And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. (Revelation 21:2-3)

These verses of scripture beautifully capture the purpose behind God’s use of the marriage metaphor throughout scripture. He created us to be in relationship with Him where He is the only one who matters, and we reflect His glory. While earthbound, God invites us to experience spiritual intimacy with Him, knowing it is only an inkling of our relationship with Him in Heaven.

Created for Spiritual Intimacy with God

God designed Christian marriage to be a true, exclusive, and protective relationship between a man and a woman. When these characteristics are in place, love and intimacy can grow, God’s plan can be realized. Even better, these attributes are available to us in God without fail. It is in the context of these characteristics that our relationship with God deepens. Because God is true, we can trust every word (Psalm 119:160). God is exclusive; we do not fear being abandoned (Deuteronomy 31:8). God protects me; we are always safe in God’s care (Psalm 91:4). God has established the perfect environment for a close, intimate relationship with Him to grow.

Experience Spiritual Intimacy with God

In order to experience spiritual intimacy with God we increase our proximity to Him, believe, and obey. Distance threatens relationships. God wants us close. Drawing near to God, gets us a front-row-seat to everything He is doing in our lives. The psalmist wrote, “But as for me, it is good to be near God. I have made the Sovereign LORD my refuge; I will tell of all your deeds” (Psalm 73:28). Of course, we have no relationship with God unless we believe that Jesus is “the way and the truth and the life” (John 14:6). Having believed, the storehouses of God’s spiritual blessings are available to us. There is so much to explore! As we mature in faith, God makes clear the path to greater intimacy with Him is through obedience.

Whoever has my commands and keeps them is the one who loves me. The one who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love them and show myself to them. (John 14:21)

We obey God in the environment of trust, safety, and love He has created, and the more we obey the more we understand about God, the more we trust Him, the more we love Him.

Spiritual Intimacy is the Work of God in Our Lives

The deepening of our relationship with God is a mystery— so hard to put into words, but as I am trained by obedience, I see more and more the work of God in my life. In a deepening, more intimate relationship with God, I am consumed, yielded and transformed. Some of the most beautiful times in my life are times when I am alone with the Lord. I have often repeated in prayer the words of the psalmist, “Because your love is better than life, my lips will glorify you” (Psalm 63:3). Let’s look at more of Psalm 63. Overwhelmed and consumed by God’s love, words of devotion pour from the psalmist…

I have seen you in the sanctuary and beheld your power and your glory. Because your love is better than life, my lips will glorify you. I will praise you as long as I live, and in your name I will lift up my hands. I will be fully satisfied as with the richest of foods; with singing lips my mouth will praise you. On my bed I remember you; I think of you through the watches of the night. Because you are my help, I sing in the shadow of your wings. I cling to you; your right hand upholds me. (Psalm 63:2-8)

As God continues to give me more of Himself, I want to yield more of myself to Him. I want His ways to be my ways. I want His will to become my own. I want these words of the apostle Paul to be my own, “What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ. . .” (Philippians 3:8). In the end, my relationship with God in Christ, leaves me transformed. We can’t be in a relationship with God and not be changed. In an intimate relationship with God, He is shaping us more and more into the likeness of His son, Jesus.

And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit. (2 Corinthians 3:18, NIV)

Pursue Spiritual Intimacy with God

God is so good to invite us and make a way to be in relationship with Him despite our sin! Right now He is preparing us now for our spiritual future— the day when we see Him face-to-face. The relationship we have with God now, will be eclipsed by everything we will experience in Heaven. Until then, may Paul’s prayer in Ephesians 3, be your prayer as well.

I ask him to strengthen you by his Spirit – not a brute strength but a glorious inner strength – that Christ will live in you as you open the door and invite him in. And I ask him that with both feet planted firmly on love, you’ll be able to take in with all Christians the extravagant dimensions of Christ’s love. Reach out and experience the breadth! Test its length! Plumb the depths! Rise to the heights! Live full lives, full in the fullness of God. God can do anything, you know – far more than you could ever imagine or guess or request in your wildest dreams! He does it not by pushing us around but by working within us, his Spirit deeply and gently within us. (Ephesians 3:16-20, MSG)