Intimacy

             Getting close with others has been a theme of my life before coming to the person of Jesus Christ and continues on.  The best part of living in New York, Boston, and Paris was being near to people all the time, especially in New York. I am safe around others, but enjoy time alone, I like having the choice.
In Denver it is incredible how alone and isolated one can get. The garage door can open and shut and no one has to see who we are or validate that we are even alive. This torments me as I pray walking through mt neighborhood. How many people live here that I have never even seen? Who never even approaches the light of day and stays alone? Why do they do it?
               What compels us to isolation or to intimacy? According to Jesus in John 3
 ¹⁷"For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him.  ¹⁸"He who believes in Him is not judged; he who does not believe has been judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.  ¹⁹"This is the judgment, that the Light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the Light, for heir deeds were evil.  ²⁰"For everyone who does evil hates the Light, and does not come to the Light for fear that his deeds will be exposed.  ²¹"But he who practices the truth comes to the Light, so that his deeds may be manifested as having been wrought in God."
And 1 John 1:7 ⁷but if we walk in the Light as He Himself is in the Light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin.
 
                Fellowship, closeness is the ability to see the reality of who we are. It is the end of trying to present an image of who we want to be and games that try to formulate how people think of us. WE allow God to see into the middle of our heart and admit what He reveals to us about Himself and the truth of who we are. I love the parable about the Pharisee and the Tax Collector who go up to the Temple to pray; Luke 13-14 When we read these passages it is clear that a huge obastcle to being in the light as He is in the light is our own goodness, is not only what we beleiev to be sin, but also the deception of what we think we are doing right. Nothing could be farther from the truth, it is allowing Him to search us and find us.
Psalm 139 gives great instruction to the deep intimacy that God has for us and instructions on how to get close to Him; ²³Search me, O God, and know my heart;Try me and know my anxious thoughts;²⁴And see if there be any hurtful way in me,  And lead me in the everlasting way.
              The point of this post is to stir us up to the good work of being known as we are fully known and to trust God to give us the way of everlasting by drawing us close to Him in sweet communion and intimacy.
 
Heart Response; Lord, take your everlasting light into the deep recesses of my heart, search me out and give me courage to cry out asking forgive me, a sinner that I may know what it is to sit at your mercy Seat and receive.