Help! I Don’t Feel Intimate with God!
Sometimes in our Faithful Pursuit of God there are times where we don’t feel intimate with God. Maybe you feel like this. Maybe that is why you opened this blog… because you are struggling and you don’t know what to do. You don’t even understand why you are struggling, but you are. You hesitate because you know that what you feel is not always the most important but it does matter… and you don’t feel intimate with God. You do and do some more to try to fix it but everything you try doesn’t work.
In those times we need to be reminded of the Truth of the GOSPEL. We need to be reminded what Jesus of what Jesus accomplished on that cross. Doing more things does not always work… but living in the Truth of the Gospel does.
And the truth is that: Many of us don’t feel intimate with God because we aren’t living in the grace of the Gospel… the TRUTH of God’s intimacy.
To show you what I mean I want to go to a well known story… The Parable of the Prodigal Son… Found in Luke 15:11-32.
The Truth Found In The Prodigal Son
If you have never read this story, I encourage you to. I provided the link above. This is a story told by Jesus about a son who arrogantly demanded his inheritance while his father was still alive. He took that inheritance and lived however he wanted, squandering it on his sin, until he had no place to go but to return to his father. He rehearses the speech he is going to make to his father and then, as he is walking home, his father sees him in the distance and hugs him, kills the fattened calf, and throws him a party because he came home. No doubt he was confused… but this is what his father did.
This is a beautiful story… but what does it show us? Parables are stories that have a heavenly meaning… so what do we see?
Well there is a lot here but I think we see an amazing truth about intimacy and how it works.
1) The Son Had Intimacy With His Father Because His Father Had Decided To Be Intimate With His Son.
As the son came back, he was rehearsing and preparing to be a servant of the household for all he had done… for he was “no longer worthy to be called his son” (v. 21) but his father was not having it. He hugged him, kissed him, put a ring on his finger, and welcomed back his son. The son did not have to work for his father’s intimacybecause his father had made up his mind.
The same is true with us as followers of Jesus. Here is the glorious truth if you have put your faith in Jesus. We don’t have to earn intimacy with God because God has already purchased intimacy with us in Jesus. God sent His Son Jesus to come to earth to die for us to forgive us but also to have a relationship with us. He is our HEAVENLY FATHER. He has already purchased and decided to be in an intimate relationship with us because He loves us. We don’t have to earn that. That is the truth of the Gospel. We don’t do a good job at living into this.
We try to earn things that God has already given. Intimacy with Him is one of them. That is given by His grace… not earned by our actions. It is time to live into the truth that, just how the prodigal son did not have to earn his father’s love and intimacy, we don’t either!
2) The Father’s Intimacy is GIVEN… Our Intimacy Is By EFFORT.
Let me explain what I mean. By no means do we earn salvation (God’s Intimacy by Grace). That intimacy is given. But as we walk with God we grow in OUR intimacy with HIM (NOT His intimacy with us). Look at this chart:
This is our relationship with God. The arrow from God to Us represents GOD’S INTIMACY WITH US BY GRACE. This is something that when we put our faith in Jesus for the forgiveness of our sin and enter in to a relationship with Jesus, is given.
The arrow from Us To God represents OUR FAITHFUL, OBEDIENT, INTIMATE WALK WITH GOD BY HIS GRACE. We need to live in the grace of God to live our lives for God. However, even though the arrow from God to Us CANNOT be distorted… the arrow from Us To God CAN BE! When we live in sin and don’t walk with God it looks like this:
This is why we often don’t feel intimate with God. I have not lost God’s intimacy with me… but I have lost my intimacy with God. This is what sin, lack of discipline, apathy towards God does. I am thankful that God keeps the relationship but that does not mean that we don’t have to put in any effort! I do not have to earn but I do have to follow and Faithfully Pursue.
Now What?
Reflect back on the last few weeks… how has your time in the Word of God been? Have you been fighting to stay holy? Have you been worshiping? Have you put God first in your life? If not, the arrow from you to God is probably distorted. Take steps this week to renew that.
But don’t just do more… be more (live in the relationship God has given you) by living in the truth that, if you are in a relationship with Jesus, He took your sin upon the cross so you don’t have to earn God’s intimacy with you anymore because He purchased it.. You can be confident that your Father in Heaven LOVES you and has CHOSEN to be intimate with you, just like the prodigal son, even when you are struggling to be intimate with Him.
Remember Jude 24-25
24 Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy, 25 to the only God, our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen
Lets this truth drive you. Let the truth that God loves you and is as intimate with you as ever drive you to be more intimate with Him. His intimacy (the arrow from Him to Us) with you does not depend upon you. He loves you. He cares for you. He is with you. This should breathe confidence in you to Faithfully Pursue Him this week. I hope this helps!