Intimacy With God

Series: Intimate Issues

Leslie Basham: After a time of being busy with little time to spend alone with God, here is what Nancy Leigh DeMoss discovered.

Nancy Leigh DeMoss: The thought entered my mind that if I were married and had dealt with my husband in the way that I have often dealt with the Lord over these last months, I probably would have wrecked my marriage.

Leslie Basham: This is Revive Our Hearts with Nancy Leigh DeMoss. It's Friday, February 14. Happy Valentine's Day. Here's Nancy.

Nancy Leigh DeMoss: Today I want to do something a little different than what we've done before. I want to just share with you out of my own heart and my own walk with God an area where the Lord has been dealing with me in a very fresh way, particularly over the last several days as we've been doing a series with Holly Elliff and Linda Dillow.

We've been talking about intimate issues in the lives of married women, and particularly focusing on a married woman's sexual relationship with her husband. That's an area that really best ought to be discussed by married women, so I don't read books on women's sexual relationships, on physical issues. That's why I've had Holly and Linda, as two married women, discussing this subject over the past several days.

However, in preparation for these interviews, I found myself needing to read major portions of the book that Linda Dillow has coauthored on women and sexual issues--the book called Intimate Issues. As I read this book, which is very practical, I was asking the Lord to guard my heart, to guard my mind as a single woman.

But I want to share with you that the Lord did something for me very precious and very rich in my relationship with Him as my Heavenly Bridegroom as I was reading that book. Over the last couple of years I have found that in my relationship with the Lord, particularly since we started Revive Our Hearts, my life has become so busy and so full.

I realized as I was reading this book for married women on the sexual relationship with their husbands that in my relationship with the Lord, I have done what a lot of married women do in their relationship with their husbands. That is that they let busyness, children, other responsibilities crowd out time with the one that they love.

The Lord began to convict my heart as I read this book that in many ways I'd neglected cultivating an intimate love relationship with the Lord Jesus. I thought back to many times in my childhood, in my years as a younger woman, and even in more recent years, when I have enjoyed with the Lord a very personal and warm and intimate and unhindered relationship with Him. I thank the Lord for those times.

I have, particularly as a single woman, such a conscious sense that the Lord is my Bridegroom. Let me say that whether you're married or single, your first relationship is with the Lord. God has blessed me over the years with the joy of knowing Christ intimately.

But you know, as I've gotten older and gotten busier in the work of the ministry, I found it so easy to neglect that intimate, personal relationship with the Lord Himself. I was convicted as I read Linda Dillow's book, and Lorraine Pintus coauthored that with her, that in my relationship with the Lord, in recent months and in the last couple of years, I've been more formal, more distant and less responsive in expressing my love to the Lord Jesus.

So I found God speaking to me about having lost a lot of the passion and the fervency of my first love relationship with the Lord Jesus. The thought entered my mind that if I were married and had dealt with my husband in the way that I have often dealt with the Lord over these last months, I probably would have wrecked my marriage.

Thankfully, the Lord's love is unconditional and He is always there, always involved, always available. But as I read this book about a woman's physical relationship with her husband, I saw some important parallels in my relationship with the Lord. Let me just share with you what some of those are.

First of all, I realized that maintaining intimacy in a marriage requires time, attention and effort. You have to make it a priority. It doesn't just happen. That is so true as well in my relationship with the Lord. It has to be a conscious, intentional priority and focus of my life.

Then in the physical relationship of a man and wife--what Linda Dillow calls in her book "Quickies," as far as sexual encounters--those are not wrong, but they can't sustain an intimate relationship. There have to be times that a husband and wife have more extended times of expressing their love physically to each other.

In our relationship with the Lord, there are times when it's going to be a quickie. There's nothing wrong with that. I'm realizing in a greater way that my relationship with the Lord requires, as does yours, whether married or single, times that you set apart where you have more extended, prolonged intense communication with Him as your lover.

Then physical intimacy in marriage and giving pleasure to a partner often requires that a wife act in faith, not based on feelings. That is so true again in my relationship with the Lord and yours. We need to do the things that we know give God pleasure, regardless of whether or not we feel up to it, regardless of how we feel or what our circumstances are. As we do, our love will mature and deepen.

Then the Lord showed me that even as a wife is called to give herself fully to her husband, without holding back, without reserve and to enjoy the ecstasy of a marital relationship, the Lord intended for that just to be a picture of what He wants to have in our personal relationship with Him. There is to be a fullness and an ecstasy and an overflow of expression. Not just giving the outer edge of myself to the Lord, but taking the time to wait in His presence, to be still and to enjoy Him and to give myself fully to Him.

I'll tell you, I've found that one of the greatest barriers or hindrances to that kind of intimacy with the Lord is something similar to what I understand happens in many marriages. That's getting hurried or letting interruptions or distractions become the rule.

You know, if a couple would choose at times in their marriage relationship not to answer the phone or not to go to answer the door during times of physical intimacy, why would I not choose the same in my time of communion and intimacy with the Lord? Yet I have to confess that so many times as I'm with the Lord, I'm jumping up to handle e-mail or to answer the phone or to go to the door and letting so many other things take priority over that intimate time with the Lord.

The Lord convicted my heart and just said to me, "You need to remember what it was like when you were enjoying more of an intimate relationship with Me" and that my heart needed to be repentant and to restore, to return to those kinds of expressions of love for the Lord Jesus that I have experienced in the past.

You know, sometimes for a couple to have an intimate sexual relationship requires scheduling and putting things on the calendar and times when they can be together. So it is important in my relationship with the Lord to schedule and set apart times with Him when I can be unhurried and uninterrupted, if at all possible.

Then to make the necessary preparations, even as a couple does physically and throughout the course of the day. Preparing a setting. Preparing themselves physically. So I need to prepare myself to enjoy and experience those times of intimacy with the Lord.

Then to be creative in learning to express my love to Him in new ways, in ways that may not be as comfortable for me and different ways, and not just to fall into the trap of settling for the routine, the predictable, the same-old, same-old.

As I've been before the Lord over these last several days and thinking about how the marriage relationship is intended to be a picture--an earthly picture--of my relationship with my Heavenly Bridegroom, the Lord Jesus, I just have to tell you that the Lord has caused to spring up from within the deepest parts of my heart a new sense of desire and longing and fervency and passion.

I found myself talking to the Lord more freely, waking in the middle of the night, early in the morning, late at night, singing to Him, speaking to Him. Not just ignoring Him as if He were just omnipresent, but we weren't connecting, but really wanting to connect to Him in a fresh, new way.

Leslie Basham: Nancy Leigh DeMoss will be right back to lead us in prayer and help us connect to God the way she was just describing. Today Nancy has given us a powerful reminder of our need to stay connected with the One we love. Why don't you get a copy and use it as a reminder to stay close to your Heavenly Bridegroom? In fact, you could pull it out and read it every Valentine's Day. You can read a transcript of today's program by visiting ReviveOurHearts.com.

While you're there on the web site, you can order an audio copy of the program. It comes as part of a series called Intimate Issues featuring an interview with Linda Dillow and Holly Elliff. They offer biblical advice in a practical way on the topic of physical intimacy in marriage. The series comes on cassette for a suggested donation of $5 or CD for $7. For more information, you can give us a call at 1-800-569-5959.

If today's program spoke to your heart, would you write Nancy a quick note or card and tell her about it?

Sometimes our greatest temptation comes after we've enjoyed a big success. We'll hear about that on Monday. We hope you can be here. Nancy has been talking today about having a heart that seeks God passionately. Here she is with a final thought.

Nancy Leigh DeMoss: Here's the way I expressed that heart to the Lord. I say, "Oh, Lord Jesus, You have loved me with a passionate, intense, unquenchable love. You have given Yourself fully to me. You are always expressing Your love in fresh new ways.

You are always available, never too tired, never preoccupied. I confess and I repent that I have not loved You in a way that is worthy of You. Please forgive me for my hurried, distracted, measured expressions of love; for making You compete with phone calls and e-mail and a thousand other good things that I'm doing for You, while neglecting intimate union and communion with You."

Then I wrote to the Lord, "Lord, You are my soul's Lover and Lord and King. Lord, I just say these words to You now. You are my bread, my water, my highest good, my joy, my fullness. You are my life, my hope, my satisfaction. I was made for You. I want to pour myself out for You, to be lost in You, to bring You the pleasure that You deserve, to love You unreservedly, unashamedly, wholly, entirely, passionately, and supremely. I want to lavish on You all of my body, soul and spirit.

I want to let You penetrate every part of me and to respond to Your love in a way that brings forth the fullest possible expression of who You made me to be as a woman. Lord, I offer that prayer up to You afresh and thank You for the work of Your grace in my heart in a fresh way over these days.

I pray for my sisters who are listening today--that each one would find You rekindling in her heart, whether she is married or single, a fresh sense of the wonder and the awe and what it means to be loved by You and to love You and to bring pleasure to Your heart, for that is why we were created. So may it be true. I pray in Jesus' name Amen.

Revive Our Hearts with Nancy Leigh DeMoss is a ministry partnership of Life Action Ministries.

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