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Make Room For Intimacy

I recently read this verse from the NLT translation of the bible and it resonated deep in my soul:

I want you to know me more than I want burnt offerings. (Hosea 6:6b emphasis mine)

God’s heart cry is to be known by us. Stop and let that verse sink in for a while. Seriously. Take a minute.

God wants intimacy more than service. Put another way, He wants sons and daughters, not slaves. Consider all the way back to the newborn creation when God walked and talked with man in the cool of the garden. God’s original intent, distinct from His intent toward all other created beings, was to walk in fellowship with man. Often, we are busy busy busy doing things for God instead of being with God. God does not just want our prayers, our fasting, our tithes, our church attendance, or our bible reading. He wants our fellowship. He wants us to seek a real heart-to-heart relationship with Him. Getting to know the Eternal One is the most necessary and serious endeavour of our Christian life.

The unfortunate reality is that our culture is more rational than relational. Consider the first 20 years of your life. What was the emphasis of all those years of preparation for adulthood? In our early years, we were taught how to talk, walk, read and write. Then we went on to more difficult things such as Algebra, Geography, football, playing the guitar, and driving a car. Then we graduated to real challenging subjects such as plumbing, performing surgery, or doing a theatrical performance. But how much did we learn about listening, processing our emotions, vulnerability, empathy, or handling conflict well? Not nearly as much.

This academic, task-oriented, performance-driven culture has fully saturated our religious lives as well. We measure our Christianity by things like bible knowledge, church attendance, ministry engagements, missionary work, and doctrinal understanding. How far have we drifted from “By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” (John 13:35). Or what about, “The most important commandment is this: ‘Listen, O Israel! The Lord our God is the one and only Lord. And you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength.’ The second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ No other commandment is greater than these.” (Mark 12:29-31). The central issue of being like Christ is relational – loving God and others like Christ did. And all relationships begin with the desire to know and be known by the other.

I do not think we are even aware of how plutonic our relationship with our Heavenly Father has become. Consider how universally the bible has come to be considered the Word of God. It used to be (in biblical days) that the Word of God included a personal encounter with the Divine. There was no separation of God’s voice from His Presence. The Speaker was inseparable from His words. When the Word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision, God personally spoke to him and said, “Fear not, Abram, I am your shield; your reward shall be very great.”. When Balaam announced what the Lord had spoken to him, he said, “This is the message of Balaam son of Beor, the message of the man whose eyes see clearly, the message of one who hears the words of God, who has knowledge from the Most High, who sees a vision from the Almighty, who bows down with eyes wide open”. Can you hear the echoes of someone who has been in the presence of the Voice of Many Waters?! In New Testament times the people gathered around Jesus to hear the living Word of God speak to them!

Nowadays, we casually read from the bible and believe it is synonymous with hearing God’s voice. This is a deception. Without a doubt, He can speak to us as we read, but hear me well, it is not the act of reading that brings connection with the divine. No no no. Many souls have read the good book (and some have memorized it as did the Pharisees) without any interaction with God whatsoever. I myself have come away from the book at times remaining empty of the Bread of Life. Hearing from God is a far more relational endeavour in the same way as reading someone’s biography is very different from spending time with them. Hearing from God requires a pure heart and an undistracted mind turned with burning desire and rapt attention toward the only One who has the words of eternal life. “Lord, to whom would we go? You have the words that give eternal life.” (John 6:68)

The Holy Spirit lives in us. The whispers of God echo in our hearts if we hearken to His quiet voice. I implore you. Take a step back from doctrinal debates and endless studies and make room in your hectic schedule of good deeds to seek God. Intimacy is nurtured in SLOW time. Awake before the dawn and set your affections toward God in hushed silence. Take long slow walks in nature and soak in the wonder and the beauty of His handiwork. Linger in heart-to-heart journaled conversations with your Eternal Lover. Instead of approaching the bible like a manual for life to be studied, approach it like a love letter that fills us with an inexorable desire to turn from the pages toward the Author of such amazing love. Instead of approaching times of prayer with a list of petitions, approach it with a curiosity to discover what Your Heavenly Father might want to speak to you today.

In this season of advent let us make room in the inn of our lives for the Saviour. Let us make room for intimacy.

Copyright 2021, Matik Nicholls. All rights reserved.

If you haven’t yet, check out our FREE Spiritual Growth Foundation Course in which we cover the four foundational principles for spiritual growth and much more! In addition to on-demand videos which you can watch at your leisure, there are downloadable handouts for those who prefer written content.

The Primacy of The Voice of God

It’s my birthday! God has blessed me with so many wonderful people in my life and taken me through so many challenges that I just feel so grateful on days like today. 

I’m extra excited today because today I get to give the gift! 

I’m launching my new book – The Primacy of The Voice of God: Elevating The Word of God to Its Rightful Position – and i’m giving it away free! 

Here’s an excerpt:

Hebrew 4:12-13 (ESV) refers to the Word like this:

12 For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. 13 And no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account.

Hebrews defines the Word of God as:

  1. Living
  2. Powerful
  3. Sharp
  4. Discerning

And if the reader had any doubt as to what, or rather who, the author is referring, in verse 13 the Word of God is referred to with the personal pronouns ‘his’ and ‘him’. The clear conclusion of this passage, therefore, is that the Word of God is a living, active person.

However, I admit that this is just the tip of the iceberg. There are many questions still to be answered. I have just laid the foundation – Jesus Christ; the Word of God. It may seem a simplistic truth, but Jesus is the foundation on which everything else is built. He is The Rock on which everything else stands. He is the chief cornerstone which you must be broken upon or He will break you to pieces (Mat 21:42-44).

The primary question I will seek to answer is this: ‘Are we correct to equate the Word of God with the Bible?’ In the following chapters we will seek the answer to this question and hopefully in so doing answer many others. We will look to see what the Bible says about the Word of God and about itself in the Old and New Testaments. We will discover what it means for the Word of God to be living and active in the Christian life. I hope you will find this journey of discovery both challenging and rewarding.

The infinite-ness of God has always captivated me. He is so vast; His ways so far above and beyond my capacity to imagine or comprehend. Fathoming God is like trying to imagine a colour that I have never seen before. No matter how much I try, my mind cannot break free from its tether to the world of what has already been created. I cannot create (even in thought) anything that is higher than my level of existence. For this reason, a theology that creates a God that can be easily boxed-in or comprehended by my fickle human mind has always greatly disturbed me. If God created me, then He cannot exist on my level.

I hope this book seriously challenges your God-shaped-box and I hope that in doing so a chain reaction is set off in your life that magnifies and glorifies God with the exponential expansion and blinding brilliance of a supernova! If God is god then He is utterly beyond our capacity to fully comprehend Him!

To download the free Ebook or purchase the kindle version on Amazon for just $0.99 US go here http://authenticjoy.org/books. The paperback version is also available on Amazon.

I do have a small birthday request:

  • I know this book is not for everyone and that’s ok. But even if it’s not of interest to you could you please share this post so that it can reach others who might be interested?
  • If you do read it, I would really love to get your feedback. Please send me a message and/or leave a review on Amazon with your honest feedback.

Thank you my joyful friends.

Copyright 2019, Matik Nichoiils. All rights reserved.