Routine intimacy.

Do you sometimes look at your life and wonder what would Jesus do [what would he really do because you want to do the same]?

The answer to this question is always revealed through intimacy with Him. The more time you spend with God, the more time you hang out with Him [in word, though and deed] the more that you understand how He thinks. An intimate relationship only happens the more time you spend with that person, time alone with them. We know that they same is true in our relationship with God, closeness and intimacy come only with a regularity in our relationship.

I was off during the week with a bad stomach so I watched ‘Mr & Mrs Smith’ on DVD. It is a hilariously modern screwball comedy (you can almost imagine Cary Grant and Katherine Hepburn replacing Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie). Any way, in the movie, Mr & Mrs Smith’s marriage broke down silently over time. When they met it was passionate, they could survive anything and do anything but this faded as their intimacy drifted into routine. Routine leads to death.
Routine is devoid of emotion but regularity is still consumed by love, passion and devotion.

Moses would often be found asking the same question that I began with; where does God want to lead us. He knew that the answer lay in intimacy and that this could only be nurtured through regularity. Read this…

“It was Moses' custom to set up the tent known as the Tent of Meeting far outside the camp. Everyone who wanted to consult with the LORD would go there.
Whenever Moses went out to the Tent of Meeting, all the people would get up and stand in their tent entrances. They would all watch Moses until he disappeared inside. As he went into the tent, the pillar of cloud would come down and hover at the entrance while the LORD spoke with Moses. Then all the people would stand and bow low at their tent entrances. Inside the Tent of Meeting, the LORD would speak to Moses face to face, as a man speaks to his friend. Afterward Moses would return to the camp, but the young man who assisted him, Joshua son of Nun, stayed behind in the Tent of Meeting.” Ex 33:7-11 (NLT)

This was Moses’ custom, to meet with God ‘face to face’. Because of the cross we can now do the same, but we have to make it our custom. Wherever we find ourselves (on the bus, in town, in work, at home) we must learn to set up a tabernacle of meeting in our lives. Intimacy flows from this.