Every question you or I answer determines the choices we make, which ultimately determine the paths we take down destiny’s highway. Therefore, we must consider carefully how we answer these questions. The most important question you will answer in 2013 does not concern your family, your finances, your health, or a hundred other worthy questions. The most important question you will answer is whether or not you will actively pursue an intimate relationship with Jesus Christ? The answer to this one question will have a quantum effect on all the others you will encounter this year. So, how you answer it is important. Think about it very carefully because you cannot ignore it. It will not go away.
I am not talking about the issue of salvation. Without experiencing the saving grace of God you can’t even have a relationship with God. Salvation is a gift God gives to restore the opportunity for true relationship, but this relationship is the result of hard work—a passionate pursuit. It will cost you something and the price you are willing to pay always determine its depth. You can have as much of God as you want—or as little—it depends on you. God has done everything needed—the sin debt is paid, so his arms are wide open. You have to choose.
An intimate relationship is a deep friendship, a heart-to-heart, spirit-to-spirit connection. It is far more than an occasional encounter—that haphazard hit or miss thing most believers would like to call relationship. It is the only relationship that will fully satisfy the longings of our heart. It is, as a friend shared with me, an “into-me-you-see” connection. The more we allow God to see into us (by that I mean surrender and become transparent), the more he will allow us to see into him. Intimacy means that we are willing to search out the other person with all our heart and allow the other person to do the same.
Transparency terrifies most people. A transparent man or woman has nothing to hide. There are no locks on the door, no keep out signs, and no restricted areas—everything is open and exposed. Most people fear that level of intimacy, so they refuse to pursue it, but that’s exactly what God wants and what your heart hungers for. Sadly, if you don’t pursue it you won’t embrace it. Fear paralyzes but transparency sets a person totally free.
Perhaps you are afraid if God really knew the real you deep down inside he would draw back. Perhaps you have experienced rejection in some personal relationship and the sting of its slap has left you terrified of its high cost, but still hungry. Listen—God already knows the garbage tucked away out of sight in your soul. You can’t hide it. The wounds you work so hard to conceal are visible to his omniscient gaze and his heart is filled with compassion the pain they are causing. He alone possesses the ability to heal them, but you must open them up and invite him enter them. Fear is the greatest tool the enemy has in his arsenal to rob us of our rightful relationship with God. Don’t allow the fear of what he tells you “might” happen to stop the healing guaranteed by Christ’s death on the cross.
This is heavy stuff for sure, but I’ll bet the enemy’s voice is screaming in your head right now. If you allow fear to smother you, he wins. If you allow the noise of the nonsense he is feeding you to drown out the truth you will miss the sound of God’s voice at this very moment. Face the fear, and force the enemy’s clamoring out of your head for a moment and allow these words to minister to your soul and spirit for a few moments.
God says, “I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore I have drawn you with lovingkindness.” Read it again! And again! And again until the sound of the enemy’s accusations disappear from your ears and mind. Shout it over and over! Write it down and tape in on your refrigerator, over your vanity mirror and on the dashboard of your car. Memorize it! It is the word of God for you right now and for eternity. God desires a deep, passionate relationship with you! Yes—you! And he is wooing you like a lover (that’s the biblical meaning of “drawn” in the Hebrew). Fear always imprisons, but freedom enables you to take a step toward God. That first step is the beginning of pursuit—the first step to the relationship you were created for. That one single step is the answer to the question that confronts you. Take it!