Intimacy

Ironically intimacy with God has become quite the religious phrase. The irony, of course, is intimacy with God is the antithesis of religion!

But really, think about it, what does intimacy really mean? Ya, ya, I know; into me you see and all that. That still doesn’t mean anything to me!

Now stay with me here as I try and connect some dots.

I like the word “abide”, you have to look at the word and figure out what it means. My simple definition of abide is: to live with and to know about.

When Jesus says abide in me he is inviting us to actually live with him and have a relationship where we know each other.

But just like intimacy, abide also carries with it that religiousness. So instead of abide I like just what Jesus says in John 17: I in you and you in me.

The reality of Jesus is that he is that close to you and me. He can actually live inside of each one of us. Jesus actually wants to be that close.

This is what blasts religion out of the water. Jesus in us makes sure that our actions and behavior honor the Father and demonstrate the Kingdom of God.

When we get a deeper understanding of Christ in us we will see our behavior change to Kingdom values. We will see our identity change to Kingdom reality. We will see our passions show the heart of God.

This Christian thing begins and ends with us wrestling with the truth of Jesus in us.

Value

This is a topic that I find fascinating. Value is maybe the wrong word for the topic but it does have the right tone to get the point across.

All through the Bible and the gospel of John especially, I find Jesus continually shake up the thinking of Israel and the religious leaders thinking. The Value they seem to have is not on God or anything he values!

John chapter 6 starts off a long series of stories about how the value of Jesus is missing. After Jesus feeds the 5000 he blasts the crowd, the people who actually took the time and effort to follow him, for following him because of bread not because of who he is.

This seems to be the case of Western Christianity as well, we find Jesus is an ingredient to a problem not the solution to the problem. We take what we need from Jesus and hope he doesn't touch the rest of our stuff.

There seems to be so much complaining about what God has NOT done. We fail to see that IT DOESN'T MATTER what has or not happened. God is God and he is good. The Bible is full of scriptures to show us the nature of God and his kindness. Yes, kindness. He has shown us the reality of his kingdom and what that makes us. If we can actually find out who we are, the reality of our present afflictions don't matter. Who we are in him and what that makes us must trump any circumstances that happen to come our way.

But lets not fall on scripture alone. This has to turn to experience if this is going to make any sense at all. Allow God to speak to you and tell you who you REALLY are, ask Him why he has put you together this way.

We have to put value on Jesus. If we don't put value on him we will fail to listen to him and fail to embrace the life he wants to bless us with.

Confusion comes when things don't go the way we want them to! Jesus is the solution to your problem not just an ingredient to your life to make things go the way you want. Stop using Jesus and allow him to use you!

You can find me on twitter these days, so follow @gmumby and @kingdomawakning. If you found this via twitter throw me a ReTweet. Leave a comment on Facebook as well! Thanks for taking the time to read my ramblings!