Cultivating Spiritual Intimacy

You’ll notice on your notes, it says, “Sometimes it’s harder to keep love alive than others.” Sometimes you cope in a crisis. I don’t know about you, I mean, I have been married forty-two years. This was one of the hardest years of my marriage.

You know, we had a number of things planned, they all got canceled. We had certain rhythms where we went and did certain things; they were all canceled.

But there’s all kind of times. Times when you have a health issue. Sometimes when you’re separated or relocate. Sometimes financial stresses put a lot of pressure on you. Or you have a family crisis or one of your parents is dying or going through a hard time. Or one of your kids is either making you crazy or you don’t know what to do with them. Or there’s a moral failure.

And all I want to say is going through really challenging times doesn’t mean there’s something wrong with you or your marriage. In fact, after forty-two years I can tell you, not that I have liked it, but it has been in the most difficult, the most painful, the times when I honestly wanted to give up – those are actually the windows of times where God can get your attention. And instead of just having an okay marriage or getting along or being compatible, some really supernatural, deep things can happen. And He works in each of you individually and then He works with you as a couple.

When you’re going through difficult times, the person you generally take it out on is – who? The person who understands you the most.

And you’ll be critical in your tone of voice. I was in pain a lot, so I had lack of patience. And Theresa was very kind. It was, like, “What’s wrong with you?” And so, after all these years, I would just sort of retreat a little bit. But what I knew was our marriage, because of all those things, was doing this. And if you have been where I have been, even the little bit of this starts to scare you.

I think there are times when you get discouraged or it gets dark, it starts looping. And I would pray, I would read, it just kept looping.

And I remember saying, “Lord, I really – this is weird. I really need Your help. And I have certainly been here before.” And I heard the Holy Spirit whisper, Chip, draw near to Me and I will draw near to you.

That’s a promise from God. And then I thought, What if all the things in all my years…? Because at this stage of my life, when it gets really dark and evil, I know something is up. And I thought, I went back to my earliest days and I thought, When I memorized big chunks of Scripture, and renewed my mind… And part of it was you’ve got back pain, you’ve got people on the news yelling and screaming at each other, you’ve got violence on the left, violence in the right, you’ve got a country falling apart, you’ve got, I mean, there were so many things that emotionally just… And what I realize is I, so I put the pause on all that external stuff and then I went back to John chapter 1 and rememorized verses 1 through 18. And then I went to Colossians 3.

And then I would jump over to Philippians 3 and I would walk through that and I went on, like, a rampage of: I am going to bombard my mind with truth.

And everything we are going to talk about is how do you move up toward God and closer to one another? And there are things you need to know, but there’s also skills you need to develop. And what I want to talk about in our time is four skills that we need to develop.

But before I do, I’m going to, remember I told you I was in Colossians a lot? As I prayed about what to share, I literally, I bet – I’m not going to exaggerate – but verses 12 through 17

I bet I have gone through that in my mind hundreds of times. I have said it out loud in the car, I have prayed it word by word, verse by verse. And what I realized was all the skills that I wanted to teach you, they all grow out of this one passage.

“So as those who have been chosen of God, holy and beloved,” that’s who you are, here’s what you do, “put on a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience, bearing with one another and forgiving each other, whoever has a complaint against anyone. Just as the Lord forgave you, so also should you. And beyond all these things, put on love, which is the perfect bond of unity. Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts to which indeed you were called into one body. And,” command, “be thankful. Let the Word of Christ richly dwell within you with all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with thankfulness in your heart to God. Whatever you do, in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through Him to God the Father.”

Let me just give you a brief little outline – the first line of chapter, verse 12 tells you who you are. And so those of you who are, in other words, when God sees you, you are chosen, you are valued, you are precious, you are holy, you are set apart because of your connection to Christ. And the word “beloved”, it means you are deeply and dearly loved just for who you are.

Here’s what you need to understand, how you see yourself and how you see or believe that God sees you is the fundamental issue behind loving any person in the world. Because if you don’t grasp and accept that you are deeply loved, just for who you are – not for how you look, not for how you perform, not for what you have done, not for what you have accomplished – then you will try in every relationship to get someone to validate that you are an okay person.

And you cannot impart what you do not possess. People who have great marriages are not trying to get the other person to make their life work. They are understanding: I am already chosen, I am holy, I am deeply, unconditionally loved. And it’s out of that, it’s out of His love that I love my mate.

The first command is: Put on a heart. In other words, it’s not just an activity. Put on a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience. Can you really – think about this – can you imagine if each and every day those things were growing inside you, just in your relationship with your mate? You were more compassionate, you were kinder, you were more humble, you were patient.

“Bearing with one another.” Literally the word means putting up with the idiosyncrasies, “Forgiving each other, whoever has a complaint, just as the Lord forgave you.” So, the first command is that we put, or clothe ourselves. It’s what we do in relationships.

And then notice the second command, “Beyond all these,” it’s not just doing the things. Put on love. Unconditional, “I’m for you.” I give whether I get anything back or not, which is the perfect bond of unity.

And the third command, it’s interesting, and sometimes in the text it looks so small. It says, “Be thankful.” That’s a separate command. In other words, be grateful. Focus on what you do have in your marriage. Focus what you do have in life. Thank God for what you do have rather than focus on what you don’t have.

And then he goes, “Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts.” Another command. We’ll talk about what that means.

“Let the Word of Christ richly dwell within you,” another command. And then, “Whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus.”

So, let’s dig in. Skill number one. How do you develop spiritual intimacy? Spiritual intimacy with Christ is cultivated by actively believing two things. Number one, whose we are. In other words, that you are chosen.

Now, you’ve got your notes, but open your Bibles if you will and I’d like to read from Colossians chapter 1 and I want you to listen. This is true of you. If, at a certain day, on a certain point in your life you have grasped that you’re not perfect, you don’t have it all together, and if God was giving out a score and your score would not be a hundred, what the Bible calls that is a “falling short” or you have sinned.

If you have become aware of that and realized because that creates a barrier with the perfectly holy God, and you needed help, and in the empty hands of faith you put your trust in Jesus to pay for your sin and to cover your sin and connect you, by faith, to a living relationship, the Bible says you were taken out of the kingdom of darkness and you were placed in the kingdom of light, because you are united now with Jesus. That you actually died with Him and you have been raised with Him and now you are connected with Him and He actually lives inside of you.

And if that’s true, then this is who you are. Follow along if you will. Verse 13 of chapter 1. “For He has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son that He loves, in whom we have redemption,” what’s that? “…the forgiveness of our sins.”

And now, speaking of Jesus, this is who chose you. “He is the image,” or the icon, “of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by Him all things were created: things in heaven and things on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by Him and for Him. He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together. And He is the head of the body, the Church; He is the beginning of the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything He might have supremacy. For God was pleased to have all His fullness dwell in Him, and through Him to reconcile to Himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through His blood, shed on the cross.

“Once you,” that’s you and me, “were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior. But now He has reconciled you.” Some of you know what reconciliation is, right? It’s when you’re enemies and then you’re friends.

We were enemies of God because of our sin, going our own way, either by passive indifference, “I don’t care much about God,” or active rebellion. We were reconciled by Christ’s physical body, through the death, to present you holy in His sight without blemish and free from accusation.

“Since you continue in your faith, established firm, and not move from the hope held in the gospel. This is the gospel that you heard and that has been proclaimed to every creature under heaven and of which I, Paul, have become a servant.”

Spiritual intimacy with Christ is cultivated by actively believing whose we are. You’re His. You can’t work your way there; you can’t get Him to love you more. Here’s a thought that has just so blown my mind: In this very moment, there is nothing you could ever do to get God to love you more than He loves you right now. And it gets even more amazing. There is absolutely nothing you could do, nothing, that could get Him to love you less.

Now, you could make some decisions and have some behaviors that could cause some consequences that, out of His love, He might bring sort of the velvet vise to restore the relationship, to help you grow. But He doesn’t love you more when you read the Bible, He doesn’t love you more when you pray, He doesn’t love you more when you do good things, He’s not shocked when you fall back into a sin pattern.

If you could ever grasp how much He loves you and chose you – we all say we believe in grace but we act like, “Oh yeah, I got in by grace, but now I’ve got to, it’s up to me. God loves me when I’m good and He doesn’t when I’m bad.”

He loves you, period. He chose you. He’s for you. He delights in you. “The prayers of the upright are His delight.” He sings over you. He takes great delight in you.

I was in a conversation at the supper table and the lady I sat next to, I had such an invigorating conversation. And we were talking about this. She goes, “You know, I just learned that God doesn’t want my devotions. He wants my devotion. It’s about us, our relationship.”

The second thing, because see, you won’t have intimacy with Christ if somehow you keep trying to earn it. The second is: Who you have become, that you are holy.

Chapter 2, picking it up at verse 9, “For in Christ all the fullness of deity dwells in bodily form,” that means all there is of God was in Jesus, “and you have been given fulness in Christ, who is head over every power and authority. In Him you were also circumcised in the putting off of your sinful nature. Not with the circumcision done with hands of men, but a circumcision done by Christ.” A circumcision of the heart.

“Having been buried with Him in baptism, raised with Him through faith in the power of God who raised Him from the dead. When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your sinful nature God made you alive with Christ,” He forgave all of our sins, “having canceled out the written code with regulations that was against us and that stood opposed to us; He took it all away, nailing it to the cross. And having disarmed,” this is the spiritual powers, “and authorities, He made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross.”

God looks at you this day through the lens of the blood of His Son. Not only you are precious and loved, but you are forgiven. You are clean. That is your position with Him. And when you understand that, that’s the first step toward, on that triangle, you as the man, you as the woman drawing near to God.

I don’t know about you, but I didn’t grow up as a Christian and I did lots of things that were not good. And after I became a Christian, every time I messed up, I didn’t want to talk to God. I thought I was going to get the hammer.

I had no idea that His love doesn’t change just because I mess up. But just like a father, I have these little grandkids right now, some big ones and some little ones. And they get to be about nine to twelve to fourteen months, they start walking. And some of you have kids or grandkids and when they start, right? They get on the table and they do this little bit and then – what? Bam! Right?

And their parents do what every good parent does, “Get up! What’s wrong with you? Man, you’re ten months old, you ought to be running by now. Get up right now. Come on, honey, tell them to get up.” Is that what you do? What do parents do? Or grandparents? We are worse. I got the gene myself. “Here! Here! Johnny! Johnny! Johnny! Oh! Oh! Oh! Ooh! Get the camera! Get the camera! Get the camera! He took two steps.” And we post it on Facebook, Instagram – “Oh my gosh, can you believe that? She took two steps!” I mean, they go nuts! So where do you think you get that?

When you say to God, I’m going to choose to be the one that says I’m sorry even though I think it was eighty percent her fault and twenty percent mine. God, I don’t feel like, I don’t feel like reading the Bible, but I made this commitment and I want to develop this and it’s kind of hard for me. I’m ADD. I get distracted, but…

And your heavenly Father, He just leans in. He just wants you. Intimacy. It’s believing that He wants you, that He loves you, that He is for you, that it’s not for someone else, that when you draw near, He’ll draw near to you.

And in terms of marriage, here’s what I want you to get. I said it earlier: You can’t give away what you do not have. Until you see yourself the way God sees you, and love your mate out of overflow, you will instead have loving acts to get your own needs met, to get what you want, and to benefit you.

And when you don’t get them, you get angry. And if you watch enough TV, you’ll believe lies like there’s someone better out there. Or that you ought to have no problems and this person ought to come through. And so, you will love conditionally, and your love will be fragile, and it will only be horizontal, and it will crack under pressure. And you will probably live a very painful life to learn that there is no human being on the earth that can give you what you’re looking for.

But you’ll go through relationship after relationship after relationship demanding something that no one else can deliver. Or you can come to believe and accept that God will give you all that you have, but you need to receive from Him first before you can give. In my deepest times when I wanted to walk out of our relationship, by the way, I was in seminary. Not a good place. Because even during counseling, I would learn what we are supposed to do and it was like, Okay, I’m doing my part. “Theresa, get with the program! Hey, we were supposed to do this. I did this. You’re supposed to get affectionate now! I took out the trash three times this week! What don’t you get about this marriage?”

Perfunctorily with a bad attitude, but that’s beside the point. I did the right thing so she would respond in ways that I wanted her to. Our marriage stopped when I took a long walk with God and in tears said, “God, I can’t change her.” And I heard the Holy Spirit, you know, sometimes He whispers. I think He shouted on this one. That’s not your job. There’s only one person you can change, Chip. That’s you. I don’t – if she never responds, you made a vow. She is My daughter. I want you to treat her like my daughter. I love her. I want My love to go to her the way I give it to you: With no expectation of return. She doesn’t have to be more affectionate, she doesn’t have to say kinder words, things don’t have to be warm or better. You are now going to love her. And if the only reason you do it is to please Me, that’s enough.

And I did. And she did. I have been doing this for a long time. I’ve been a pastor about thirty-six, thirty-eight years. And I’m going to say this and some of you it’s going to be like BBs off a tank. But for the ten percent that will actually listen, if I told you how many marriages are in separation or divorce or broke up because they had what they thought was a really big problem that was about this big, and instead of recognizing, yes, it’s painful. Yes, you feel rejection. Yes, you have feelings and thoughts and anger and emotions you thought you could never feel toward this person that you love – I get it, okay? And you’ll get through it.

You roll up your sleeves and you say, “This marriage is terrible right now.” And then you make a huge shift and say, “I’ll never change him. But I’m going to let God change me.” And, you know, you understand that every relationship is a system. When one person changes, the dynamic changes. It just changes.

Spiritual intimacy is cultivated with your mate by recognizing the supremacy of Christ’s role and relationship in your marriage.

I read verses 15 through 18 where He is above all things, He is the icon. The word, it’s a really interesting word. If you take a piece of clay, soft clay or, in our day, playdough. And if you took, like, a coin, like a silver dollar, and if you pressed it into that real hard, and then you pulled out the silver dollar, what would you have in the playdough? You’d have the exact image of that.

Jesus is the exact icon, image of the invisible God. All the fullness dwells in Him. Did you remember what we read? He created all things; He sustains all things by the word of His power. He created – all things were created by Him and for Him. And He is the head of the Church and He’s the firstborn from the dead, and He has supremacy over everything.

If you want to have intimacy in your relationship horizontally, He has to have the same place in your life and the same place in your marriage that He has in the universe. That means if He says, “Men, I want you to love your wife.” Good days, bad days. What does love look like? Well, just ask Jesus. Well, what do you mean? He was willing to die for His. You need to be willing to die for her. And not just metaphorically.

Well, put her needs ahead, cherish her, protect her, provide for her, live with her in an understanding way. You be Jesus to her. That’s your call. Regardless of how she responds. Well, why should I do that? “Because I am God and I created it and I designed it and I told you to. How’s that?”

No, we’ve got, we’re in such error. The byproducts of marriage happen to be that you get to have children, you’re not alone, you have good sex if not great sex occasionally, and you have a life companion. But the major point of marriage is not so that you’re happy or even fulfilled. The major point of marriage is it’s a metaphor declare Jesus and the Church. Your marriage, your love, your forgiveness, your working through problems, you caring and loving and cherishing and respecting is to be the picture of Jesus and His bride.

And the loudest, the loudest, the greatest picture that the world will ever see of Christians is marriages where they love one another. Well, it’s easy to love one another – I mean, pagans can love one another when everything is great. The Church, your job, my job is to demonstrate as a man what Christ’s love is like to the Church; and as a woman, what is it like for a church to respond in love and respect and tender consideration and connection to Christ?
There are few things that will make a bigger difference in the watching world than your marriage.

If you want to have intimacy, it can’t be like, God, I really want a great marriage and, okay, there are some really good verses here for my wife. “Hon, you need to read these.

Man, these are really good ones. Yeah.” I’m not sure what all the “submissive” stuff is, but it sounds pretty darn good.

You want to have a great marriage? I mean, can you imagine the designers and the engineers and the people that have put together the things that you all do all around the world – can you just imagine going, “You know, I just don’t read manuals. I’m just going to do this any way I think is better.” How would that work?

The Creator of the universe has made it clear what He wants you to do and what it looks like and He did it because He loves you, He did it because He is good, He did it because He cares. And, yes, it counterintuitive. And, by the way, ready? It’s hard.

I had a guy come to me and he’s a young guy in the Silicon Valley and has done really well financially and he’s, you know, we’d meet him and think, Oh, you have this beautiful wife and kids and a great job and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And we were playing nine holes of golf and he goes, “You know, I’m just, it’s – I just, something is really, really wrong.” I said, “What’s that?” He goes, “Like, this, man, I’m really trying hard to be a good husband and it’s just, it shouldn’t be this hard. There’s always something. I mean, there’s always something.”
And then he – I don’t want to be too crass; we’re good buddies. And, by the way, he has now done a one-eighty. But it was like, you know, “This and this and this and this,” and I’m thinking, Would you grow up? Those are such nickel and dime stuff.

And so, finally, he actually played in the area of football, was an excellent athlete. And so, I just asked him. I said, “Excuse me. Can I ask you a question?” I said, “Did you ever do two-a-days growing up in football?” “Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah.” “Or what about in college? You know, you, all-American, all that kind of stuff. Did you, like, hit the weight room and nutrition and…?” “Oh, man, it was like your life. And that’s what we did.” “And when you played pro ball, what was that like?” “Oh man.”

I said, “So, what you’re telling me is to be a star and be a football player, it’s really hard. You get hit. You get up early. You lift weights. You eat, you go to sleep, and you focus your whole life. But your wife is not worth that? Really? Really? Who told you it’s supposed to be easy?”

In fact, here’s the deal. I’m convinced, this is Chip Ingram, not the Bible. So, put this in your notes, asterisk, “Ingram thinks this. Don’t know if it’s really true.” No, I’m serious. I have a lot of Chip Ingram and I try to keep to the Bible. But this is one of mine.

I’m convinced that God actually has created marriage in such a way that it really doesn’t work. I mean, it really – two people with different personalities that are both selfish and both sinners, it really doesn’t work unless you follow the design and you get to where He gives you unconditional love and you can put the other person first and do all the super counterintuitive stuff.

Everything that has made our marriage really, really good is like, “This is crazy! I am the man! I should get up and make coffee in the morning? I should bring it to her? I should affirm her? I should do this? What about me? And every time I keep little by little learning what it means to cherish her and serve her and help her discover her gifts and understand in ways that they still don’t make sense to me how she thinks. You know what? I don’t have to understand it. But I’ve learned to not fix it and just listen.

And the more, the more you become like Jesus, the easier you are to live with. Can you imagine that?

Can you imagine being married to someone who is very kind? Can you imagine being married to someone who is humble, that just on a regular basis just not acts humble but just actually puts your needs ahead of theirs?
Or someone that bears with you that the underwear is still on the floor, the toothpaste is still like that, you still interrupt me when we’re with other people, and I love you. I mean, it’s an amazing thing. And that’s the core of building intimacy.

Let’s jump into how to get really, really practical. Why build a marriage God’s way? First, because He commanded it. And second, because it’s for your benefit. And let me give you some very specific benefits of marriage – doing it God’s way. These are so helpful. I listed them and you’ll notice there’s a little asterisk and at the bottom: Divorce Proof Your Marriage by Gary and Barbara Rosberg.

And spiritual intimacy allows you to connect at the deepest level. I mean, we connect emotionally, we connect spiritually, but I will tell you the deepest possible connection will be a connection of your spirits in the presence of God that will build a bond that it puts the emotions on steroids and the physical on steroids.

Spiritual intimacy, as you draw closer to God and as you begin and we’ll talk about how, and by the way, I’m going to tell you a little bit later, it’s really a challenge to develop spiritual intimacy. It’s a lot easier to develop physical intimacy, or even emotional intimacy.

Second is spiritual intimacy links you with God’s purposes and plans for your life. He says, “I know the plans that I have for you,” Jeremiah, right? 29:11. “They are plans for good, not for evil, for your welfare, to give you a hope and a future.”
When you connect, you with God and her or him with God, then it aligns you to know His voice and His plans and His direction for your life.

Third, spiritual intimacy allows you to bless each other with God’s love. That’s what I have been talking a lot about.

All I can tell you is we have over played, you know? I’m not going to go down my Hallmark story right now, but if I watched, like, fifty Hallmarks, I would think that all of love is about ooey-gooey emotions, starry-eyed, meeting people, and kissing when it starts to snow. Based solely on physical attraction by, seems to be, very, very pretty people who live in really nice houses, who actually have a lot of time to do everything except work, because they, I mean…

And within the first seven minutes, I have no idea how it’s going to end except I think they are going to fall in love. And ten minutes before it’s over, it doesn’t look like it’s going to work and, oh! Yes, it does!

And I don’t mean that as crassly, but there’s a diet of that that has so permeated our culture, we actually, people actually believe love is romantic feelings. And we have developed such a narcissistic culture that you think when you’re unhappy, something is wrong. You understand, Jesus was unhappy a lot. Hebrews says in the course of His lifetime, He shed many tears. He hurt for people. He was lonely. He was rejected. He was tempted in every way, just like you and just like me. He was fully human, yet without sin.

Part of life is down days, hard days, struggle days. “For you have been called to this purpose since Christ also suffered for you. Who though He suffered, He didn’t revile, or pay back, but entrusted Himself to a faithful Creator.” Suffering is, it’s a part of life. We have lived in this last thirty to forty years and it has creeped more and more into Evangelical Christianity at all levels that somehow Jesus wants to make you self-fulfilled and happy and make everything go great. And when Jesus doesn’t do that, you are disillusioned. When you demand from God promises He never made, you are worshipping a God that doesn’t exist.

His agenda is not to make you happy. He doesn’t work all things together for your good, to those that are called, to those that love Him, so that you’ll be self-fulfilled and happy.

How many people, by the way, know Romans 8:28? See, we interpret that verse as, “God works all things together for the good, for those that are called according to His purpose.” And the “good” that we define is: My life works.

I mean, like, “Hey! You say God is in control? I don’t have a job, I have lost my house, and I don’t have very much money, and my kid has got to drop out of school for a year. So, is God in control?” Of course, He is. So, when did God ever promise that…so, other people can lose their house but not you? That someone else can go out of business, that you don’t go through hardship?

Verse 29 doesn’t say, “God is in control, so your life works out great.” It says, verse 29, “To conform you to the image of His Son.” God’s agenda is to make you like Jesus.

By the way, the challenges in your marriage, God’s number one issue probably with the person that you are married to, it’s like sandpaper against sandpaper, it’s probably to make you more patient, more kind, more humble, more loving, more compassionate by living with them.

Some of you think God gave you kids for you. God gave you kids to change you. Boy, you want to learn patience, it’s like, Oh God, may we just get through the diaper stage? Right? Or can we just get through pre-teens? I’ve got a pre-teen that is, like thirty-five right now. Right?

And then it’s like, “Oh my, I thought it was bad when they were two. This early adulthood, you know? Eighteen to twenty-two, twenty-three. They want all the authority but no responsibility. This is just like when they were two!”

“I want to do whatever I want!” Well, who is paying for the car and you live in the back bedroom and who paid for college and…? I think I have said enough to make a point.

The benefits – spiritual intimacy opens the door to the deepest levels of communication. When you are loved and chosen by God, you can be vulnerable at a level because you know God accepts and loves you. Part of our problems with communication was we both had such warped views of God and warped views of one another, we couldn’t be honest.

Until I began to grasp that God accepts and loves me and that I’m secure, then you can risk. See, what happens is the spiritual intimacy, the stronger that gets, it opens the door for every other area.

Spiritual intimacy empowers your marriage to survive. Every couple encounters circumstances that feel overwhelming. The power of God is bigger than any situation you will ever face and can enable you to stand firm in the storms.

Oh, I just, I have told so many couples, “Don’t give up too soon. Don’t give up too soon.” Spiritual intimacy connects you to a supportive body of believers. One of the things, if you don’t know it yet, is that you can’t make it and you can’t have a great marriage by yourself. You need other couples and you need some people that you can do life with, that can share.

When you’re spiritually connected, when you’re a part of a local body, God has a group of people that, when you’re down, they can be up. You know, you do life together and you watch their kids and we never had any money. “You watch our kids and we will watch your kids. And we can get that little window to get away.” Spiritual intimacy is powerful.

How do you develop personal spiritual intimacy? I have given you a little Bible study. It’s from Colossians. And I’m not going to go through all the verses, but let me just show you from the passage, from the book, how the apostle Paul encourages that church and those people to develop spiritual intimacy. In verses 1 through 9 he just asks for it.

Read – it’s an amazing prayer. “God, I want them to know You.” And the word is a relational “know You”, “…and Your will to know specifically in a deep, authentic way.”
And then he says, “Beware of counterfeits.” He talks about three different errors that people have in seeking to draw near to God. And then he says, “Guard your thought life.” The battle for your life is between your ears. Ninety-five percent of all spiritual warfare is in your thinking. You have to learn to take every thought captive in obedience to Christ.

And then you have to kill the spiritual competitors. You know? We’ll look at this a little bit later so it’s just an overview. But after he talks about this new life that you have, he says, “Consider the members of your earthly body to be dead to immorality and impurity, to evil desire, to lust, to greed, which amounts to idolatry.” You know, there’s just here are certain things that you’ve got to cut off the supply lines of people and of things that create desires that pull you away from God and away from your mate.

And then you saturate your mind with God’s Word.

Three different times in the verse, verses 12 through 17, did you notice? I circled them in my text. Three different times you’re told to be thankful. It’s one of the most powerful things in your relationship.

It’s hard to be tempted by someone else to do something else when you are grateful for who you have, you’re grateful for what you do have.

And being thankful isn’t a feeling. You actually say it. God, thank You. She is loyal. God, thank You. He is a provider. God, thank You. Thank You for little things. Before I went to bed last night, out of the blue, my wife is an introvert, so I sort of take most of the initiative and I wish she would take a little bit more initiative even after forty-two years. And out of the blue she called me in the middle of the day and just before I was about ready to go to bed, I got this long text and she called me, “I was just thinking of you and wanted to hear how you are doing.”
Now, for some of you, that wouldn’t be a big deal. But for my wife, and I just went, God, thank You. We have been away from each other about twelve, thirteen days. I really miss her. I really love her. And I missed her. And just that the Lord would prompt her just to call.

Well, you know what? When you thank God, it’s hard to be resentful or bitter or unforgiving.

Well, let me give you some practical ways to remove the barriers and build some bridges. And uhm, Perspective, first, I think this is a super big challenge, especially for men. When I talk about spiritual intimacy and this is a general rule and may not be true, but most women are like, “Oh, yes. Yes. Yes. I hope he’s listening. I want a – if we could just pray together. If he would just hold hands with me. If he would just go to church with me. Oh, if we would just, maybe we could read the Bible or maybe we could read a book together. Oh, it would be so great!”

And most guys are going, “You know something? I know what I’m doing at work. When it comes to this spiritual stuff and leading a family and being spiritual, I’m not only not confident, I’m not competent. I really don’t know what I’m doing. And I am not sure I want to admit, but it’s very threatening. And I know you really want to do some stuff and this is just out of my territory.”

I mean, I’m a pastor and after I got married, and I knew the Bible quite well before I got married, I just, I was intimidated by developing spiritual intimacy with my wife. And so, ladies, one thing I would say is let him take some baby steps. And, guys, what I want to say is it really is not rocket science. And we are going to learn some steps that you can take. And by way of motivation, you’ll have to think really hard about this.

You know that triangle where there’s the spiritual, emotional, the soul, and the physical? Okay? Would you be shocked if there’s a relationship between those? And, by the way, there’s a very significant relationship between the bottom one. Women, in general, not always, I’m not trying to make, you know, but they are nurture and more relational. I mean, they love to talk and just sit and, “Can we just take a walk?” And, “What do you want to do?” “Just be together.” Okay. We’re together. Now what do you want to do? “I’m really enjoying this time with you, Chip.” “Great! Now what do you want to do?” Right?

And there’s this amazing thing that when your hearts and spirits connect, some of us men tend to be a little bit more on the activator side. And we want to do things together or we experience God’s love physically a lot. Not that sex is all there is, but there are few things that makes a man feel more affirmed and more valued than when his wife wants to make love with him.

Guys, what you need to understand is that when a woman doesn’t feel cherished, when she doesn’t feel connected spiritually, and when she doesn’t feel like there’s this emotional bond, it’s just sex. And she feels used. She wants to make love, but it grows out of the relationship.

And so many couples are, “He does that and you do this,” and then you fight about frequency, you fight about money, you fight about in-laws, you fight about schedules, and you fight about where your money goes. And all those things are – you know why? Because you are two separate people in the same house and I’m just going to be blunt. It doesn’t mean you’re bad people, but you are selfish, because everyone is.

And some of you are more stylistically selfish, more sophisticated selfish, but down deep, you want your way. And when you get your way, you’re a happy camper. And when you don’t, you’re not.

And God wants to reverse that. And that means you getting in close to Him. And so, here are some very practical ways to do that, and we will wrap it up. One, there is no one right way to develop spiritual intimacy with your mate.

Two, as a general rule, women find it a bit more easy, but there’s steps I’ll talk about in terms of how to kind of build that spiritual intimacy. There is no getting around praying together. I mean, literally, I have had guys start where, “We are going to pray silently together and hold hands.” And then start with a few words. I don’t know. I didn’t grow up as a Christian. It was two years before I prayed out loud and it was like, “Ah!” What do you do? What do you say?

Worshipping together. A lot of people are, “Oh, we’ll watch it later. We can watch the service.” As a man, “No, no, let’s sit down. Let’s watch this service. Let’s talk about what it meant. Where did God speak to you?”

Share what you’re learning. I would love to say, I have a friend, a very godly friend, he’s ten years older. Someday I want to be like him. He’s a missionary in Zimbabwe and just godly, godly, godly man. And I happen to know he and his wife get up every morning, they read the Bible together, they read a Proverb together, and they pray together, and read a portion of a book. Theresa and I tried that for about the first week; it almost killed our marriage.

We need separate time and then we come together and talk about where God is speaking to us, usually around the table. We usually sit at least fifteen, twenty minutes every day and just have a cup of coffee and just connect. “What’s going on?” Either really, really early in the morning or at a meal or two.

And it’s weird in our house, she’s funny. She prays like crazy, but as we go to bed, like, I want us both to pray out loud. She doesn’t want to pray out loud at night. It bugged me for about twenty years. I’m a pastor! We are supposed to pray together and out loud. “Chip, you pray. I’m here. I’m really…” I mean, she prays like crazy and we pray together other times. But to me, it’s like – are you getting my point? There is not a right way.

What – As a couple, how do you connect? Of course, you’ve got to be in the Scriptures somehow, individually. You’ve got to share. You have to be upward. You’ve got to pray. You’ve got to be a part of a worshipping community.

What I have learned is: Take baby steps. Take baby steps. Most of life changes are just the first incremental domino. That’s the key. And to do something small – consistency.

And it’ll grow. Pray for your mate. And let me encourage you, don’t pressure your mate and don’t judge your mate. Don’t assume where they are at with the Lord. Obviously, there’s some fruit or lack of it, but a lot – it’s not very motivating, you know, like, as one wife told me, “You know, I set the Bible out! And I put it right in the passage that I thought would help him the most! I couldn’t figure out why he doesn’t want to read the Bible.” I said, “Honey, let me tell you why.” He wants a wife, not a mother. And no one wants to be told what they ought to do. And, you know, I’m trying to be really kind to you guys.

Part of it is, just shut up and step up. Do what feels very unnatural. Just look at your wife, grab her hand. If you have a watch, set it for five minutes, you’ll never go longer. “We are going to pray together. You start and I’ll finish.” And hope she goes four. But I’m serious.

At some point in time, right? You know, it’s like getting in shape. Someday, someway I’m going to start. You know what? Someday, you just start. And you grab her hand; you’re the man. Grab her hand.

“I don’t feel comfortable. This feels awkward. I don’t know exactly what I’m doing.” Just get that out on the open if that’s where you’re at. And by the way, if you’ve got some tension and stuff going, just, “Why don’t we hold hands for two or three minutes and pray silently?

And just if anything comes to our mind that any resentment or bitterness, just privately, let’s…why don’t we spend a minute and ask God to help us forgive each other the way He has forgiven us?”

I’m just telling you, you take a step toward God, and He will run to meet you.