Water in the Wilderness: God's Provision for Our Every Need by T. D. Jakes

Author:T. D. Jakes
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Religion, Pentecostal & Charismatic, Christianity
ISBN: 9780768498561
Publisher: Destiny Image, Incorporated
Published: 2011-07-27T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter 5

Intimacy in Worship

Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.

Matthew 4:10

Whatever we worship is what we ultimately will end up serving. Our nature demands that we worship something. What we worship is up to us.

But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him.

John 4:23

To experience true worship you must first develop a relationship with the Father. All relationships are dependent upon good communication. For us as believers, prayer is the means of communicating with the Father. This relationship can be likened to that of a man and his wife. There is the sense of intimacy, closeness, and oneness. It is the closeness that you should never share with anyone else.

When a man and a woman first get married, their relationship is new and exists on that level of looking deeply into each other's eyes. This is the honeymoon stage. At this stage, each worships the ground that the other walks on. Their focus is on each other. But, as time goes on, the honey dries a little and the moon begins to lose its luster. The newness in their relationship begins to wear off, giving way to a different dimension in their relationship.

They begin to know each other on a more intimate level. They can feel each other's hurts and desires. They avoid what will hurt or jeopardize their closeness. They don't hide anything, rather, they express their feelings in confidence and trust. They trust each other with their weaknesses and shortcomings, confident that they will not be used against them. This is the kind of desire that the Lord wants us to enjoy with Him, a close relationship that leads to intimate worship.

There are different kinds of gods we may find ourselves bowing to. Some of us worship our children. Some worship money. Some worship sin. Some worship themselves while others worship all types of things: paycheck, reputation, etc.

Have you ever observed a Christian who recently got saved? He worships God with a deep gratitude for his salvation. The first stage in the romance of a man and woman is often referred to as infatuation. This is also typical of the first stage of our relationship with Christ. The dictionary describes infatuation as "to behave foolishly, to inspire with foolish and unreasoning love or attachment." However, as we mature in the Lord, this type of attraction takes on a new and higher dimension. Infatuation, like romance, operates more on feelings than reality, on the external than on the internal. It is more fleeting than stable, more inconsistent than constant. But the mature love is consistent because it is based on commitment. Commitment (covenant) is what sustains any lasting and stable relationship.

When a man first falls in love with a woman, it might have been her beauty and figure that attracted him. But after the marriage, when he wakes up in the morning to bad

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