Intimate Relationship with God!

Intimate Relationship with God!

“Then God said, ‘Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.’ So, God created man in His own image; in the image of God, He created him; male and female He created them” (Genesis 1:26-27).

God created us in His image and likeness, which is another reason He wants to have an intimate relationship with us. Here are three ways God communicates with us.

The Word!

God’s communication comes from His Word, the Word of God. While our outer man perishes toward decay, God builds our inner man by nourishing us with His Word: “Therefore, laying aside all malice, all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and all evil speaking, as newborn babes, desire the pure milk of the word, that you may grow (to salvation) thereby if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is gracious” (I Peter 2:1-3).

The Word of God is bread for our living: “(God) might make you know that man shall not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that proceeds from the mouth of the Lord” (Deuteronomy 8:3). “But the word is very near you, in your mouth and in your heart, that you may do it” (Deuteronomy 30:14).

Jesus’s message on the seeds admonishes us to guard the Word of God in a noble heart to produce fruit in our life: “Now the parable is this: ‘The seed is the word of God…But the (seeds) that fell on the good ground are those who, having heard the word with a noble and good heart, keep it and bear fruit with patience (endurance)’” (Luke 8:11,15).

The Word is the foundation of my healing and salvation! When I suffered from bleeding ulcers in 1969 with a limited time of just 12 hours given by the doctors, it was God’s word from the two powerful Scriptures that brought me to healing and salvation: “Jesus said to her, ‘I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live’” (John 11:25). “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever” (Hebrews 13:8).

When my fellowship came to an end in the Summer of 1982, the Word of God was God’s direct promise for my provisions: “Offer to God thanksgiving and pay your vows to the Most High. Call upon Me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you, and you shall glorify Me” (Psalm 50:14-15). God not only supernaturally met my needs during the entire summer of 1982 at Pennsylvania State University without us contacting anyone with our needs, but also prepared us for the full-time ministry that began in 1990 with total dependence on God alone and His promise.

The Voice (“daw-baw”)!

God also speaks to us in His voice. 138 times it is mentioned in the Old Testament, “The word of the Lord came!”

When God spoke to Moses on the mountain and His fingers wrote the commandments on the tablets of stone, the people of Israel heard God’s voice: “And the Lord spoke to you out of the midst of the fire. You heard the sound of the words but saw no form; you only heard a voice” (Deuteronomy 4:12). “And you (Israel) said: ‘Surely the Lord our God has shown us His glory and His greatness, and we have heard His voice from the midst of the fire. We have seen this day that God speaks with man, yet he still lives” (Deuteronomy 5:24).

God’s Word from His mouth fulfills the purpose for which it is sent: “For as the rain comes down, and the snow from heaven, and do not return there, but water the earth, and make it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall My word be that goes forth from My mouth; it shall not return to Me void (empty without fruit), but it shall accomplish what I please, and it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it” (Isaiah 55:10-11).

The traveling men with Saul heard the sound from heaven but Saul heard the voice from heaven with clear instruction: “Then he fell to the ground, and heard a voice saying to him, ‘Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me?’ And he said, ‘Who are You, Lord?’ Then the Lord said, ‘I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. It is hard for you to kick against the goads.’  So, he, trembling and astonished, said, ‘Lord, what do You want me to do?’ Then the Lord said to him, ‘Arise and go into the city, and you will be told what you must do.’ And the men who journeyed with him stood speechless, hearing a voice (Greek: ‘phone’) but seeing no one. Then Saul arose from the ground, and when his eyes were opened, he saw no one. But they led him by the hand and brought him into Damascus” (Acts 9:4-8). In a sense, Saul’s men heard the sound (of the phone ring) but Saul picked up the receiver and heard the voice of the Lord!

I heard the voice of the Lord a few times:

1)     On the early morning of Friday, August 8, 1969, after I vomited blood four times, I saw myself hovering over my body covered in the blanket at midnight, and suddenly I found myself traveling through a tunnel into deep space to pass through the globe of the earth to come to the other side that was full of illumination without any visible light fixtures. I met many people of different colors and origins, and my heart was filled with love I had never experienced. A holy hush fell all over me when I was approached by a Brilliant Light behind me. I did not dare to look behind me but heard a voice: “My servant, I have not called you here yet. YOUR TIME HAS NOT YET COME. Go back and be My witness!” I felt a soft touch on my shoulders when I started traveling back to see the globe of the earth and my body in the same condition. The clock showed a time of 12:20 AM. I knew God spared my life to preserve me for His service!

2)     It was September 1974 when I locked myself in a room and was crying out to God. After 45 minutes of prayer, I saw a vision. I was floating in the middle of the ocean, and amazingly the ocean was inside of me as well as on the outside. I heard the voice of the Lord: “This is the ocean of My love for you, My son.” As I heard those words, my heart was filled with such love that I had no description of it. The arms of the Lord scooped me off the ocean floor to take me close to His bosom when I was fully transformed in God’s love. I was forever changed and amazingly, that experience has never left me until today.

3)     It was September 1989 when Hema and I were in a Wednesday night service. The Spirit of God came upon me after the service. I saw a brilliant light before me and I heard the voice of the Lord: “Son, I need you in My service.” I resigned from my job immediately, served my term as Professor of Aerospace Engineering until August 15, 1990, and stepped into the ministry.

4)     It was June 2018 when a cardiologist gave me a bad report that my heart was very weak. Another doctor, a believer in the Lord, scheduled a heart catheterization on June 28, 2018. During the time of waiting for 10 days for the exam, I was restless and had many sleepless nights. I remember a whole night when I was crying out to God, asking Him, “What is it with me and my heart, O Lord? Are You going to take me home?” After a long night of prayer upon my bed, I finally heard the voice of the Lord: “I AM WITH YOU ALWAYS!” That comforting voice lifted me from my anxieties. On June 28, 2018, I heard my Christian doctor say after the heart catheterization, “Something amazing happened. You have four critical blockages in your arteries, two of which are 100 % and the other two 90 % but I am not going to touch your heart because the Great One has provided you with robust collateral natural bypasses in your heart. Live for Him and be careful to eat right and walk in health!” Once again, God spared my life miraculously to live for Him and to serve Him!   

The Face (Hebrew “paw-neem”)!

God Communicates with us by His Word!

God Speaks to us Directly to Bring Us from Readers to Listeners!

God Shows Us His Face!

God spoke to Moses face to face: “So, the Lord spoke to Moses face to face, as a man speaks to his friend. And he would return to the camp, but his servant Joshua the son of Nun, a young man, did not depart from the Tabernacle” (Exodus 33:11).

Here is God’s testimony of Moses: “Hear now My words: If there is a prophet among you, I, the Lord, make Myself known to him in a vision; I speak to him in a dream. Not so with My servant Moses, he is faithful in all My house. I speak with him face to face, even plainly, and not in dark sayings (riddles); and he sees the form of the Lord” (Numbers 12:6-8).

God encourages us to seek His face as King David alludes to in his Psalm: “When You said, ‘Seek My face, my heart said to You, ‘Your face, Lord, I will seek’” (Psalm 27:8).

Here is another proof that we can see God’s face. Jesus tells us from His message on the Mount: “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God” (Matthew 5:8). The writer of Hebrews tells us: “Pursue peace with all people, and holiness, without which no one will see the Lord” (Hebrews 12:14).

Job went through several phases – Blessing, losing all his blessings, losing his health, losing Godly Counsel Through Friends – But in all those phases, he never stopped seeking God and conversing with God. In the end, God answered him. Finally, Job acknowledged: “I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees You” (Job 42:5). Adversities, trials, and shakings prepare us to hear God’s voice and see His face!

The best blessing of God, Aaron’s blessing, includes God’s grace to shine upon His people from His face: “The Lord bless you and keep you; The Lord make His face shine upon you and be gracious to you; The Lord lift up His countenance (face) upon you (look upon you with favor) and give you peace” (Numbers 6:24-26).

I want to share my own experience of closeness with God. After growing up in a home where I hardly heard my earthly father’s voice, my first experience was with Jesus whose eyes I saw in my critical moment close to death with bleeding ulcers in 1969. Then came the Holy Spirit experience in 1974 after a vision of Jesus’ arms scooping me off the ocean floor in a vision when I heard God’s voice: “The is the ocean of My love for you, My son!”

Then God brought me into an incredibly special experience on October 19, 2003, when I was awakened at 3 AM for prayer. I was in the presence of the Lord for over 4 hours that morning, hearing the voice of admonition, correction, comfort, and love from my Lord! I have awakened every day since then for over 21 years, not by my choice but by God’s gracious invitation! These are the hours of God’s Word, God’s Voice, and God’s Face for me! Something powerful has happened! I am conscious of God’s holy presence and the awareness in my soul that I am standing before the eyes of the Lord all the time! Grace is real to me because I could see God’s grace flowing from His eyes. I could understand the promise, “The Lord make His face shine upon you and be gracious to you!”

I do not know if it makes sense to you but I long to see the faces of my children and my loved ones because I am conscious of the Lord’s face constantly. I strongly believe that my longing to see the faces of my loved ones is the direct consequence of my longing to see the face of the Lord!

God’s promise to His holy people takes on a new revelation to me: “If My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land” (II Chronicles 7:14). The fact is that when we see His face, we long to see the faces of others that seek Him. There is unity and harmony, not orchestrated by a program or a person but by the sheer longing to seek the Lord and His face. Seeking God brings us a passionate zeal to seek others who seek God. We long for God individually and together, we love God individually and together, we share with God individually and together, and God is very pleased. We are ONE in the bonds of love, humility, and harmony! That brings revival in our homes, churches, and communities. It all begins with me seeking God’s face and seeking Him continuously.  

God’s WORD!

God’s VOICE!

God’s FACE!

A Christian Life is a Glorious God-Filled Life with God’s Love, God’s Grace, God’s Presence, and God’s Intimacy!

How I long that special life for me and others in God’s Kingdom!

Prayer

“Heavenly Father, I love You. I thank You, Lord, for Your matchless mercies and grace in saving me with the precious blood of Your Son, Jesus. I long to drink the milk of Your Word, be nourished with the meat of Your Word, and grow hearing Your voice of admonition, correction, love, and comfort, to shape me into the very person You want me to be. Lord, I long to be in Your eternal embrace and dwell in Your holy presence now and forever. Amen! Amen!!”

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John Jeyaseelan

Global Prayer Center | prayer | 701 Bill France Boulevard, Daytona Beach, FL, USA

http://www.globalprayercenter.net