Intimacy 101

[HKHaugan]

Intimacy 101

Recently, two events got me looking at Ephesians 2 in a slightly different light. One was a discussion in our Mountain Men’s group. The other was when a plumber’s assistant who came to fix a leak aimed to convert me to become a Jehovah’s Witness. Actually, when joined, both stood in contrast. One approached from the heart and the other from a heartless system. Both used Scripture but one was an interpersonally sensitive attempt by a group of men to share from the heart and the other was rehearsed with a taped-like presentation, a trained strategy, designed to set me up for institutional conversion. I’ve had the same experience with Mormons and, if you think about it, other denominational forms as well. The first is a conscious relationship with Jesus and the second is a religion. What I realized I was being given a God-incidence it led me to think of a relatively modern word that described what differentiated them--- intimacy.

The first chapter in Ephesians is a description of the length to which God the Son would go to restore our intimacy with the Father by sacrificing His. It was an intimacy we never had because of Adam’s disobedience in the Garden of Eden. It is summed up well in 2Cor.5:21, “He who knew no sin became sin for us that in Him we might become the righteousness of God.” This speaks to the amazing love that God has for each of us human beings. Chapter 2 spells out the theme of spiritual intimacy.

Intimacy, what is it? How do we achieve it? What prevents it? In the Mountain Men group’s discussion, reference was made to Joseph not ‘knowing’ Mary until after the birth of Jesus. ‘Knowing’ in that context is physical intimacy expressing male-female intimacy in marriage. But it’s what’s behind the physical there that is being expressed. Language gives us a good example of the difference. In German one knows the language either intimately or academically, ‘Konnen Sie Deutsch?’ (academic knowing), oder ‘Kennen Sie Deutsch? (personal knowing), then in Norwegian, ‘Jeg vet Norsk’ (academic) eller ‘Jeg tror Norsk’ (personal). There's surface knowledge and there's deep knowledge. It's like hearing music played technically and music played from the heart. One is performing it. The other is living it. That's why I like Blue Grass music played up here in the Blue Ridge by local groups. They like, live and love their music. You can tell whether or not someone has a passion for what they do.

Our primary example of perfect intimacy is the Holy Trinity---Father, Son and Holy Spirit. They are three persons but one God. We are created in that image. But our mind, heart and spirit have been thrown out of balance by sin and we lost intimacy. Then along came Jesus. It was when we received Him that we began our trek back to intimacy. He prayed to the Father for us, “I in them and you in me (Jn.17:23).” Spiritual intimacy is the means to restoring human intimacy.

In other words intimacy begins when we accept Jesus and He gives us the Holy Spirit (Jn.3:5).

“If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked Him and He would have given you living water (Jn.4;10).” As we relate to Jesus through the Holy Spirit we find ourselves being bonded to Him through His Word. We get to know Him in the heart. It is not how much of the Word we get academically but how much we let the Spirit of intimacy touch us as we read it. "I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things (Philippians 3:8).” “You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews …true worshipers worship in Spirit and in truth…the Father seeks such to worship Him (Jn.4:22-24).”

There is the shared heart, mind and spirit experience, the unseen realities that make us the created images of God we are.

Intimacy is opening these three internal parts of our God image, first to God then to others.

Jesus is intimacy in the flesh. This leads us to see:

Intimacy is allowing someone into our mind, heart and spirit because that was what Jesus did.

Intimacy is humility exercised before the Father in the presence of others the way Jesus did..

Intimacy with Jesus is knowing He is in charge wherever we are.

Intimacy with Jesus means we are seed planters and He is the harvester.

Intimacy with Jesus means sharing Him when He opens that moment of closeness with others.

When you see Jesus in Scripture what you see is what you get. It starts with the mind, moves in trust to the heart and then acts intimacy out in faith. This is the road, the way, to maturity. The human Jesus “grew in wisdom and stature with God and man (Lk.2:51).” David knew this: Ps.26:2, “Test me O Lord and try me, examine my heart and my mind, for your love is ever before me and I walk continually in your truth.” David knew intimacy with God. Just read a few of the Psalms. You can feel his heart. Read any of the prophets and the same will happen. Is it any wonder Jesus, the Heart Man, would quote Scripture? He fulfills it. He lives it. Intimacy fills its pages. God's heart is wide open for all to feel.

Next we'll look at Intimacy 102