Dear People Who Keep Company With God,
If God doesn’t build the house, the builders only build ramshackle shacks and it is wasted effort because He will come and tear it down (Ps. 27:1 Message). And as painful as it is, it is much better for Him to tear it down in this life than in the age to come (1 Cor. 3:12-15).
The gospels reveal that God builds through relationships. Ephesians 4 reveals the three sources through which God releases grace to build us up and give us our inheritance (Acts 20:32). They are the Lord Jesus Himself, spiritual leaders and fellow believers. Early on, I depended way too much on leaders and fellow believers and my relationship with the Lord suffered greatly. I learned the hard way that relationship with Him is the most important thing there is. In fact, eternal life is defined as personally and truly knowing the Lord (John 17:3).
I had a dream a few months ago in which I was on a construction site with Jesus. He did not appear in a glorified form, but as a man. We were squaring the foundation so we could construct a building. Looking back I now understand the Lord is calling us, in the midst of all that is going on, to build our relationship with Him. I think that is why He appeared as a man, someone who is approachable, whom you can talk with, ask questions and hang out with. When He is in His glorified state you just get blasted and fall down.
Jesus promised those whom received His love could have a face-to-face relationship with both Him and the Father (John 14:21). Jesus said He knows His sheep and is known by them (John 10:14). Paul echoed that God has known us and because of this we can know Him (Gal. 4:9). It is not trying to know God, but receiving His love and believing in His earnest desire to have a relationship with us that will lead us into knowing Him.
Another thing Jesus said was that He had made known the Father to us and would continue to make Him known to us (John 17:26). It is not like He makes Himself known one time and then it is our turn, no, He keeps revealing Himself to those who will receive Him on this basis.
He said all of us would know Him (Heb. 8:7-13). What we have to do is believe He wants the relationship more than we do and open our hearts to Him. He is knocking on the door of our hearts for fellowship (Rev. 3:20) and when we open our door to Him we discover the door of His heart is already open to us (Rom. 5:1-2 Message Bible). The religious spirit has us believing it is us who has to do the knocking on God’s door. Let’s repent from believing that lie.
Hosea prophesied of a day coming, which is now, when the Lord said we would no longer call Him “My Master”, but “My Husband”. He went on to say, “I will betroth you to Me in faithfulness and you shall know Me” (Hosea 3:16-20). When we begin to see, embrace and speak this something is going to happen. I promise you one thing will happen, we will desire Him more than anything even though we have Him. It is called hungering and thirsting for righteousness. Once we taste and see that the Lord is good (Ps. 34:8) nothing else will really satisfy us. I just can’t ever get enough of the Lord.
Many Blessings, BW