Intimacy with HIM

"Deuteronomy 5 relates how the Lord called Moses to Himself and spoke to him while the people lingered at a distance.  Twice we're told that the Father spoke with "a voice of fire," for His Presence was literally blazing before them all.  The people feared that voice and held back, while Moses alone came into His presence, into the power of His voice of fire.  Today, maybe more than ever before, we in the western church need to hear, receive, and be transformed by His voice of fire.  We've kept our distance long enough.  Like the people did with Moses, we've been satisfied to allow others, pastors, teachers, those who speak with prophetic voices, be the ones who hear what God has said and is saying now, and then bring to us His words.  Few of us truly know what it is to hear Him speak d, irectly to us.  We've never developed such an intimacy with Him in our "devotional time," and so it's no surprise that when we come together in worship, we hear so little.  Our emotions may be moved, but too often, our hearts never are.  Our spiritual senses are dulled, and so, as Jesus said, "we hear, but don't hear."  We hear the words that the Father, that Jesus, that the Holy Spirit is saying, but we have little or no understanding of what He means in those words.  They touch our ears, but not our hearts, and so, we remain unchanged." ~ Pastor Gary O'Shell