KEYS FOR LIVING - INTIMACY

THE ROAD TO DEEPER RELATIONSHIPS

The road to intimacy contains many potholes, roadblocks, and detours. We all want close, intimate relationships, but it’s a struggle to take off your mask, overcome your fears, and show people the real you. These Keys for Living show you how to break down the barriers that block intimacy and how to develop trust, vulnerability, and transparency in your relationships with God and others. Discover God’s unconditional love for you and how it can transform your life and relationships forever!

Driving through a foreign country, especially when you have to depend on strange highway markings, is confusing and often quite fearful. This is especially true when the road signs are written in unfamiliar language. Similarly, for many travelers, the road to intimacyis just as foreign … threatening and intimidating territory! Nevertheless, it is the only route on which you eventually learn the real “language of love.” 

“The Lord your God.… [takes] great delight in you; in his love he will no longer rebuke you, but will rejoice over you with singing.”

Zephaniah 3:17

Everything in our life is a reflection of our relationship with God. If we fear Him, secretly lack trust in Him or attempt to hide the truth about ourselves from Him, our other relationships will also lack the same trust and vulnerability that is needed to develop genuine love.… 

“Let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.”

1 John 4:7–8

Insight into Intimacy 

• The word intimacy comes from the Latin word intimus, which means “innermost.”
• Intimacy is a close relationship between two people who both feel secure enough to share their innermost feelings (trust).
• Intimacy in a relationship encourages emotional growth and spiritual maturity. 

— You feel accepted and forgiven in spite of past failures. 

— You grow in inner confidence, peace, and satisfaction. 

— You see the relationship as a gift of God’s love. 

Intimacy with God 

• An intimate relationship is what God desires with you.

“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.” Deuteronomy 6:5

• An intimate relationship with God is the fruit of your own desire.

“You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.”

Jeremiah 29:13

• An intimate relationship with God is a result of living in dependence on Him.

“Truly he is my rock and my salvation; he is my fortress, I will not be shaken.” 

Psalm 62:6

• An intimate relationship with God includes an awareness of His Son, Jesus Christ, living within your heart.

“I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” 

Galatians 2:20

• An intimate relationship with God is filled with the joy of His presence.

“You make known to me the path of life; you will fill me with joy in your presence, with eternal pleasures at your right hand.” 

Psalm 16:11

“You have searched me, Lord, and you know me. You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar.”

Psalm 139:1–2