Seeking a More Intimate Walk with the Lord

(Overcomer Wu)

We need to all ask ourselves occasionally to have a sanity check: How intimate is our walk with the Lord? Can we honestly say that He is the First Love of our lives still? Is He is the first thing that comes to mind when we wake up early in the morning or do we jump right into our daily and weekly routines of responsibilities and live totally oblivious to His being there? Are we spending quality times with Him each day? Is our prayers still filled with our own requests and concerns rather than praying for what the Lord wants and for His will and purpose to be fulfilled? When you attend the church meetings, is it simply to give an appearance of caring for spiritual things before other people or are you truly there to meet with the Lord and gain a greater portion of Him with other saints (and yes there is a richer portion of the experiences and the knowledge of Christ we are convened together with other saints as promised by God's Word in Ephesians 3:18-19)? In short, can we truly say that our walk today is sweeter and more intimate than He ever was before to us? If not or even if we are already on the right track, we can still take the steps to enjoy a greater spiritual intimacy with the Lord.

While imprisoned for non-conformist preaching in 1675, John Bunyan wrote Pilgrim's Progress, which for a long period of time in the past was a best seller only second to the Bible. In his book, Bunyan gave an allegory of the Christian's journey to God, Christian makes his way from the City of Destruction to the Celestial City, journaling his starts and stops, ups and downs, victories and defeats along the way. Consider the Christian life as a walking journey through which Enoch had trodden for 300 years before he was raptured to God – growing closer to God while journeying toward Him. He is both the Destiny and the Way (Jn 14:6). And indeed He is the Goal towards which we press as well as our Reward (Phi 3:14).

All of us who are saved are on this spiritual journey, which we can also call our walk of faith. According to the allegory of Bunyan, every person alive is born into the City of Destruction and will stay there unless he changes destinations (Rom 3:23). If some readers of this discourse have not made that change yet, it is very simple: all you need to do is to confess your sins before God and ask the Jesus Christ to be your Savior to forgive your sins and give you the gift of eternal life (Jn 3:16), which is none other than His own Life. The beginning of our path of intimacy with God can be found in no other way.

Next, we need some directions so we don't wander off the trail. Fortunately, there is only one way to the peak, just as there is only one way to living a life of eternity with God. And the Bible is the Guidebook that points the way. Moreover, He has given us the Holy Spirit as the ever-present Counselor to guide us in how to use the large volume of the Guidebook and point out which part is pertinent to our lives at a given particular point in our lives. So pray, seek direction, joy and comfort (Matt 7:7; Phi 4:6-7). God knows when you need help and is ready to provide it as soon as you ask. This all-inclusive Guidebook gives us not only instructions, but also the life and the supply that we need (Jn 6:63, Matt 4:4) for whatever circumstances we encounter in our lives and the solution to each trials we come across. The psalmist said, "Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path" (Psa 119:105). God has so many promised blessings for those who seek Him, blessings discovered, apprehended, and appropriated only in His Word. For instance, one of the blessings we found in His Word is Joy: “Your words were found, and I ate them, and Your word was to me the joy and rejoicing of my heart” (Jer 15:16).

Furthermore, we need to yield to Him to be the Lord in every aspect of our lives. Herein lies the problem as to why so many a dear believer in Christ became stagnated in their walk with the Lord after a period of successful advancement. This is because they have come to rely on their own intellect, perhaps they have a Ph.D degree or even a Th.D degree from a theological seminary, or perhaps they have now had 30-40 years of experiences in the Church life and they think that they know best what to do and how to better reach the goal of God's calling than the “Author and Perfecter of our faith” Himself (Heb 12:2). Ignorantly, they don't realize that the more they rely on their own human wisdom and experiences, the more they stray from the straight and narrow path that leads to the goal of our high calling of God, because “the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned” (1 Cor 2:14). Thus, we should ever be vigilant not to fall into the trap of the subtle enemy in luring us to self-reliance rather than a life of full dependency upon Christ.

Unlike certain mountains where there is only one trail to the peak of the mountain, there are lots of ways to get off course in your spiritual journey. First, your Enemy, the Devil, is out to confuse and trip you. Our walk of faith by its very nature must be tested and tried. And the real trial of faith is not that we find it difficult to trust God, but that God’s character must be proven as trustworthy in our own minds. Faith being worked out into reality must experience times of unbroken isolation. Never confuse the trial of faith with the ordinary discipline of life, because a great deal of what we call the trial of faith is the inevitable result of being alive. Genuine faith, as the Bible shows us, is a faith in God coming against everything that contradicts Him – a faith that says, “I will remain true to God’s character whatever He may do.” The highest and the greatest expression of faith in the whole Bible is found in the book of Job —“Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him” (Job 13:15).

On our spiritual journey with God, we will find helping hands as well through the gifts of the Spirit in the other fellow pilgrims in the church (Rom 12:3-8; 1 Cor 12:12-31). Praise the Lord that we have so many fellow pilgrims to assist us and to encourage us along the way besides His Holy Spirit and His Word. Where you are weak or lacking, someone else is strong in that area and able to complement you and you in turn complement them in their areas of lack. The Bible tells us that we are “members of one another” (Rom 12:5); in other words, we need each other as the Church is liken to be the Body of Christ. This is made abundantly clear in 1 Corinthians 12:14-24. Therefore, when we find someone discouraged, worn, or wounded along the trail, we can help them with our portion of the grace that accompanies our gifts given for the perfecting of the saints, unto the building up of the Body of Christ (Eph 4:13). Yet if you're not on the trail, you can't help or be helped – be on the trail, that is, be an active participant in the Body of Christ, the Church! Also, companionship is often a key ingredient in a successful trip. On the trail, you need good friends and family to share knowledge, sights and sounds with. The companionship found in family and Christian friends is the most effective way to stay on the road (Heb 10:24-25).

At regular intervals on the trail, you'll see what awaits you at the top – a panorama that takes your breath away. You never get tired of drinking in the beauty of God's creation. God's scenic views come when we, like the psalmist, meditate on God throughout the night (Psa 63:6), and fix our eyes and our mind on the things above where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of the throne of God (Col 3:1-2). Find a quiet spot and meditate on the Word of God, you'll find that you will never exhaust the discovery of new insights about the God you're walking with, about His will, and His wonderful eternal purpose of which we have a part!

I hope we are all encouraged to press on in our "pilgrim's progress" towards a closer intimacy with God. Intimacy with God is the trip of a lifetime. The brief few steps outlined above are meant to make every moment as fulfilling as God intends it to be (Jn 10:10). We should never quit and “throw in the towel” no matter how rough the road, how steep the slope, or how much we have been wounded and even stumbled. May we all be able to proclaim someone soon with the apostle Paul, “... I have finished the course, and I have kept the faith” (2 Tim 4:7). Indeed the time is so short that I would not characterize this pilgrim's journey as a leisurely walk, but a race that we need to run with all our might to finish the course with joy. Thus, “let us lay aside every weight (anything that slows us down in this race) ... and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us” (Heb 12:1).