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Last week we learned from Matthew 5:6 that enriched, joyful, blissful, delighted, happy, and blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness for they shall be satisfied. We talked about being hungry and thirsty for God and for godly things. When it comes to our spirituality, we have control over our hunger and our thirst. No one can make you hungry, crave or seek God with eager desire but you. No one can make you thirsty or eagerly long for God but you.

Are you hungry and thirsty for God? Are you longing for more of Him? Are you looking to go deeper with God in 2024 than you have ever been? I don’t want this year to be just another year. To let the days go by and have nothing to show for it. Jesus didn’t save us so we could have our ticket to heaven and escape Earth’s dramas. Jesus laid His life down as a bridge to the Father so we can have a relationship with Him.

We are called for a deep and intimate relationship with God, you, and I. Not just an ostentatious relationship where we look super saved on Sunday, but our lives are a mess Monday to Saturday. We are called to a real, life changing experience of walking with God daily. Of leaning into His Presence, of following our Shepherd wherever He leads us.

We all love Psalms 23, but the bottom line of that Psalm is that the Shepherd leads, and we follow. The sheep do not know where the Shepherd is going, they don’t always understand what the Shepherd is doing but they trust the Shepherd with their lives. They know that their Shepherd is a good Shepherd who will fight for them, feed them, supply what they need, allow them to rest by cool peaceful and refreshing streams. They know their Shepherd has their back. They have an intimate relationship where they know Him and know His voice.

Sometimes when we hear of intimacy and we think of sex, but intimacy is so much deeper than that. It is not a feeling or an emotion. It is a oneness that Jesus described in John 17:21-23 as follows:

“I pray for them all to be joined together as one even as you and I, Father, are joined together as one. I pray for them to become one with us so that the world will recognize that you sent me. For the very glory you have given to me I have given them so that they will be joined together as one and experience the same unity that we enjoy. You live fully in me and now I live fully in them so that they will experience perfect unity, and the world will be convinced that you have sent me, for they will see that you love each one of them with the same passionate love that you have for me.”

Jesus modelled for us what our relationship with Papa God can look like. How did Jesus get so close to God? We can say, “Oh because He is the Son of God”, but so are you. We have all been adopted through the finished work of Jesus as sons and daughters of God. We can say, well they are close because Jesus is also God, but the Bible tells us that when Jesus was on Earth, He was fully God (He could walk on water) and He was fully man, (He felt pressure and stress in the garden of Gethsemane and He also went through temptation and hardship).

In His humanity, Jesus showed us what was possible. A relationship with God. A close relationship of oneness. A relationship in which God passionately loves us. He is not settling for us. He is not sitting in Heaven thinking, “I can do better.” He looks at us and thinks, “Wow, I can’t believe she is mine. My very own daughter.” Or “Wow, look at my son!”

Knowing we are loved gives us the freedom to hunger and thirst for more of God. Freedom to chase after God. Why? Because we know we are running into love, straight into the wide open arms of our wonderful God who loves us.

Love and blessings,

Melissa Tsingano.