Category Archives: Intimacy with God

Show Us The Father — The Personal God

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““You see the people crowding against you,” his disciples answered, “and yet you can ask, ‘Who touched me?’ ””
‭‭Mark‬ ‭5‬:‭31‬ ‭NIV‬‬

Jesus was surrounded by crowds of people, but He still saw the needs of the one. One man in a crowd needed Jesus to heal his dying daughter. Jesus’s response is to head towards that man’s, Jairus, home to pray for his little girl.

As they walk through the crowd where people were pressing up against Jesus on all sides, one woman was healed in a very personal way. Jesus stopped to address her individually.

You and I are only one in 8 billion on this planet. There are so many others pressing in around Jesus. Yet He stops for the one, you/ me.

So many around us but He comes to our home of our hearts and raises the dead within us.

Jesus shows us a Heavenly Father who is personal. He is for each of us one on one. He wants intimate relationship with each of us. Jesus went to the cross, died and rose again to extend the invitation that our Heavenly Father desires for us to receive. He desires for us to come. Will we respond to His personal invitation for our time to be one on one with Him?

Show Us The Father — Family

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Today is Mark 3:21-35.

Jesus’s biological family thought He was “out of his mind.” They came to seize Him. They did not understand who Jesus really was.

When Jesus was told about their coming, they said, “Your mother and your brothers are outside, seeking you.” Jesus then defined our true heavenly family. He said, “…whoever does the will of God, he is my brother and sister and mother.” (Verse 35)

If we want to dwell in a relationship of “family” with God, we need to do the will of God. What is the will of God?

Jesus defined the will of God:

“For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.””
‭‭John‬ ‭6‬:‭40‬ ‭ESV‬‬

The will of God is that we believe on Jesus and receive His eternal life.

Jesus also defines eternal life:

“And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.”
‭‭John‬ ‭17‬:‭3‬ ‭ESV‬‬

Knowing God = Eternal Life= Connection to God in a Relatioship of Oneness

When we know God intimately, in a connected relationship, we will be in His will. The ones who know God in this relationship are His family.

Nothing else matters in life. God wants us to experience Him as our Father. In this passage, the ones who were seated around Jesus, listening to Him speak were the ones who wanted to know God and to experience Him in relationship. They were the ones who were doing the will of God. They were Jesus’s true spiritual family.

When we enter into a relationship with God, we enter His family too! We can know God in a relationship of family!

Show Us The Father — Real

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Today is Mark 3:1-21.

“And he told his disciples to have a boat ready for him because of the crowd, lest they crush him, for he had healed many, so that all who had diseases pressed around him to touch him.”
‭‭Mark‬ ‭3‬:‭9‬-‭10‬ ‭ESV‬‬

People are looking for what is real, what is true. This was true in Jesus’s time and it is true today.

Crowds were showing up wherever Jesus went. They wanted an opportunity to experience Jesus. They had heard of Him, but they wanted to be near to Him, touch Him, and feel His power. They knew He had healed many. They knew He wasn’t just another religious leader. They knew He was real!

I have heard that this generation has seen so much false. They are hungry for what is real. God desires for them to know Him and His Word. He is the one who is right and true! He is real!

May our lives reflect Him so others may know Our Heavenly Father who still touches the broken and needy! He is real!

Show Us The Father— Relational God

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Today is Mark 2:18-28.

The Pharisees thought they had God figured out. They had a list of laws with boxes to check off on that list. If they fulfilled it all they thought they were all good with God. They had “religion”…

Jesus came. He was Emmanuel — God with us. He came displaying God the Father to anyone who would pay attention to Him. Jesus walked and talked with the people who followed Him. He lived in relationship with them. His words He spoke and His call to follow Him literally changed lives. Relating to God was no longer a list of boxes to check off. Relating to God became a relationship — the very thing God wanted all along. Following the list of rules regarding the Sabbath (including picking grain for a hungry group of men) was not what God was after all along. It was their hearts.

God wants our hearts as well. When we truly love Him with all our heart, soul, mind and strength, we will do the things that God desires. We do not need a list of rules regarding the Sabbath when our greatest desire is to love and obey the Lord of the Sabbath, Jesus.

God will give us a new heart that desires to do what is right if we will only ask Him to. His desire is for us to know Him intimately in a relationship, not follow a list of rules.

Show Us the Father — Friend of Sinners

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Today is Mark 2:1-17.

I can vividly remember the weight of my sin. I have known the emptiness of being separated from God. I can imagine how those who encountered Jesus in this chapter (the paralyzed man and Levi) must have felt, under the weight of their sin.

Jesus came to reconcile us to God. He “has authority on earth to forgive sins.” (Verse 10) Jesus, God with us, ate with sinners.

He told the self righteous religious leaders, who thought they had it together, “I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.” These leaders disliked Jesus all the more. In their preoccupation with how they looked, acted, and lived, they lived consumed with themselves. They couldn’t see the one truth that we all need to realize…we are all sinners too. They too were carrying the weight of sin as the ones they so quickly judged. Had they seen it and received God’s forgiveness, they would have had opportunity to experience God in truth. The God they thought they knew all about…

Jesus told them, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.”

Jesus came so He could call the sinners to Himself. He came so we could be forgiven. Our Heavenly Father desires for sinners to come! He is still calling us, sinners, today!

“…all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,”
‭‭Romans‬ ‭3‬:‭10‬, ‭23‬ ‭ESV‬‬

Jesus knew this truth! He came, He forgave sinners, and He ate with them! He has calls us His friends.

The ones who think they don’t need forgiveness of sins miss what Jesus was trying to show us about the Heavenly Father. He desires to be the sinner’s greatest friend!

“The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost.”
‭‭1 Timothy‬ ‭1‬:‭15‬ ‭ESV‬‬

Show Us The Father — Mark 1:1-20 There’s Something About Jesus

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“Jesus answered: “Don’t you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’?” John 14:9 NIV

God wants us to know Him! Jesus coming to earth is evidence of that truth. God has given us in the four Gospels a beautiful picture of what our Heavenly Father is like. Because if we have seen Jesus, we have seen the Father.

This month we will read the Book of Mark. With each section, we will explore what our Heavenly Father is like as Jesus displayed Him before us.

To Know God is to Love God is to Trust God is to Obey Him! It is my prayer that as we read each section, this will become a reality in our lives.

Today is Mark 1:1-20.

There’s something about Jesus!

Before Jesus stepped on the scene, John was proclaiming His coming. John realized that Jesus was mightier than Him. He knew that Jesus was worthy of worship. When the time came, Jesus was baptized by John. God audibly spoke. “You are my beloved Son, with you I am well pleased.” (Verse 11) The Holy Spirit descended on Him like a dove.

Jesus stepped into a world that was far from God in their hearts. God, Himself, had come to reveal Himself to us to show us the way back to Him. In today’s reading, Jesus reveals to us a Heavenly Father that wants us to KNOW Him! Not just know about Him from a distance. This is why Jesus came!

New Beginnings in the Book of Acts — Experience Him

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Today we read Acts 23.

Paul stood on trial before the Sanhedrin, the religious rulers of the Jewish people. He knew some were Pharisees and some Sadducees. These were two different groups of the leaders. One of the differences was their belief in the resurrection of the dead. Paul knew this so he stated his belief in the resurrection. This caused an uproar between his accusers, and once again they wanted to kill him. They were about to tear him into pieces. Even so, the Holy Spirit gave Paul boldness to continue to testify. Jesus even came to Him in a vision, telling him he would go to Rome to testify.

Once again difficult circumstances surrounded Paul: accusations, beatings, imprisonment, death, etc. He could have recanted his stories, told his accusers he was a liar and he was sorry. He could have denied what he was proclaiming as truth. It would have all stopped and he more than likely would have been free. Perhaps they would have even made him a hero. 

Why did Paul continue? He had a personal, face to face encounter with Jesus. He was changed. The Holy Spirit dwelled within Him. He was not the same man that was on the road to Damascus years before.

It is a known fact that out of the twelve disciples that followed Jesus before His death, eleven of them died as martyrs. Something they saw and experienced made them willing to die for what they believed. People do not willing die a martyr for a lie. They had experienced truth! 

John described it this way:

“That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we looked upon and have touched with our hands, concerning the word of life— the life was made manifest, and we have seen it, and testify to it and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was made manifest to us—” 1 John 1:1-2 ESV

God wants us to experience Him. This is why the Holy Spirit came to live within us. So we could see and touch. We can feel Him. Then we are able to testify to what we know!

May we experience the Holy Spirit’s presence in our lives!

New Beginnings in The Book of Acts — We Need Him!

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Today is Acts 21.

The Holy Spirit spoke to the believers who were friends with Paul. He told them that Paul would be arrested in Jerusalem. Paul already knew this as well, and he was fully convinced that God had told Him to go to Jerusalem any way. He was prepared to suffer whatever he would suffer. Because he knew he had to testify of Jesus there.

Sometimes the direction of our lives leads us down hard roads. This does not mean that God is not with us when we face difficulty, or that we have missed God’s will. God has a plan in each and every path He places us on. The end of that plan is always for our good and for His glory! We can trust Him in this. Hardship is part of life here in a world that is tainted by sin. The only place we find free of that is heaven where there are no more tears, no more sadness, no more sorrow.

This is why our loving Heavenly Father sent the Holy Spirit to us. He is the Comforter. The question arises as we look more intently at the Holy Spirit within us: Do we need the Holy Spirit? YES! We need His comfort, we need His guidance, we need His teaching, We need His power. The Holy Spirit in us is God’s gift to help us navigate life’s hardest twist and turns.

May we seek to know Him better and to live our lives in His fullness!

New Beginnings in The Book of Acts — Nothing Else

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Today is Acts 20.

Paul speaks the elders at the church of Ephesus that he dearly loves. He tells them that he knows the Holy Spirit is compelling him to go to Jerusalem, and he knows that hardship awaits him. Even so, Paul has set in his heart to obey and to go. His only desire was to obey God and to do exactly what God had called him to do. Paul says this:

“But I do not account my life of any value nor as precious to myself, if only I may finish my course and the ministry that I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify to the gospel of the grace of God.” Acts 20:24 ESV

Life is not easy, and living for God with a heart that is wholly His is not normal to the world around us. Those around us, who do not know God, do not value Him or His ways. But Paul had an encounter with Jesus Himself, and Paul had experienced the fullness of the Holy Spirit in his life. He was forever changed and wanted to know God alone. He only wanted to please God no matter what.

Have you come to that point in your life? Have you had an experience with Jesus and found that He alone satisfies? Have you entered into fellowship with the Holy Spirit? Can you hear Him speak to you, and do you know He hears you when you pray? This is what you were created for! Nothing else matters! 

My prayer is the same as Paul’s. May I testify of the grace of God in my life! God has been so very good to me! I want you to experience that same goodness! But that goodness is only experienced when you surrender your life to Him. That is when the Holy Spirit fills you to overflowing and you experience the same Jesus Paul encountered on the road to Damascus and the same Holy Spirit the disciples were filled with in the upper room at Pentecost.

May our hearts be His alone! Come Holy Spirit!