Tag Archives: intimacy

People are Attracted to Intimacy and Love

10407494_964089923654115_5859114877055829784_n-2People are attracted to intimacy and love. They want to know what is real. According to a publishing house that has been in the romance business for half a century, more than 180 romance novels are purchased each year. This publishing house sold, on average, five and one-half books per second! People are desperately looking for love, and so often they look in the wrong places. Mother Teresa, whose life was a demonstration of love and who has impacted the multitudes in India, said:

“We need to find God, and He cannot be found in noise and restlessness. The more we receive in silent prayer the more we have to give in our active life.”

We receive God’s love in the prayer room and give it away outside to the needy world in which we live. God’s love touches people’s hearts in remarkable ways right where we live.

On April 6, 2000, Ricky and Toni Sexton were taken hostage inside their home by a fugitive couple on a crime spree. Toni took her poodle outside when suddenly Dennis and Angela Tanner roared into her driveway, pointed pistols at her, and yelled for her to get back inside the house.

Trapped inside their house as hostages, the Sextons showed the love of Christ to the couple. They listened to their troubles—read from the Bible—showed them Gospel videos—and prayed and cried with them. During negotiations with the police, Ricky refused his own release when the Tanner’s suggested committing suicide to end their standoff. But before finally surrendering, something remarkable happened. Angela Tanner left $135 and a note for the Sextons that said:

Thank you for your hospitality. We really appreciate it… Wish all luck and love. Please accept this. It really is all we have to offer. Love, Angela and Dennis. 

This couple was touched and disarmed by the power of love they experienced in Ricky and Toni’s life. The world will recognize our authenticity when our love is expressed in sacrifice, purity, and serving. A transformation took place because of the disarming power of love. God wants to remove everything that hinders love in our lives. He wants to establish His dwelling place and bring His presence on earth (Psalm 132:2-5). Our intimacy with the Lord will go on throughout all of eternity.

Intimacy is a journey. It requires time and has seasons of highs and lows.

It doesn’t come automatically but must be cultivated over years of pursuing God day-in and day-out. We must faithfully and earnestly seek God all the days of our life. In the prayer room we position our hearts to seek after God, and our hearts are transformed day-by-day into the likeness of Christ.

The other day when I was praying and worshipping God in the Global Prayer Room at the International House of Prayer, I looked around at the individuals sitting there. They were all shapes and sizes, mainly young. The worship was so beautiful as it always is. I watched some with uplifted hands, others gazing intently upward, and others praying softly. I felt so privileged to be there at that moment, and I thought to myself:

These people love God so much! This is the real thing. Nothing is greater than this.

Let’s give ourselves to loving God. It will lead to loving others outside the prayer room in the everyday world where we live and work. Houses of Prayer are God’s strategic way to bring transfor-mation into our hearts and our cities. It’s time we seek to grow our hearts and watch it affect every area of our life for God’s glory.

“Loving God with all our heart is the greatest commandment because it is the one that encompasses all else. It is the one that steadily takes over every area of our lives, from our thought life, our words, our relation-ships; to the way we spend time and money. If we truly give ourselves to loving Him entirely, we will in time love our neighbor as ourselves and be given to extravagant service, yet with a heart burning in the sustaining fire of intimacy.” Dana Candler

By Debbie Przybylski
Intercessors Arise International
IHOPKC

Growing in Intimacy and the Knowledge of God

11390094_968828946513546_3817218908514737680_n-2How do we grow in intimacy and in the knowledge of God?

He must reveal Himself to us, and He does it as we behold Jesus in the prayer room (Matthew 11:27; 2 Corinthians 4:6; Colossians 1:19; 2:2-3, 9; Hebrews 1:1-3). God wants us filled with fiery love and desire for Him, and the prayer room is the perfect place to cultivate this transformational love relationship. What we behold of God’s heart, we become.

Our identity is in Jesus. We discover who we are and what is our worth and destiny by encountering His heart for us in the prayer room. We become successful as lovers of God, and we begin to measure our success in an entirely new way. Imagine what will happen in our cities when God’s people begin to measure success in this way. There will be no more envy and competition. We will be seeking God and His ways, not ours.

“If the believer would enter into a better, deeper, fuller knowledge of God he must prayerfully study the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ as revealed in the Scriptures! Let this be made our chief business, our great delight, to reverently scrutinize and meditate upon the excellencies of our Divine Savior as they are displayed upon the pages of Holy writ. Then, and only then, shall we ‘increase in the knowledge of God’. The ‘light of the knowledge of the glory of God’ is seen only ‘in the face of Jesus Christ.’”

When we prayerfully adore and study the person and work of Christ in the prayer room and live obedient lives, we grow in intimacy. This is not studying academically, but it is more a drinking in of the beauty of Christ, just as we would behold a beautiful landscape. We fix our attention and affection upon Christ. We listen carefully—we hear—we behold—we gaze in stillness upon Christ and are transformed into His likeness. We use Scripture as we do this, and we give God our time.

Jesus must be our focal point; our hearts will be unsatisfied if He isn’t. He must be central in our study, devotion, and discipleship. We must be dynamically connected to Him. We are His inheritance and delight (Song of Solomon 7:10; Romans 14:8; 1 Corinthians 3:23; 6:15-20).

God is using prayer to help prepare and purify His Church all across the earth. Remember that a House of Prayer in your city will help prepare Christians to live fully for God. He is using prayer to sanctify and cleanse His people, making her a Church filled with His glory.

The Church is like the transformed butterfly emerging from its cocoon. In the prayer room we learn to abide by dialoging with God and listening attentively to the Holy Spirit actively within us. He gives us wisdom and direction, and empowers us to live the Christian life. We are developing a heart connection with the Holy Spirit and are learning the reality of John 15:5-7. Without Him we can do nothing, but with Him we bear much fruit. In the prayer room we cultivate a transformed heart. God is developing a beautiful butterfly and teaching us to fly.

God is right now releasing grace to pray, and develop intimacy and love. He is releasing grace to develop Houses of Prayer in every nation. He is positioning our hearts by the fire of His love as we read and pray His Word back to Him. He is helping his people to cultivate a secret history with Himself. God is in the process of transforming our hearts in the prayer room. The Church will be a worshiping and praying Church. The Church will walk in unity with God’s Spirit, and she will be anointed with power as she intercedes and establishes herself in her bridal identity.

Through prayer we open the windows of heaven over our city. We prepare a place for the Lord to dwell individually, corporately, and geographically as we invite the presence of Jesus to come. He will one day wipe away every tear. There will be a new heaven and earth, and the tabernacle of God will be with men.

  • This is what we are preparing for.
  • This is what we anticipate and look forward to.
  • This is what we are living for today as we prepare Houses of Prayer in every nation, city, and people group.

In humility, we lay our desires before the Lord and ask according to His will the things that are on His heart for us. God gives grace to those who walk in humility (James 4:6). We learn to embrace the cross and the humility of God as the normal Kingdom lifestyle (Matthew 16:24; 1 Corinthian 1:18-31). We commit our entire being to honor Him and His cause, and we lay the needs of our city and church into His hands. We seek after those things that glorify Him. We take steps to live in His presence and bring our values into agreement with His Word. We seek His favor and not the world’s (James 4:4-5). And though there are time delays, we wait and trust in His timetable. He will answer at the perfect time. He knows what is best and His ways are perfect. We boast in Him and not in our own strength and abilities (Jeremiah 9:23-29).

There are so much transformation within our hearts as we grow in intimacy and the knowledge of God.

By Debbie Przybylski
Intercessors Arise International
IHOPKC