DEVELOPING INTIMACY & PRAYER
Your spirit is eternal. That is why developing intimacy and prayer is so important. By cultivating your secret place and letting your spirit lead your soul and body, you set yourself up for success. We cannot work for God’s love. It is already perfect and He loves us beautifully. The most challenging part is to slow down, take a deep breath and simply receive that perfect love.
Credits: Teaching by Leslie Crandall, BSSM First Year 2015/2016
‘DEVELOPING INTIMACY & PRAYER’: BSSM LECTURE NOTES
A GLIMPSE OF HEAVEN
We need to inspire people to love Jesus more.
When you experience intimacy with God, it is important to stop and notice how it makes you feel. For instance: If you cry because you had a fight with your husband and got hurt, and immediately after that you go to Jesus with your pain and you see Him holding you and saying He loves you, you feel like He is loving and caring. The reason why this is important is because the next time you need to deal with something scary in your life, you can remember: “O yes, Jesus is loving and caring!”
Ephesians 1
“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love, having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, by which He made us accepted in the Beloved. In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace which He made to abound toward us in all wisdom and prudence, having made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure which He purposed in Himself, that in the dispensation of the fullness of the times He might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on earth—in Him. In Him also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestined according to the purpose of Him who works all things according to the counsel of His will, that we who first trusted in Christ should be to the praise of His glory. In Him you also trusted, after you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation; in whom also, having believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, to the praise of His glory.”
We sometimes overcomplicate the secret place with God. The number one thing to steward in your life is His prophetic voice over your life. His voice needs to be so loud and active in your life that when other people prophesy over you, it doesn’t need to surprise you because you already know what He told you in your secret place.
I DON’T HAVE TO PROVE MY LOVE FOR GOD
You always need to figure out what your belief system is when it comes to intimacy. You need to feel connected to God, believe that He is good and that He can be trusted. Declare daily: “I am a believer, not a feeler.”
It is important that simply being with Him is a constant flow. You must not make intimacy a religious act. Therefore, it is a good habit to daily ask yourself: “How did God invade my day in the smallest little detail today?” God is in every part of your life if you let Him.
You don’t work for fruit. It is out of the intimacy in your life that fruit is produced.
Most of the Kingdom comes from receiving. Firstly receive, then you are empowered to give. Fortunately, God gives us the ability to have intimacy.
Genesis 2
“The LORD God planted a garden eastward in Eden, and there He put the man whom He had formed. And out of the ground the LORD God made every tree grow that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. The tree of life was also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Now a river went out of Eden to water the garden, and from there it parted and became four riverheads. The name of the first is Pīshon; it is the one which skirts the whole land of Havi-lah, where there is gold. And the gold of that land is good. Bdellium and the onyx stone are there. The name of the second river is Gīhon; it is the one which goes around the whole land of Cush. The name of the third river is Hidde-kel; it is the one which goes toward the east of Assyria. The fourth river is the Eū-phrātēs. Then the LORD God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to tend and keep.”
From Genesis to Revelation, it is clear that all God wants is face to face intimacy with Him. You need to look at the end product (of His Word) and then work from that vision. That is what a good leader does.
You also need to ask yourself: “How do I build my life around face-to-face encounters with God?” Imagine you are in the Garden and sin has not yet entered the world. Picture the most incredible that day you have ever had. God wants you to live in increase and to be fruitful. When you have intimacy with God, you steward the river that is inside of you. Just as Adam and Eve were naked in the garden of Eden, you need to live ‘naked’ – open and vulnerable toward God – and let God see the real you. If you can learn to sit before Him and position yourself to be fully exposed to Him, His radiance will shine on you.
PRACTICAL WAYS TO GROW IN INTIMACY & PRAYER
- Receive what He has. God moves in a specific way, so flow with Him. Don’t pressure yourself in intimacy.
- Ask yourself: “Can I keep this up for the next 20 years?” Think longevity.
- Lean in through the words that God is saying to you.
- Journaling is very important. Prophetic history is very important. Think about your testimonies and share them.
- Think of Scriptures that remind you if the Father.
- Develop and protect your secret place with Him.
- Know how to hear His voice and do it. It is unlikely that God will give you new revelations if you don’t act on what He has told you already.
- Celebrate all progress.
LET YOUR SPIRIT-MAN LEAD
1 Thessalonians 5: 23
“May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through. May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
What would it look like when your whole spirit, soul, and body are complete?
When you look at your life, you must always imagine that you are under the umbrella of Father God’s perfect unconditional love. There is nothing you can’t face if you see the Father’s love.
Romans 8: 16-17 (This is the game changer for intimacy!)
“The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children. Now if we are children, then we are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory.”
You are communing with God spirit to spirit. Imagine under the umbrella of Father God’s love that you first have the Holy Spirit, then your spirit, then your soul and body. You need to steward your spirit-man more than your soul. When your spirit-man leads, you are completely aligned with God. Pray and declare that your spirit-man leads. In Romans we see that the Holy Spirit and my spirit are aligned to each other. Whenever you feel like you are in a state of confusion, submit your soul (mind, will and emotions) to your spirit.
The voice of the Lord needs to be everything in your life. His voice is always there.
Your soul and body can get tired, but your spirit-man never gets tired because that is eternal. Intimacy is easy when your spirit-man leads.
1 Corinthians 2: 2 -13
“For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. I came to you in weakness with great fear and trembling. My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power, so that your faith might not rest on human wisdom, but on God’s power. We do, however, speak a message of wisdom among the mature, but not the wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are coming to nothing. No, we declare God’s wisdom, a mystery that has been hidden and that God destined for our glory before time began. None of the rulers of this age understood it, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. However, as it is written:
“What no eye has seen, what no ear has heard, and what no human mind has conceived” – the things God has prepared for those who love him – these are the things God has revealed to us by his Spirit.
The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God. For who knows a person’s thoughts except their own spirit within them? In the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. What we have received is not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may understand what God has freely given us. This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, explaining spiritual realities with Spirit-taught words.”
A LONGING FOR INTIMACY
You have an eternal longing to worship God. You spirit-man has eternity inside itself and that is drawing you to His presence. When you worship God, it literally feels as if you are in heaven with Him – as if you already experience eternity for that moment. What a joy!
