Meeting: Sunday School
Date: 24th May, 2026
Topic: Understanding Intimacy with God
Minister: Pastor David Kilanko
Interpretation of Tongues
I am your Father,
But why the distance? Why the gulf? Why the gap?
There is that which I formed you for,
It is for my pleasure,
You were meant to give me pleasure,
Why do you sound near, yet you are far?
Why do you talk near, yet you are far?
I made you for my bosom,
I want you in my bosom,
I want to fulfill purpose in you,
You will fulfill purpose in bosom m,
I want you to be near, I don’t just want you to look near,
I am your Father, why the gap?
Message begins..
There is a burden for us to gain mastery on how to maintain constant communion with the Lord through intimacy; learning to listen to His heart.
(Genesis 3:9) — “And the LORD God called unto Adam, and said unto him, Where art thou?” In the scripture above, God sounded as one weepingly looking for Adam. Adam was in the garden, behind the trees, and the voice of the Lord came as usual saying, ‘where are you?’ He wasn’t saying it with anger but with pain.
The issue of intimacy with God is not a light thing. God made us exactly for intimacy, this is clear even in everything He did. God made the heavens and the earth, the sun, the trees, the sea and He made the whole earth. Scripture says that God planted the garden in the east of Eden and He put the man He formed in the garden (Gen. 2:8). Why didn’t He just allow the man to be roaming? Why did He plant a garden and put him there? God made the garden in such a way that everything Adam needed was in there, he didn’t need to go out. It shows that God values intimacy, closeness and secret.
It is not God that determines the degree of intimacy we enjoy with Him, it is us. Maybe for the first man, it was like that but no longer. We determine how near to God we are. Different believers enjoy different degrees of intimacy at different levels, not because God is a respecter of persons or has favourites. He says draw nigh unto me and I will draw near to you (James 4:8). Everyone who enjoys a close proximity with God is a function of how much the heart wants it. In Rev. 3:20, God said He stands at the door of every heart. God made the heart and has the key to it, but why couldn’t He just open it and go in? Because it is the one who owns the heart that needs to say, ‘come in’.
Many instructions about reading the Bible, praying, studying devotional, won’t be instructions if a soul is given to intimacy. We can only be close to God as we choose to be, and we know this in our hearts. What causes gap and gulf is what we engage our heart to do. (Acts 17:27) – “that they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him, and find him, though he be not far from every one of us:” God ordinarily is not far from us. What causes gap, gulf and distance is what we engage our heart to do. Many times we experience the presence of God in church but God expects that while we are at the office, we should experience presence too. People have enjoyed great intimacy with God and Jesus bore record of this. There was a man called Brother Lawrence, he wrote the book, ‘Practising the presence of God’. Rick Joyner talked about how he was in a vision of heaven with Jesus, and Jesus told him that he loved washing dishes with Brother Lawrence. Brother Lawrence was a dishwasher but Jesus loved washing dishes with him because he was Jesus’ friend. That is deep communion. It is erroneous for us to abandon communication with God because we want to attend to worldly things and daily affairs.
Ideally, a soul should stay in constant communication with the Lord. Just the way it is with human relationships, for instance, a man is closer to his wife than with someone else he is physically seated with; this means intimacy is not about spatial distance. Yes, we should come to church but we don’t have to come to church before we feel presence. We can be in a bus, and angels are ascending and descending; Jacob was not in the temple but in the wilderness, and Angels were ascending and descending in that place (Gen. 28:10-17).
In the story of the rich man and Lazarus, the rich man looked from hell and said, Father Abraham, and Abraham replied by calling him son (Luke 16:19-31). This means he recognized Abraham as a father, but there was a gulf or gap between them. This is because of the gap he had in his heart towards Abraham while he was on earth. The Lord is giving a clarion call for us to begin to leave superficial worship, and respond in spirit and in truth (John 4:22-23).
(John 1:18) – “No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him.” Jesus was a bosom man. He knows more about God than even the priest in the temple wearing tunic. Intimacy is how much I know of a person and how much they know of me.
Intimacy is not in the mechanical things; it is not about laid out rules or principles. We should come to a point where we will learn to listen to the heart of the Lord even when He is not speaking, and we will know what He is saying; only intimacy can do that. Our communion with God should not only be need based. If God answers all the prayers we can think of, and we don’t have any needs again, what then will be our reason to pray? We must constantly check on how our soul is doing. You can be looking all glowing in the physical but how is your soul?
Constant communion is as a result of deep friendship. (Acts 13:22) – “And when he had removed him, he raised up unto them David to be their king; to whom also he gave testimony, and said, I have found David the son of Jesse, a man after mine own heart, which shall fulfil all my will.” As at when God was speaking to Samuel according to the scripture above, David had not done all the will of God, but God knew he would because He had watched his heart; how it wasq constantly longing for God. Anything God does is a sign that He likes intimacy. Where God is dwelling now is in your inner man, not inward or outward, because He likes privacy with you. Why would God speak to us with a still small voice even inside our inner man? It is intimacy.
(Psalm 73:25) – “Whom have I in heaven but thee? And there is none upon earth that I desire beside thee.” This is not a poetic write up, David had this heart. One of the labours of our parents is to bring us to a place where we desire God more than heaven. You can desire a mansion in heaven but there is a God who created heaven and who can decide not to stay in that heaven, what then will you do? (Psalm 73:28) – “But it is good for me to draw near to God: I have put my trust in the Lord GOD, That I may declare all thy works.” The responsibility of intimacy with God rests on us all. Many of David’s exploits were a function of intimacy, not just personal character. Saul wandered into the cave where David was and slept. David had the opportunity to strike Saul to the ground, he had the skill, but he said, ‘I will not touch the anointed of the Lord’. Even though God had anointed David through Samuel, and rejected Saul, David still refused to strike Saul. That is the person of David and not just the function of his character, he knew the heart of God. It happened twice. His heart smote him when he cut the garment of Saul. It was not about his character, he knew God (2 Sam. 24:10).
God is a father who sees in the secret, and He also wants us to see in the secret. If we don’t realize this biblical truth, we can continue to play church because we don’t really want God for God.
Another person that enjoyed such closeness with God was Father Abraham. God called him a friend. (Isa. 41:8) – “But thou, Israel, art my servant, Jacob whom I have chosen, the seed of Abraham my friend.” What level of intimacy is that? Everything God did with Abraham was a function of God separating him from things and he was agreeing. During the fight between Abraham’s men and Lot’s, Abraham, who was Lot’s uncle and way older than him, asked Lot to pick a place and he would go the other way (Genesis 13). God came to him and told him all the land he could see was his.
He later went on to slay the five kings when he heard they had captured Sodom and taken his nephew, Lot (Gen. 14:11-12). Every time Abraham was separated, God came to him. But there was a king who was constantly with Abraham and reminded him of what he lacked; his inability to have a child. In the midst of all of that, his wife, Sarah, brought her maid to him to bear him seed. They brought forth a seed named Ishmael but after a while, Sarah asked him to send the child away. God allowed it again for separation. God had not made a covenant with him then but was loving his responses.
Then, he entertained three men not knowing it was God coming to him. They told him that his wife, Sarah, will conceive a child, Isaac. And God also thought to confide in him about the destruction he was bringing on Sodom. Abraham had a sense of salvation and still negotiated with God. He wanted God’s anger to be tempered down. Because of that, God remembered Lot, and he was saved from the destruction. You don’t get that kind of intimacy from just going to church. The discourse was an interplay of intimacy.
How close we are to God is how much we choose to be. It is not how much charisma your pastor has. We are as intimate with God to the degree to which we desire and want God for God. If God is the first person you talk to in the morning, it would go a long way to determine how your day would go. Mechanical principles won’t work. However, if you have that discipline, it can’t be done outwardly, something has to draw you to carry it out. Jesus was in constant communion with the Father even at the strangest of places. (Mark 1:35-37) – “And in the morning, rising up a great while before day, he went out, and departed into a solitary place, and there prayed.”
Everything that happened in Genesis 27 was a function of intimacy. Isaac’s eyes, which is one of his sensory organs, were already failing. It is a level of intimacy that would make a man know the voice of someone even when he can’t see the person. Jacob had an unfair advantage from Rebecca in the sense that she knew how Isaac loved his venison more than Esau. Rebecca knew the vital ingredient that had to be in the meal and this also saved Jacob from being cursed. The only thing she could not change was his voice but it is not only one sensory organ that is needed. God is not just content with hearing our voices. The eyes is the major sensory organ but after Isaac ate the venison, that sealed it. There is an eye that taste will give to you. We won’t come into intimacy until we go beyond voice. It is possible for the mouth to draw near to God but the heart is far.
(Exo. 33:15) – “And he said unto him, If thy presence go not with me, carry us not up hence.” Presence was personal to Moses. The Lord wants us to come to the place where we can carry His presence everywhere; our natural job and the other things we do should not be a distraction. We should not be entreated to listen to messages, read our bible or pray; they should be our default. It is intimacy that will make the resources that God has provided be the primary and constant thing we are looking for. Prayerlessness and little praying are rooted in the same thing. The root is that you don’t have the sense that you need God more than anything.
We are not yet locked gardens (Song of Solomon 4:12). But God wants us to come to the place where we are locked gardens and our beloved can come into his garden to eat our pleasant fruits.
It is possible to be in church but our heart is far from God or what He is doing. God knows where your heart is. We should come to church not devoid of presence, we should come with things. God wants to bring us to the place where our mouth is not just drawing to God but our heart is. This is why we must pray well and not only bask in corporate prayers. God must ignite our hearts again. We need God to survive. We might have been getting away with survival but it isn’t really survival. To truly thrive is to overcome, and how to thrive is to stay in constant communion with God.
Let it go beyond mechanical things, let it be intimacy.
Tongues and Interpretation
I have a need,
I’m not a God that is needless
And these are the clarion call for declaration of my need from man,
For where I am, I want you to be there also,
There is a place where I am dwelling and founting from,
That where I am, you may be there also,
Draw near to me and I will be near you,
I’ll want you to be where I am,
There is a place where I am,
Where I dwell, where I fount from,
It’s an heaven on earth,
It is a place founting from my father,
This is the clarion call for my need,
I want you to come close, stay close,
I want to fellowship,
Heaven is my throne, earth is my footstool,
Where is the place of my rest?
Man is restless without me,
I am your rest, you are my rest
We both need to rest,
I need you as a resting place,
Do not be deceived by the turmoil of this world,
They are distractions,
You can have peace in me,
My peace can be given to you,
There is no peace anywhere else,
Peace is me,
You can be at peace,
You can maintain peace,
You can live in peace,
Your soul can be where your spirit is, in heaven, Your soul can fount from the place your spirit fount from,
For I am the fountain of life,
You can live in me, you can have your being in me
You can find expression in me,
I am the real profession, the real occupation,
I am worth occupying because I am an occupation,
All the troubles that Satan has created,
The way out of them is for you to fount from me,
You can start and end your day with me,
You need to learn the attitude of quieting your soul
I want you to fount from me and you will find that there is nothing in this world,
Draw close to me and you will find rest to your soul.
Round up by Pastor Laide Olaniyan
There is a difference between intimacy and growth but there is a coronation between them. Intimacy engenders growth. Intimacy is borne out of attention. The price of intimacy is attention, that is why you pay attention. Communication is the life law of romance. Once communication fails, relationship breaks. The exit of communication is the loss of relationships. Intimacy with God is the bedrock of growth. As a babe, child or man in the spirit, there are levels of attention to be paid at the different levels. The reason why many don’t feel the presence of God is because they don’t pay attention. It is possible that a person in milk can have more intimacy than the one in meat.
Christianity is a race and overtaking is allowed. You can come to church wasting your time, whereby you tick the box and forget about Him. You only think of God when in church but you don’t remember him when business comes. God is the constant and everything is a variable. So we must be mindful of God in everything.
You can be in church and not pay attention. We have a responsibility to fight distraction. Distraction is everywhere, so much that there is no discipline of giving yourself wholly (1 Tim 4:13) – “Till I come, give attendance to reading, to exhortation, to doctrine.” Attendance means punctuality, and showing up. Every part of us should respond. You can’t prosper in salvation if you don’t prosper in intimacy. It would be as though you are hearing and it is slipping out. The reason why many of us wake up to pray is because there is a need. All our interactions are need-based. If you are mindful of the Lord, you won’t want to grieve Him. (Eph 4:30) – “And grieve not the holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption.”
When you live your life according to your own will, it would be a grieve to the Lord. We must come to a place where everything we do is a pleasure to the Lord. You don’t want to grieve the Lord in the way you interact with others because you are in love with Him and you don’t want to grieve Him. When His heart shifts, you know it.
It is not an issue of sin but love. When in love with someone, you don’t want them to be angry with you. It is beautiful to be in love with the Lord, and the Holy Ghost. The Holy Ghost can be your best friend, He can give you the pleasures of life. You can enjoy Him at any level of growth if you pay attention. We can gain mastery to hear Him in the midst of everything. We can respond in intimacy with God. It is His desire that everyone would tune to His heart, so let’s all stay connected to Him.
THE END