Intimacy with God
Intimacy with God – Do my choices really matter? Workcamp 05
OS: Great Week!
I. 1 Poor slug – He was so bad no one wanted to be near him.
II. 2 Is that how it is with God? Knowing God/Intimacy with God – Do my choices really matter?
A. :John 14 23 Jesus replied, “If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching. My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.
B. “As long as you live under my roof you will abide by my rules, you break my rules and you will be kicked out on the street.”
III. 3 Worthy Question: John 17 3 Now this is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.
4 TS] The Parable of the Loving Father (Luke 15)
I. 5 My choices matter to My Intimacy with God, but not God’s Love for me.
A. *Use a kid, separate them from the audience and just let them stand – note their un-comfortableness after a while, and then ask, “Why”
B. God has given that choice to you.
C. Nothing will ever separate you from the love of Christ – 6 Romans 8 38 For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 39 neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
TS] My choices either lead me within my Father’s house, or away from my Father’s house.
II. 7 The Far away land is not what it’s cut out to be. (Separation = Death)
A. Kid – “having fun yet?” Uncomfortable? Have you wondered in the last few minutes why you raised your hand?
1. Separate = uncomfortable (we fail to realize that being made in the image of God makes separation from Him uncomfortable.) = death
B. Notice, “He was dead, but is alive again” (You can live a dead life)
C. : John 5 24 “I tell you the truth, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be condemned; he has crossed over from death to life.
TS] My choices either lead me within my Father’s house, or away from my Father’s house.
III. 8 I need to question where my choices have left me thus far.
A. Vs. 17, “he came to his senses” Lit. “When he came to himself”
B. :1 Peter 2 2 Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation, 3 now that you have tasted that the Lord is good.
1. Remember what it was like being in the Father’s house? (Camp, retreat, the moment you came out of that water…)
Tiki
If you will just knock – 9 Rev. 3 20 Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me.
(how? Time with Him-Christian Disciplines)
My choices either lead me within my Father’s house, or away from my Father’s house.
TIKI Submitted by: Scott Michael Ringo
My mother has an African lovebird named Tiki who she has had for more than 7 years. Tiki has lived of a lonely life for most of the time she has had him. Each time someone would go to pick him up, to hold him, clean his cage or mostly anything that got his or her hand remotely close to him he would attack. His attacks are not little pecks; they are ravenous, vulture-like, kill strikes. When something would get near him he would attack with everything his couple ounce body had, eighty percent of the time drawing blood. Tiki saw everything as an unknown and a threat resulting in a life missing much love he could have had.
Several months ago returning home from being out to dinner with my father my mother found Tiki close to death. His body was limp and he was barely breathing. That night she held him all nightlong, as he did not have the strength to fight. A trip to the doctor revealed that Tiki had a heart attack and his liver was not doing well either. The doctor prescribed medicine for his liver that he was to take each night and given a diagnosis that he would most likely not live many days. Weak and frail, each night we would hold him to give him his medicine. As the days went by Tiki got better and amazing to the doctor regained a full recovery. Now Tiki loves people picking him up and holding him and sits much of the day waiting and watching for someone to reach down so he can jump up on their hand. Rarely does he want put down and rarely does he bite. Tiki has learned that what he has wanted all these years was right in front of him only he did not realize it for what it was.
Many have discovered that we are much like Tiki. We have longed for truelove and intimacy only to attack it bitterly thinking it would hurt us when it showed itself. The greatest of all these lovers wanting to show us intimacy is God, the creator of us. He has waited patiently throughout history for each one of us to notice Him as our lover and allow Him to engulf us in his arms of love and security. No intimacy can be greater than by the one who made us and knows exactly what we long for. Yet, we have held Him off at great distances believing that He would hurt us if we allowed Him to get close. We could not have been more wrong in our assumptions.
In Jeremiah 31:3 God told Jeremiah: "Yes, I have loved you with an everlasting love; Therefore with loving-kindness I have drawn you".
"Have you never heard or understood? Don't you know that the LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of all the earth? He never grows faint or weary. No one can measure the depths of his understanding". Isaiah 40:28
God does understand that we have all been hurt at one time by love, the church, or another and we have attached that hurt to Him. We believe the hurt came from God when it was only someone acting in His place. God would never hurt us and wants to take each of us into a safe and incredible intimacy with Him. The intimacy that we long for is right in front of us we have just not realized He has been waiting patiently for us to experience His love.
Even now, as I write this Tiki sits on the table in as close as he can to me and chirps for my attention wanting me to pick him up and show him affection. If we would look deep inside ourselves, we would also see everything within us wanting to call on God to experience His intimacy.