16:9
C. Gift of Longing
1. Every desire we have for Him is not from our own heart but from His. Longing is the agreement of our beings with
the heart of God. When we enter into our inheritance of longing and desiring God, we are only participating in what has
always been in His heart.
My soul thirsts for You; my flesh longs for You in a dry and weary land where there is no water. So I have looked for
You in Your sanctuary to see Your power and Your glory…My soul follows close behind You… Ps. 63:1, 2, 8
2. Longing is part of God’s answer to us. We imagine this gift to be only the actual experience of intimacy with
Him. Yet the longing prior to this experience is just as much a part of loving Him as the experience itself.
For it is God who works in you, both to will [desire] and to do for His good pleasure. Phil. 2:13
3. Longing is part of love. It is the part that causes us to be desperate. It is the ache that enables us to do anything
and give everything for the Object of our affection. If one has lost his longing, he has lost his way. Divine longing is like
our compass on the journey.
4. “I want deliberately to encourage this mighty longing after God. The lack of it has brought us to our present low
estate. The stiff and wooden quality about our religious lives is a result of our lack of holy desire. Complacency is a
deadly foe of all spiritual growth. Acute desire must be present or there will be no manifestation of Christ to His people.
He waits to be wanted. Too bad that with many of us He waits so long, so very long, in vain.”
5. How our hearts need to go hungry before we are fed. Of what worth is water without thirst? Of what value is
fruitfulness without barrenness? What is desire satisfied without desire unmet? We must encounter the depths of
longing’s ache in order to ascend to the heights of divine exhilaration. Both the heights and the depths are LOVE.
V. HOW WE LOVE HIM IN OUR DAY TO DAY LIVES
“For this commandment which I command you today is not too mysterious for you, nor is it far off…the word is very
near you, in your mouth and in your heart, that you may do it.” Deut. 30:11, 14
A. Loving God with all of the heart, soul, mind and strength can only ever be done in the context of the moments
we have been given right now, however ordinary or weak.
B. We might think often that another season or another life might more lend itself to abandonment.
C. The future that we think of so often may or may not happen—we cannot be certain. We cannot plan with sureness on
what we will do tomorrow, always planning as if we could guarantee that we even have tomorrow. (Jas. 4:13–15).
D. We have but one window that we are sure of in which we might offer the Lord the whole of our hearts, all that
we are, and that window is now. (The problem with right now is that it seems so ordinary, so non-mysterious, and so
commonplace.)
E. The well-known Brother Lawrence, lived a life that captured this truth profoundly.
“We ought not weary of doing little things for the love of God, who regards not the greatness of the work, but the love
with which it is performed.
F. Commonness is the nature of human life in the age of time. It is the only sort of context we are given to love God
within. According to the divine brilliance of everlasting wisdom, this is the environment in which love for God and man
is cultivated, maintained, and offered.
G. Martyrdom begins in monotony and the power to give all for God does not come in the limitation of a heightened
moment of testing but through the cultivation of a thousand moments.
If we sow to the Spirit we will reap the Spirit (Gal. 6:8)