Be clingy.

Last week we talked about how to have intimacy with God, we have to be willing to resist the devil and draw closer to God. What we need to realise is that intimacy with God is not an overnight thing. It takes time. Think about this, your best friend in life, you didn’t meet them and immediately become best friends. Real friendship takes time to build. You may like each other from the beginning but until you have been through some mountains and valleys together, you don’t really know who your real friends are.

It’s the same with Jesus. A lot of people know Jesus as their Lord. Few know Him as their friend. There is a difference. A lot of us want to claim we are friends with Jesus, but for the most part it is as though we are saying we are friends with Taylor Swift. We know her work, but we don’t personally know her. It does not work like that. It’s no different with Jesus. We can know His work, but not know His heart.

Psalm 103:7 says, “You unveiled to Moses your plans and showed Israel’s sons what you could do.” That shows us that we can have different levels of relating to God. We can easily think, well Moses had that level of relationship with God because he was the leader over the people of Israel. In some ways, yes there are things God will communicate to our leaders and pastors that He won’t communicate with us but that is generally in relation to the running of the church and other broader things that are in effect none of our business haha! We be nosy sometimes lol. But with Moses, it was also because of his heart. God is not a respecter of persons.  We value and honour those in positions of authority in our lives, like our pastors and leaders but we need to realise that God has an open invitation for you too to have a personal relationship with Him too.

The Bible tells us about a man called Enoch in Hebrews 11:5 and it says, “Faith translated Enoch from this life and he was taken up into heaven! He never had to experience death; he just disappeared from this world because God promoted him. For before he was translated to the heavenly realm his life had become a pleasure to God.” We can read those verses and think Enoch must have been a great evangelist or amazing prophet who did great exploits. God was so pleased with him, he couldn’t wait for him to die, he just took him straight to heaven! Must have been a great man. What did Enoch do that pleased God so much?

Genesis 5:18-24 says, “When Jared had lived 162 years, he became the father of Enoch. After he became the father of Enoch, Jared lived 800 years and had other sons and daughters. Altogether, Jared lived a total of 962 years, and then he died. When Enoch had lived 65 years, he became the father of Methuselah. After he became the father of Methuselah, Enoch walked faithfully with God 300 years and had other sons and daughters. Altogether, Enoch lived a total of 365 years. Enoch walked faithfully with God; then he was no more, because God took him away.”

There is nothing in there about how great Enoch was or how big a church he ran. He sounds like he was just a normal person, minding his business who walked faithfully with God. Hebrews 11:6 says, “And without faith living within us it would be impossible to please God.” This verse comes straight after the story of Enoch in Hebrews 11:5. I have always been jealous of Enoch since the first time I read his story as a kid. I have always wondered what it takes to walk so closely with God that one day He just decides, oh bugger it, let’s continue this conversation in heaven and boom. Raptured.

What I am realising more and more is that it is all about the heart. Our past does not matter. The Bible says Enoch lived 365 years, but he walked faithfully with God for 300 years. You do the math but sounds like for the first 65 years, Enoch was out there seeing for himself. Further, we know from Moses’ story that Moses killed a man. We also know from the story of Abraham that he also went seeing for himself when he and Sarah decided for him to sleep with Hagar to try make the promise of God happen by natural means but Abraham was still called God’s friend.

What we know from these people however is that they learned from their mistakes. They didn’t make a lifetime of making mistakes and repenting and repeating the same mistakes. They realised the error in their ways and clung more closely to God. We can do the same. Recognise where we have failed, leave it behind and cling more closely to God.

What makes us walk closely with God is not that we don’t make mistakes. It is that our heart is set on God. Our faith is placed firmly in Him. We believe every word He speaks because we know that He has the power to accomplish it. Friendship with God is not set aside for special people. It is for people who are willing to pay the price.

Love and blessings,

Melissa Tsingano.