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Spiritual Sensuality And The Heart Of God


Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good! Blessed is the man who takes refuge in Him!
Psalm 34:8

Let me just make sure up front that we all get what I mean by spiritual sensuality.  I’m not talking about some worldly lust-filled sensuality here.  I’m simply talking about our senses of sight, touch, taste, etc.  And as the above verse makes clear, just as we have physical senses to navigate this physical world, in Christ, we have spiritual senses to navigate this spiritual world.  And our spiritual senses find their end and pinnacle in knowing God. 

In other words, God has given us spiritual senses in order to know Him and experience relationship with Him and perceive His blessings just as our physical senses help us relate to others and enjoy everything around us. 

So what does any of this have to do with anything? 

I’m convinced through reading the Bible and seeing verses like Psalm 34:8 and by reading books like The Pursuit of God by A.W. Tozer that God wants us to experience Him here and now each and every day of our lives.  And, sadly, I think we are missing out on His goodness because we have never taken the time to consider the possibility of true, intimate, tangible fellowship with Him here and now. 

It stands to reason that since God sent Jesus to die for our sins so that we could be restored to right relationship with Him that God wants that relationship to begin immediately upon being born again.  It isn’t a relationship that we have to wait around until we die to begin enjoying.  And it’s not a relationship that remains abstract and distant until we see Jesus face-to-face.  It is a present reality that God intends all of us to experience if we would only have the faith to pursue it. 

Consider carefully these words of Tozer:

“Our Father which art in Heaven.”  Now personality and fatherhood carry with them the idea of the possibility of personal acquaintance.  This is admitted, I say, in theory, but for millions of Christians, nevertheless, God is no more real than He is to the non-Christian.  They go through life trying to love an ideal and be loyal to a mere principle.
Over against all this cloudy vagueness stands the clear scriptural doctrine that God can be known in personal experience.  A loving Personality dominates the Bible, walking among the trees of the garden and breathing fragrance over every scene.  Always a living Person is present, speaking, pleading, loving, working and manifesting Himself whenever and wherever His people have the receptivity necessary to receive the manifestation.
The Bible assumes as a self-evident fact that men can know God with at least the same degree of immediacy as they know any other person or thing that comes within the field of their experience.  The same terms are used to express the knowledge of God as are used to express knowledge of physical things….We apprehend the physical world by exercising the faculties given us for that purpose, and we possess spiritual faculties by means of which we can know God and the spiritual world if we will obey the Spirit’s urge and begin to use them.”

Wow!  God can be known in personal experience.  We can know Him at least to the same degree as we know our best friend or our spouse or our moms and dads.  And I dare say that we can know Him to a much greater degree because God delights to share His whole heart with us if we would only ask Him to reveal it to us unlike us who keep secrets and hide embarrassing or shameful things from each other. 

God has nothing to hide…and the very act of sharing His heart with us is what changes us to be more like Him. 

So, this idea is still a bit foggy in my mind, but I believe that it is the true teaching of Scripture and will try and help you see it.

God wants to be in relationship with us.  We see this time and time again in the Bible.  God communicates with His people.  God shares life with His people.  And the greatest, most intimate part of any relationship is sharing one’s heart, standing “naked” before someone and being truly exposed for who you are.  I am becoming more certain all the time that the greatest part of our relationship with God is that we can know His heart…truly know Him and experience His perfectly righteous emotions and opinions about everything. 

And at the same time, if we dare share our hearts with Him, being our true selves, we find that because of Christ, He keeps on accepting us day after day in the exact same way that He accepts His beloved Son, Jesus!  We can share our fears and our guilt and our sinfulness and see the heart of our Father who only pours out favor upon us because of Jesus. 

I believe that this is what Jesus meant when He said that He came to set the captives free (Luke 4).  What greater freedom is there than the freedom of standing naked before a righteous God knowing all of your inadequacies and failures and sins and being judged “righteous?”  If God is for us, who can be against us?  And in Christ, God is infinitely and eternally for us. 

Have you known His heart towards you?  Have you taken the time to experience God’s love for you in a personal and intimate way?  Have you laid your heart bare to God and found His love to be overwhelming and crazy?  Have you felt the compassion of Jesus Christ for the homeless guy on the corner or for the irritating woman at work or for the guy who cut you off on the drive to work?  God wants us to!  I’m sure of it. 

I know it’s a scary proposition!  But those fears are unwarranted when we look at the Cross and realize just how great of lengths God went to in order to redeem a people for Himself!  Lay all of your fears at His feet and come experience the heart of God! 

Taste and see that the Lord is good!  Experience sweet, intimate fellowship with the Triune God of the Universe and beg God to let His heart become yours.  That is what it means to live! 

That’s where I’m going. I want the abundant life that Jesus promises His people.  Is anyone with me?

I’ll close with one more Tozer quote.  I believe this sums up God’s heart quite well.

“God formed us for His pleasure, and so formed us that we, as well as He, can, in divine communion, enjoy the sweet and mysterious mingling of kindred personalities.  He meant us to see Him and live with Him and draw our life from His smile.”

Christian, God’s heart is that you would know Him intimately.  Experience His delight in you because of Christ, experience His righteous anger towards sin.  Experience His compassion for the lost and His heart for the nations.  Experience Him…and draw your life from His smile. 

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