Intimacy and InvolvementBrian Heasley - 27 Jun 2013

I believe this is a really exciting time. In this moment of opportunity, and possibly crisis, I firmly believe God wants us to be a people who are both intimate with him and involved with the world: a world right now that needs Jesus.
There is a call upon each one of our lives to be an intimate prayerful people, who touch the Father’s heart and experience the transforming power of his presence. That’s why I believe in prayer, and also why I see prayer growing. People are being drawn to greater prayer at this time.

There is also a call upon each of our lives to be an involved people, who prayerfully take the Fathers heart to the world and introduce others to Jesus and allow them to experience the transforming power of His presence in their lives. The church is increasingly taking up its mission in ever more creative and interactive ways in engaging with the communities around them.
My caution is that we must be careful we do not try to spread the gospel without prayer, the power of the Holy Spirit and the transforming power of having been in His presence. Likewise we must be very careful that we don’t pray, experience the Holy Spirit and become transformed by His presence without ever being compelled to fulfill the biblical mandate of spreading the gospel.

We need to be a people who do both, it would be completely wrong to say “I pray, others reach out” or “I reach out, others pray” a Christian’s life needs both intimacy and involvement.

The Christian faith is two pronged and I don’t think we can choose to go for just one prong! Read Matthew 22: 37-40. We are called to do both, love the Lord your God with all your heart and Love your neighbours as yourself. The Christian organisation YWAM sums it up beautifully in their mission statement “To know God and make God known”.

We can’t just be presence seekers; we also need to be presence bringers. We need to be striving to do both together at all times.
When we pray 24-7 we have a week in His presence. Why do we do this? We do this so that we can connect with our creator and just be with him but we also do it so that we can carry His presence to the communities that we live in. We also do this in our daily prayer lives, don’t we?

Read Exodus 16: 42 – 50. A deadly plague is spreading throughout the children of Israel, they are literally dropping like flies in front of Moses and Aaron, Aaron runs to the Altar, the place that represents the presence of God, he gets some incense and fire from the Altar and runs into the middle of the people and stands with the incense and the plague stops. It says that he took the fire and “stood between the living and the dead”.

We must be a people who get fire from the presence of God and then stand in the middle of a dying world and bring life. We are called to stand between the living and the dead but we can only do this if we have got the fire from His presence. Aaron carried something that he had got from the presence of God into the middle of a very dark and desperate situation and the plague stopped. One man ran into the presence and then ran into the dying world around him and made a difference. The fact that he ran suggests urgency; lives depended on his speed.

My prayer is that we all become like Aaron, that we are filled with a desire to run to the presence of God, and that we are also filled with enough compassion for the lost and dying to run with His presence into the world.

Intimacy and involvement. Prayer and action. Faith and deeds. That’s what its all about.

There is responsibility that has been invested into us from heaven itself to be a people who pray and keep praying in order that we can be a people who witness and keep witnessing.

Brian originally wrote this article for Big Fat Toothbrush, an online magazine and great place to find other quality articles on prayer.

All images are used by permission in accordance with commons copyright license terms. Feature image is a derivative of the image 'Heart' by seyed mostafa zamani.