Intimacy with God (I) Introduction

Jesus concludes the parable of the wine skins with the declaration “No one, having drunk old wine, immediately desires new; for he says, “The old is better’ ” (Luke 5:36-38). At a time of crisis during my walk with Him, I came to realize that I had not really dealt with my pre-Christianaddictions, I had simply exchanged them for Christian workaholism, and obsessive thinking. But the sense of betrayal I was experiencing, together with the lies and the judgement and the rejection, were too much for me, and I reverted to my old habits. I see now that I had not yet fully developed a taste for the new wine of intimacy with Him. Oh I knew in my head that He loved me, but my heart didn’t yet know it, and the draw of the immediate but temporary relief of the old wine, was very strong. But like all counterfeits, there was no lasting satisfaction, and there was guilt and shame and no real peace or joy.

This morning I’m starting a series of blogs on the second of the three pots of cream we talked about earlier (28 September 2018), three pictures of the new wine, hearing God’s voice, intimacy with God and inner healing. They are intimately interconnected, we cannot have intimacy if we don’t talk to each other. And it is intimacy with God and His unconditional healing love that heals the emotional wounds. And the healing of our inner wounds in term leads to greater intimacy. In thinking about how to write about this, I googled “components of intimacy.” The things that came up include trust, honour, gratitude, vulnerability, mutuality, responsiveness, time and love. All of these things are soulish, related to the senses feel, touch, see. For the Christian, there also the spiritual dimension! We, being made in the image of Trinity (Genesis 1:26), are body soul and spirit.

A book I may one day write might be entitled “Thy Kingdom come on earth? You must be joking!” I mean look at it! In heaven there is no war, or hate or manipulation or rejection etc. It looks impossible. Nevertheless our task is to cooperate with Heaven and to pray it down. And it needs to start with our relationships. We can start here, we can. It seems to me however, that we cannot likely treat others better than we ourselves are treated. And what this means to me, is that I need to become more and more vitally connected to the One who treats me in spades with all of the above virtues. I need more and more to walk in my identity in Him, my identity as a beloved and precious son (Luke 15:22-24) of the One who loved me and gave Himself for me. In His embrace I find who I really am. I even get to like myself.

Father, there is a line in the song we sing “I never want to go back to my old life.” Yes it took me a while to see that the new wine is indeed better than the old. But now I see there is no comparison. The old wine left me hung over, hurting and confused, and the relief was always only temporary. I always had to wake up from the anesthetic, and the pain then always seemed worse! On the other hand, I remember Melinda Fish declaring “There are no toxic levels of the Holy Spirit!” And it’s true! Thank You Lord for Your persistence, Your patience and Your extravagant healing love. I give You all the honour and glory and praise this morning again in Jesus Name Amen