Intimacy With Our Lord

Ladies, I studied this in 1998.  It drew me close to our wonderful Lord Jesus in so many ways.  There are different seasons in our lives.  We must learn to embrace each for the instruction of the Lord.  It doesn’t depend on “how we feel” but our loyalty to our Lord and King Jesus.  May you grow in grace in knowledge of our Lord as we study this over the next few weeks.  Come just as you are-we are all welcome….

Identified in Death

A lady once showed the famous artist Buskin a costly handkerchief on which a blot of ink had been dropped. The handkerchief, she complained, was ruined. Nothing was left but to throw it away. Buskin said nothing, but took the handkerchief away from her. Shortly afterward the lady received it back, but so changed that she could hardly belief it was the original. Using the ink blot as the basis, he had worked around it a beautiful and artistic design, changing what was valueless into a thing of beauty and joy.1

So it is with Christ. He takes the blots and failures of our lives and transforms them into valuable assets. Those hurts, disappointments and failures that appear to us as obstacles and threaten to ruin us become perfect opportunities for the Son of God to make new, if only we will let Him.

• 1. What is different from us, as Godly women and other women of the world who are morally good? From your heart tell us what you think is the difference.

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

• 2. Where is the words of our Lord Jesus found stating He will give us beauty for ashes?

_________________________________________

Understanding God’s Way

Why does He allow us to experience this kind of pain? All life is the result of some form of brokenness. The earth must be broken before the seed can be planted. The seed must be broken before the plant can grow. And the earth must once again be broken before new plant life can emerge upon it. Brokenness then is a life birthing process that must precede every area of growth in our lives. This is especially true as God develops our spiritual lives. Any spiritual fruitfulness will require the breaking of the outer person so the spirit can commune with the Spirit of Christ in us.

Prayer is the key! As we collapse into the arms of God, the outer person sloughs off like grave clothes. In prayer we see:

The absolute holiness of God (see Rev. 15:4)
Taste the joy of heaven (see John 16:7)
Understand the reality of His Word (see Ps. 119:103)

Recognizing how Christ works in our lives is vitally important. Unless we understand the process, the journey can be quite discouraging. As a matter of fact, if we fail to understand the process, at the point where the Lord Jesus wants to draw us into a deeper experience with Himself, we will struggle against the journey toward intimacy, not realizing that we are actually being freed from the domination of our souls. We are being delivered daily from our carnal minds, our self-determined wills and the earthly emotions that enslave us. When we realize how very much unlike Jesus we are, our spirit cries out for His overcoming power.

We can experience this overcoming power if we are willing to yield to Him. Our human nature, however, resists surrendering to the will of another. And because of our stubborn, carnal love for self, the Father must break us so we may follow Jesus’ example of becoming “broken bread” and “poured out wine” for His sake (see 1 Cor. 11: 23-27). Broken bread is needful for life-giving service and poured out wine is needful to bring comfort to those who are hurting and perishing. Notice that the bread must be broken and the wine must be poured out.

As we reach the end of soul strength and begin to surrender to the process of spiritual maturity, we experience a freedom, a peace and a power yet unknown to us. This process can take a few years, even a lifetime. The stages of this spiritual journey usually occur gradually and are often a combination of many crises.

We must reach the end of our _______________  _________________ and __________________to the ______________________ of spiritual maturity.

The dynamics of being drawn into intimacy are much like those of a midwife during the birth process. When the crises heightens by nature’s demands, the breaking of the water bag reassures us that one phase of life is ending to produce greater life. God’s promise is that out of what has been broken will come greater life if we do not abort His process. Though it is difficult to understand why we need such agony, God proves the inner strength needed to take us through the labor to complete the work.

The BREAKING of the water bag reassures us that one phase of life is __________________ to produce _____________________  ____________________.  Our ______________________inner strength is needed to take us through the labor to complete the ___________________________.

In every stage of our spiritual growth, new opportunities can strip away our soul’s domination. The primary way of dealing with the “soul man” (commonly called flesh) is to deny it. We deny it any authority in our lives. The soul tries to rationalize, reason, figure and conclude what God is doing. But the Christian life is not to be a life of reasoning; it is to be a life of faith. And because it is a faith walk, any attempt to exercise willpower against the plan of God will only bring frustration.

Every stage of our spiritual growth or new _________________ can strip away our soul’s domination. 

What if we decided the pain of labor would be too hard, so we aborted our baby?  We would lose the gift of giving LIFE.  We can’t afford to _______________________ but rather we must walk by _______________________.

Seeking the opinions of others will often delay the Spirit’s work, as well. The heavenly Bridegroom is wooing His Bride by destroying all her other lovers, with self being the biggest of all.

What is the danger or going to others to get their opinion?  ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

God’s plan begins as we elect to die to ourselves so the Lord can bring resurrection. I am not referring to the “new birth” of salvation. I am describing a metamorphosis in the life of a believer that precedes Christ’s life flowing freely through that person.

Salvation is the entrance to the tabernacle but there is a journey from the entrance to the veil which God desires us to step behind.  Is God flowing freely through us? _________ Have you ever given this much thought? ____

What could be holding us back?  List some possibilities: __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Psalm 42:8 says, “By day the Lord directs his love, at night his song is with me – a prayer to the God of my life.” Nothing can disturb the peace of lessen the passion that is present in the person who is walking in resurrection life because resurrection life produces the fruit of deepest love and intimacy with the Lord.

Resurrection from what?   How?______________________________________________________________________________

What do you think “by day the Lord directs his love” means?________________________________________________________________________

And “at night his song is with me-a prayer to the God of my life” mean?  ______________________________________________________________________________
Antoine De Saint-Exupery once said, “Love does not consist in gazing at each other but in looking outward
together in the same direction.”

 Which direction are we looking? __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Soulish Approaches to God

If only believers would gaze upward instead of inward, we would understand God’s way and we would not seek intimacy with Him in our own soulish ways. However, God says, “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts” (Isa. 55:9). The following are three ways that we believers often approach God:

1. Volitionally
2. Emotionally
3. Intellectually

Come back for more next week!!  Same place—Same TRUTH coming your way!

Lovingly, Rhonda

An excerpt from Beyond the Veil published by Regal Books (October 1997).