United in the Love of GodPrøve

## Intimacy With Christ and With the Church What do we mean by intimacy? Intimacy is being able to be with someone, free of shame and guilt and regret. It’s a uniquely close relationship where you experience safety and security and refreshment, where you can be open and vulnerable, where you have the joy of knowing and being known. Intimacy in its ultimate expression and final end is about union. Intimacy is meant to lead us to union. Intimacy is drawing near to someone, near enough that you connect with them and in a sense “merge” with them the more you reveal of yourself to them and them to you. Intimacy in its fullest expression is about showing all of who you are, in ever-increasing ways, and connecting with each other the more you share of yourself, so as to achieve a more complete union. In the New Testament we see many clear expressions of how God’s love allows us to be intimately known by Him, and in being known, to be united to God. This is all fully realized by faith in Jesus. Consider the intimacy of His love in these Scriptures and how that intimacy, in turn, is to be experienced by us, His people, among one another: First Corinthians 8:3 tells us how, if we love God, we are known by God. Paul in Galatians 4:8–9 describes how we formerly did not know God, but now we know God and are known by Him. It is encouraging that “the Lord knows those who are his” (2 Timothy 2:19), which is to say, He particularly and intimately knows His people. The apostle John refers to his readers as “beloved,” encouraging them to “love one another” because “love is from God” and to love is to know God, i.e., to have intimate knowledge and union with Him (1 John 4:7–8). This intimate union with God becomes the basis for us to also have intimate union with one another within the church. The more we see ourselves in Christ, and the more we let the Spirit fill all the parts of our heart and soul, the more space is created for a powerful, holy intimacy among believers. We have only to live there with one another, and the fruit of intimate love and unity will naturally be harvested.