Intimiteit en Aanbidding

Om werklik intiem te wees verg innerlike nabyheid. Intimiteit is gedetailleerde, innerlike, naby, bekend en persoonlik. Ons moet intiem raak in ons wandel met God.

Dit is nie moontlik om ware intimiteit te beleef sonder aanbidding nie. Ware intimiteit bring ware aanbidding. Hoe dieper jy groei in jou aanbidding van God, hoe meer word intimiteit deel van jou aanbidding en hoe meer intimiteit groei, hoe dieper en meer standvastig word jou aanbidding.

In ons wandel met God leer ons dat ons Hom meer nodig het as enige iets anders.

We need God and oxygen, in that specific order.
(Luana Bekker)

Oswald Chambers het dit so verduidelik:

Dit is moontlik om alles te weet van die leringe van die Bybel, maar geen ware kennis te hê van Jesus nie. Ons siele is in gevaar wanneer ons kennis van leringe meer word as ons intieme kontak met Jesus. Waarom het Maria geween by Jesus se graf? Leringe het maar soveel waarde as die gras onder haar voete vir haar. Enige fariseër kon Maria as ‘n dwaas af gemaak het as dit alles net oor leringe gegaan het, maar hulle sal nooit haar ervarings met Jesus kon weg redeneer nie. Toe sy haar Here se stem hoor het sy dadelik geweet dat dit Hy is wat met haar praat.
My Utmost for His Highest (August 16) (Copyright © 1935)

Ons is totaal afhanklik van God en hoe gouer ons dit besef hoe beter…

…God designed the human machine to run on God Himself.
Mere Christianity (P.50 2002 Ed.)(Copyright © 1942)

Het jy ‘n persoonlike verhouding met Jesus Christus – ‘n intieme band, ‘n kennis en ‘n wete wat deur niks geskud kan word nie? Bring dit jou na ‘n plek van liefde, respek en aanbidding? Baie mense het nie en sal graag hul verhouding met Hom wil verdiep.

Intimiteit moet ‘n natuurlik uitvloei wees waar die bonatuurlike die natuurlike word, maar ons weet nie meer hoe om dit te laat vloei nie. Die wêreld waarin ons leef het ‘n koue en hard plek geword en daar is nie meer ruimte vir intimiteit of aanbidding nie.

Intimiteit is die proses waarin jy elke fyn detail van die lewe deel met iemand naby aan jou, en aanbidding is die manier waarop jy dit deel deur die persoon te respekteer en te eer. Elke verhouding bestaan uit hierdie twee aspekte wat inmekaar verweef is, en so ook moet ons dit laat ontwikkel in ons verhouding met God. Intimiteit moet dus gekoester word.

Die vroue geslag sal dit dalk beter verstaan dat intimiteit ontwikkel wanneer jy alles met ‘n persoon deel, die goeie, die slegte en die lelike. So ook moet ons leer om dit alles met God te deel en ons intimiteit met Hom te laat groei.

Moenie oor dinge sit en tob of jou bekommer nie. Gaan praat met God daaroor. Bespreek dit met Hom. Vertel Hom hoe jy daaroor voel. Sê dan vir Hom dankie dat jy met Hom daaroor kan praat en dat Hy die beste weet. Jy sal dan verlig en tevrede voel. Jy sal hierdie verligte gevoel nie altyd kan verklaar of wetenskaplik kan uitlê nie. Omdat jy egter weet dat jy aan Jesus behoort, sal jy nie meer omgekrap voel nie. Hierdie wete dat Jesus by jou is, sal keer dat die bekommernisse weer met jou emosies weghardloop of dat jy jou weer van voor af begin bekommer. Weet julle waaraan julle moet dink in plaas daarvan om julle te sit en bekommer? Dink aan dit wat vir God saak maak, dinge wat ordentlik en reg is, dinge waaraan God sal dink en waarvan Hy sal hou, dinge wat God sal sê goed is. Moenie julle tyd mors om aan allerhande nuttelose dinge te sit en dink nie. Hou julle besig met dinge wat die moeite werd is en wat God in ’n goeie lig stel. Ek stel mos vir julle ’n goeie voorbeeld. Ek het baie dinge vir julle vertel. Julle het baie by my geleer. Wat julle my gesien doen en gehoor sê het, moet julle net so doen en sê. God sal julle nie los nie. Hy sal by julle bly. By Hom sal julle veilig en gelukkig voel.
Ek en jy is tot alles in staat omdat God vir ons sorg. (Filippense 4:6-9 [DB]).

Tydens hierdie proses waardeer God jou nabyheid met groot respek hanteer, vertel Hy jou wie hy jou geskep het om te wees en jou liefde en respek vir Hom vloei oor in aanbidding.

Hierdie proses leer jou ook intimiteit en aanbidding in al jou ander verhoudings – ouers en kinders, mans en vroue, vriende en familie en skep ‘n atmosfeer van vertroue, respek, lojaliteit, eerlikheid en integriteit. Alle sleutel aspekte wat nodig is vir enige goeie verhouding.

Die lewe gaan nie oor kennis, krag of mag nie, maar oor verhouding. Ons het nodig om die eenvoud van hierdie geskenk (verhouding) in besit te neem en ‘n lewe te lewe waar ons alles rondom ons kan geniet. Wetende dat ons intimiteit en aanbidding se doel is om hierdie boodskap uit te dra aan almal wat nodig het om dit te hoor.

Ek bid dat jy ook so ‘n verhouding met Hom kan ontwikkel en dat jy net sal groei in jou intimiteit en aanbidding.

 

INVITATION TO COME

Destruction and hatred follows:
Heartbreak. Fear. Regret. Failure. Disappointment. Insecurity. Shame. Despair.

With these overwhelming emotions boiling inside of us, we cannot receive God’s love nor love the people around us.

Therefor God invites us:

come, my people, enter your quiet places of prayer, And shut your doors behind you; Hide yourself, as it were, for a little moment, Until the resentment caused by all these bad emotions is past.

(Isaiah 31:4).

I will restore you to health and heal your wounds,” declares the LORD, “because you are called an outcast, for whom no one cares.

(Jeremiah 30:17).

I pray that we all remember to enter into our prayer places just for a moment to receive what we need in order to continue living a life of love no matter where we are! AMEN

Motivated by the book “The Storm Inside” by Sheila Walsh.

Remember!!!

You know what, I need help to remember! Maybe you need to be reminded also.

I tend to forget that we are invited into God’s rest daily. He wants us to come to Him, find rest in Him and be secure in Him. I need to be reminded of that like David wrote in Psalm 27:

One thing I asked of the LORD, that will I seek after: to live in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the LORD, and to inquire in his temple. For he will hide me in his shelter in the day of trouble; he will conceal me under the cover of his tent; he will set me high on a rock.
(Psalms 27:4-5)

The invitation goes like this:

Today, if you hear His voice, enter into His rest.

The only thing that disqualify you from entering into His rest is disobedience and unbelief. This means that we must trust and believe that God invited us, and then enter in. We cannot enter into His rest as long as any of these negative sinful things rule our lives. BUT God invites us to come to Him. When we are willing to let go of these lies and trust completely in His unfailing love for us, we enter into His rest…

Jesus said:

If anyone serves Me, let him follow Me; and where I am, there My servant will also be. And if anyone serves Me, the Father will honour him.
(John 12:26)

All to often we come to the Lord with a wish-list or a list of requirements. We “claim in Jesus name” and “demand his promises” over us. When will we realize that God’s will is done in our lives when we move into his presence? When will we realize that God wants us to be in Him so that He can have His way, His will be done in us?
C.A.M.

…In him we live and move and have our being…
(Acts 17:28)

The best place to be is with Jesus Christ. We need to be conscious of His Presence every minute of every day. Let us make an effort to start each day with Jesus and ask Him to help us to follow Him this day…!

Blessings
Thomas Dreyer

GRACE AND REST

I took the liberty to post this article, it was posted by a brother on FB…He is Asian so there is a little bit of broken English but it was so good I had to share it…

I had pleasant encounter with one of my former elder’s wife recently and I was delighted to see her. Although our encounter was brief the short fellowship was sweet. She did express her surprise whilst we have not conducted any Gospel rallies, my church has grown significantly both in quantity and quality. As a caring and loving lady she also expressed to me her concern on our preaching and our emphasis on grace and on rest. How can we tell people to do nothing?

Here is a common misunderstanding. When we preach grace we mean we are to rest in the FINISHED work of Christ. We do mean not resting and doing nothing. Resting in the FINISHED work of Christ allows us to do what HE wants us to do and not what we think we should do. Further it is HE that work in us to DO and to WILL.

Many at times we are so busy doing what we think we should be doing rather than resting on what Jesus had done. Our battle today is no longer to eradicate sin in our lives but to manifest the reality of Christ in us. It is only by allowing Jesus to be form in us that we can be mortified sin in our bodies. This is done by realizing our position in Christ as being dead to sin ALREADY.

Why does God ask us to live according to faith? I think it is because He realizes from the scope of eternity, that the fact that we are dead to sin IS our real reality. God calls us to believe this to be our real reality because it IS the real reality. It is when we believe His reality, we begin to manifest the finished work of Jesus in our lives. That is how we overcome sin by faith. Not by power nor by our might but by the operation of the Spirit of Christ.

That I believe is why Paul tells us our position before he tells us what to do. In fact I believe Paul does not tell us what to do but what to believe. According to Paul our behaviour is really the product of our belief. Our belief dictates what we do. This is the mystery. That God can be in us through Christ. The hope of Glory.

As such the reality is this. We cannot serve a God who is not served by human hands. Yet the book of Hebrews tells us that HE purged our conscience to serve a living God. This means my Father cannot be served by people who have a conscience which is NOT PURGED. In context, a CONSCIENCE that is NOT PURGED is a conscience who does not believe that is fully forgiven.

It is no wonder why God cannot be served by HUMAN hands. These are hands which based on a righteousness which requires to be CONSTANTLY be forgiven. This is our default mode. Forgiveness based on our asking, our begging and on a basis that we pride ourselves with a guilty conscience or sin conscienceness.

The writer of Hebrews exhort us to believe our sins are forgiven once and FOR ALL. Hence a purged conscience. That is when we are fit to serve a Holy God. We serve God hence with the WOUNDED HANDS of Jesus not by human effort.

I verily state this serving God with HUMAN hands is serving Him with our effort. It is the same thing Cain did. It is the same thing that Saul did. It is the very thing the Pharisees did. It is serving God to have your conscience clean. This is the “sin” that the writer of Hebrews is referring to in Hebrews 10. This is the sin that he refers to as “if we sin wilfully there is no more sacrifice for sin”. The belief that your conscience needs to be clean regularly.

I have come to understand that my sins are forgiven ONCE and FOR ALL. In fact if you read the verse” just as a man is destine to die once and face judgement” it is followed by “so Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of many people; and he will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who are waiting for him.”

We read Hebrews 9:27 so often out of its context. If you read it again together with Hebrews 9:28 you will realize the focus is not about God’s judgement but about HOW COMPLETE God’s forgiveness is. There are 2 certainties: DEATH and TAXES. We only die once and we remain dead. In the same manner the writer of Hebrews tells us that Christ need die only ONCE and you remain FORGIVEN forever. He has taken the sins of many people.

Hence it is my humble submission if we preach to people that they are guilty until they begin to serve God is to preach a religion of “AN UNPURGED CONSCIENCE” which in actual fact is a SERVICE OF HUMAN HANDS. It results in people trying to please God for the purpose of having their conscience cleared. That is dead works.

Jesus is still serving today. He serves through my body. I am in His temple. Notice that when Jeremiah whipped the people in the temple he said 3 times: The Lord does not live in the temple any more. Notice when Jesus did the same thing he said “tear this temple down and I will build it up in 3 days”. Notice Jesus is echoing Jeremiah. God does not live in the Temple any more. Jesus said HE IS THE TEMPLE.

Paul now tells us We are his Holy Temple. He now lives in US not in some temple in heaven. That is why Jesus said when he healed the man “To prove to you that the Son of Man have authority to forgive sins ON EARTH!” God is no longer dwelling far away in heaven. He is in US.

Hence it is HE that breathes and lives in me and He is the one serving. That is why I rest and He works. That is why I come to him with “fear and much trembling” so that it is not my eloquence. NOT MY BLOOD SWEAT AND TEARS. It is by the power of the Holy Spirit. It is BY HIS BLOOD SWEAT AND TEARS on the cross. The Blood Sweat and Tears is a done deal! It is not a deal yet to be done…

That is why I preach about God’s rest. That is also why my church despite little effort on the part of the believers is growing. It is because Jesus is working. It is also because of that I have no glory but Jesus receives ALL the glory. I boast of my Lord. He is AWESOME AND DESERVES ALL MY WORSHIP.

Simon