Where Our Needs Are Met - Part 2

Welcome to this weekend's In Touch Podcast with Charles Stanley. As we close the series about unmet needs today, you'll hear how important it is to maintain a close relationship with the Lord to experience the abundant life. Now, when you think about the circles around your life, do you have and are you aware that the innermost circle is reserved only for you and God? I think the first time that ever dawned on me of being able to have some kind of an intimate relationship with Him, though I didn't understand it very well at the time and it was a pretty good while before it ever became a living reality in my own life, I remember driving down the expressway exactly where I was. Going under a particular bridge, knew exactly where I was, knew exactly what I was driving at that time, and God spoke to my heart so clearly out of the blue, not even thinking about anything like this.

Like God said to me, I made you for myself. That was so real to me, I turned and looked. I knew God wasn't there in a human body. It was so real to me.

Now, you know what? It's like one of those things that God once in a while dropped into my mind and shut it down. And then it was a long time before I understood what that was about. Probably my fault. If I had been listening carefully and if I had said, Well, Lord, now, what does that mean?

How are you going to do that? Probably what happened in my life would have happened a whole lot quicker. But, you know, I heard that it was just like somebody drove a stake in my soul. I knew what God had said, but I did not know what to do about it at the time. God has a desire to have an intimate relationship with you. So what is an intimate relationship anyway? Intimacy is a close relationship that is confidential and deeply personal and motivated by genuine love for each other. That's what intimacy is all about. Intimacy is a relationship, deeply personal, very confidential and motivated by genuine love alone.

That is what God desires for every single one of us. And when you and I are able to walk into that relationship, we don't have to worry about our needs any longer because we know that we have such a close relationship with someone who delights in meeting our needs, who not only has promised to do it and has will to do it and has the power to do it, but delights in meeting every single need we have. Here's a loving Father who desires to have this intimate relationship with Him.

He's taken all the initiative to do it. Now, how do we develop that kind of relationship? Let's think about how do you build intimacy with another person? You build it the same way with God.

And the first thing that's important is this, and that is time. You don't spend time with God, you'll never have an intimate relationship with Him. If I want to build an intimate relationship with Him, I've got to spend time with Him.

You say, well we do. No, no, I'm talking about just you and God. How many of you husbands or wives want someone else around when you and God has worked in both of your hearts and you have a genuine, intimate, strong desire to express your genuine love for each other in an intimate, physical way? You don't have anybody else around. God wants you and me time by ourselves. You and God alone.

Time is absolutely essential. Second, listening. How do I listen to God? Ninety-nine point ninety-nine percent of what you and I hear from God's going to be right out of His Word.

So what does that mean? It means that I must spend time in His Word, time in His Word, listening to what He has to say to me. Let me ask you a question. Is He worthy of my attention?

Yes. If I'm going to have an intimacy with Him, I not only need to give Him my attention, I need to listen carefully and then not only having listened to Him, I need to be willing to share with Him. Tell Him what I'm feeling. Tell Him what I'm thinking.

Now watch this next one. This is where it all shuts down. If I'm going to have an intimate relationship with Him, I must be willing to be transparent, absolutely transparent.

Open honesty with Him. And this is where most relationships shut down. Because the truth is, you see, if I'm going to have an intimate relationship with someone, I must be willing to open my heart and say, here are my weaknesses and here are my failures. And you know, this is what I try to do, but sometimes I don't do very well.

And you know, I have my fears and my self-esteem hurts over here and my self-image gets damaged over here and sometimes I feel so rejected and sometimes I feel so hurt and sometimes my feelings. In other words, if I'm going to be transparent, I got to tell it like it is. When somebody says, well, well, if God is infinite in all of His wisdom, then He knows everything. You don't have to tell Him all.

That doesn't work. Because you see, you and I can say, well, God, now I know that you know all things in Jesus' name and totally avoid what's going on in my life. Transparency says I'm willing to be open and honest and tell Him how I feel. God, you see, if you're going to have an intimate relationship with someone else, you can't keep secrets. You can't hold it in. You've got to be open and transparent. But that's where most relationships shut down. They say, well, you know what?

We can be friends, but I can't let you in but so close because if you knew about me what I know about me, you wouldn't like me at all. Well, remember this, He knows it all. So you might as well tell Him.

He knows it all. Another one of those words that you might want to jot down is acceptance. You know what? You can't have an intimate relationship with somebody you reject. You have to accept them the way they are and trust God to make changes. Somebody says, well, I'm going to marry so and so and I'm going to change Him.

You don't marry somebody to change them. You know what? God saved you and me because He loves us.

You know what? I accept the Lord the way He is and I want to know more about Him and He's accepted you and accepted me the way we are. And so intimacy speaks of acceptance. Likewise is giving. If I'm going to be intimate and related to my Father, I'm going to be giving to Him because He's always giving to me. If you have a relationship with someone and the giving's always one way, then you have a reason to question, well, do they really love you? Intimacy says, I'm always looking for something I can give you to express my genuine loving desire for you. I'm always looking for something. It doesn't have to be Christmas, birthday or Valentine. I'm always looking for something I want to give you because I love you.

That's what intimacy is all about. Think about, isn't God always giving to us? To me, this is the most preposterous thing I could think of, that anybody would be saved and come to church and not tie their income to a God who gave to them twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, every single moment before you were born from your mother's womb, God was giving to you in your mother's womb and then you come tell me that you can't afford to give you a tithe. I'm not telling you that because we need money.

I'm saying it's absolutely ridiculous. You're God's giving to you twenty-four hours a day. What are you giving Him in return? You see, real intimacy is giving. Another word that I think is so very important here and there are lots of them here, forgiveness. I can't have intimacy with anybody if I can't forgive them for their faults and their failures.

And you know what? When I think about how forgiving, let me ask you something. Have you ever asked God to forgive you for something He said, no, absolutely not.

No. He's always forgiving. Here's what I have to do. I have to forgive others whom He loves, whom He has forgiven, whom He desires to forgive. That's the way I build intimacy with Him when it comes to forgiveness. And then there is trust. You will never build an intimate relationship with someone you don't trust.

You cannot. There is a barrier between the two of you. Listen, till that barrier of distrust is down, you will never be able to build intimacy. Where there is no trust, there is no intimacy. Cannot be.

It's like oil and water. You can't have intimacy and distrust. You can't have intimacy and rejection. You can't have those things.

They don't fit. Likewise, there is understanding. God understands us absolutely perfectly. You know what He desires? He wants us to understand Him.

He understands us perfectly. He wants us to understand Him. He wants us to know His ways. He wants us to know why He does what He does. He wants us to know His attributes. He wants us to apply the principles of Scripture in our life. And so doing, here's what we do. We discover what He's like when we apply the principles of Scripture to our life.

We say, oh, yes, yes, yes, yes. That's how God's operating. God delights in our application of His principles.

That's how we become understanding of who He is. And of course, a caring love. That is a love that's reaching out, a love that's caring, a love that's sensitive to the other person's needs, the other person's desires. God, listen, He's sensitive to every single need, every desire we have. And how you say, well, how you relate that to God? Because I want to be sensitive to what He wants in my life. I want to be caring about His work on earth. I want to be caring about those He loves. I want to be caring about those whom He loves, who do not love Him, who persecute Him, who are absolutely living in rebellion toward Him.

I want to be caring about them also. Then there is approval. You say you can't have a relationship with someone you absolutely disapprove of.

You know what? Like the amazing thing to me is that God can approve of us, sinful as we are. He approves of us. He accepts us the way we are because He knows what He's going to do in our life. We certainly approve of Him.

He certainly approves of us. And then there is respect. And respect simply says that, you know, I honor you as a person. I respect you.

That is, I give you the dignity of being who you are and what you do in life. And if I respect the person, listen, I don't respect them on the basis of their notoriety or how much they have or what they wear or what they drive or where they live. I respect them because they are the creations of God.

Sons and daughters of the living God. That's the reason we respect people. It's not because of who they are. It's because God created them. And they have a soul, a spirit, and they're going to die one of these days and spend eternity somewhere.

They are persons whom God has created. And certainly if I respect God, what that means is I reverence Him and honor Him as my Heavenly Father. And I want to do what He says do likewise is comfort. God is always comforting us, always comforting us.

And you know what? I can't comfort Almighty God because He doesn't need it. But here's what I can do. I can comfort those whom God loves. I can comfort those who are hurting by the power of the Holy Spirit living on the inside. I can, you see, there's some things we don't give back to Him, but we give them back to Him because we give them those.

Remember what He said? He says, in as much as you have done it unto one of the least of these, my brethren, you've done it unto me. How do I want to serve God serving you? How can I comfort God comforting someone else? And so all of these things are so perfectly related. And then of course, there's touching. So wait a minute now, you can't touch God.

Yes, you can. Does God touch us? Yes, He does. For example, when you are just absolutely worn out and tired, and I mean, you just hit rock bottom, you think God don't think I'm put one foot above the other. And you just say, Lord, I just I just need you to strengthen me.

Help me. Well, how do you explain this surge of energy? How do you explain this burst of energy? How do you think? How do you explain that? God has touched you say, Well, you say, Well, I didn't feel it.

Yes, you did. Or you wouldn't have the energy you say, Well, but he just thinks the thought and every single thing you and I need in our life, he is going to provide. Now, when I think about that, I also have to think about what is it that hinders my intimacy with Him.

So I want to give you four things quickly. Now watch this. First thing that hinders my relationship, my intimacy with Him is sin. If I listen, if I am rebelling against God, choosing to be disobedient to Him, violating His principles, how can I expect to have an intimate relationship with Him? I'm not going to have it. It's not going to work. It's just like that oil and water. You shake them up all you want to, but they're going to separate. You cannot have an intimate relationship with Almighty God living in sin.

It will not work. The second hindrance is let's go back to a lot of things that we've said before about our childhood and and things that we've said about abuse and rejection. You see, unmet childhood needs are a tremendous hindrance to our intimacy with God.

Now, why? Because where does a child get their first image of the Father? From their earthly father.

You see, these things that happened in our childhood have a far greater effect on us than we realize. You take the average kid out here on the street and you say, well, what do you know about God? He's not even interested in about God. Well, what about an intimate relationship?

Don't have any idea what that means. Intimate relationship with God? That is absolutely totally foreign. So first of all, there's sin. Secondly, unmet needs as a child. And third, an unforgiving spirit. You cannot have an intimate relationship with the Heavenly Father when you have an unforgiving spirit towards someone else. Now someone says, does that mean I'm supposed to forget it? No, listen, you can forgive, but some things you'll never forget.

You just don't, you don't have, you don't feel the pain you used to feel when you have to forgive them. The fourth thing is fear of transparency. That will absolutely shut it down when it comes to your relationship with Him. Because you've got to be willing to be open. God, I blew it bad. Father, the truth is I'm scared to death. Lord, the truth is I'm just full of doubt.

It has to be open and transparent. So now, one last thing I want to say. With whom does God desire an intimate relationship? With every single one of His children. With whom will God develop an intimate relationship? Turn, if you will, to Proverbs chapter three. Proverbs chapter three. And this very familiar chapter.

Listen to what he says. Proverbs chapter three. With whom will God have an intimate relationship?

Look at this. Verse thirty-two says, For the crooked man is an abomination of the Lord, but he is intimate with the upright. That does not mean sinless. The upright are those who have been saved by the grace of God and have a deep yearning desire to walk in obedience to Him. And even though they stumble and fall because they still have their human weaknesses, they get up, confess it, repent of it, move on, longing to have a relationship with the Father. Now listen carefully.

I don't know what your innermost circle looks like, but I can tell you how it needs to look. You and God. What He wants in your life above every single thing possible is intimacy.

A deep, abiding, loving closeness that is so confidential unless you tell it, God's not going to tell it, just between you and Him. And you know what? When you allow Him to draw you to Himself, He's going to so satisfy you in your relationship to Him, you know what's going to happen? It won't make any difference what somebody else thinks. It won't make any difference whether somebody else accepts you.

Let me ask you this. Who cares whether somebody rejects you when the Father has accepted you? I mean, when you're accepted by the best, does it matter who rejects you? And somebody accuses you or criticizes you, that's okay. Because you know, you have a relationship with someone who's not going to criticize you.

He's only going to love you. Why do our needs get met? Our needs get met best and absolutely, totally, fully in an intimate, loving relationship with our Heavenly Father. And that invitation is extended to everyone, everywhere. And Father, how grateful we are that you would reach down and pick up folks like us and draw us to your self and love us and forgive us and pour yourself into us and meet every single need that we have and keep on forgiving us and keep on building us up and keep on instructing us and being patient with us and teaching us how to relate to one another, how to love each other. We just want to tell you, we really and truly love you, dear God, with all of our hearts. We want you to draw us to yourself.

In Jesus' name, amen. Thank you for listening to part two of Where Our Needs Are Met. If you'd like to know more about Charles Stanley or In Touch Ministries, stop by InTouch.org. This podcast is a presentation of In Touch Ministries, Atlanta, Georgia.