It is in intimacy with God, through the power of the Holy Spirit that we are transformed. Your personal relationship with God is at the core of your very existence. It's not a relationship based on emotion or intellect.

When it comes to the Lord and the nature of His Kingdom, it's your personal relationship with Him that makes the difference because True knowledge, Divine knowledge, it comes from God.

Divine wisdom and understanding are born out of intimacy with Him. Unfortunately, in our churches, we've intellectualized things to the point that people are convinced that it's all about getting the doctrine right. 

God gives wisdom to anyone who asks for it, and He's not judging you by how well you "figure out" His Word. What He wants is for you to learn to recognize, to listen to, to trust His voice, and follow His direction.

He will teach you and He will transform you. God isn't calling for people to be perfect or religious. He's calling for those who would follow Him to come into relationship.

Cultivating intimacy with God is not only possible, it's what He wants to have with you. Jesus came and died to restore the relationship that we were created to have with God and so that we could know our Heavenly Father. 

Religion has led people to believe that being in error is itself sin and consequently, God punishes us for being wrong. This wrongly presumes that the Lord has no capacity for guiding His children into truth. The masses cling to doctrine and tradition as though their lives depended on it, instead of embracing the simplicity of being directed and guiding by the Holy Spirit, as Jesus clearly told us:

When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all truth. – John 16:13

God’s ability reveal His truth and to correct us is far greater than satan’s ability to deceive us. But that presumes we are in relationship with Him...

Christian churches, as so many have known and experienced them, are perceived as (and in truth have been) dispensers of condemnation, guilt and shame, rather than as extenders of the “incomparable riches of God’s grace,” mercy, and unconditional love. (See Ephesians 2:7) Too many have become something Christ never intended: hard-hearted, spiteful and “religious,” almost oblivious to the fact that they are walking the same path as the Pharisees of His day, and they have not heeded the warning of Matthew chapter 23.

“The Church” is dying in the wilderness. But God isn’t leaving things at that. He is raising up a new generation is replacing them to fulfill God's directive. The Spirit of the Lord is moving upon "ordinary" people and the effect is both significant and profound.

The more you cultivate your personal relationship with God, the more your spiritual identity is revealed and the more it alters your countenance to reflect Christ’s glory.

Living in the strength and power of God comes from knowing your true identity in Christ and shedding the false identities you’ve been given by others. This is another reason why intimacy with God is so important. It’s in direct relationship that you discover who you truly are to Him. Be aware however that this is something the enemy aggressively seeks to obscure, convince you you’re not worthy of, or deprive you of… by any means available.

You won’t trust God if you don’t really know Him. And you won’t know Him if you keep Him at a distance. Trust in the Lord is a direct result of being in close relationship with Him. Our God is a God of relationship.

If you aren’t cultivating intimacy with God – the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, then all you have is religion. Unfortunately, religion has held God at a distance by emphasizing rules, doctrine, and dogma, over the intimacy of communing and worshiping the Lord “in spirit and in truth” as Jesus said we would.

The whole idea of “cleaning yourself up” for God, is completely backwards. The Father isn’t looking for you to perform for Him. What He desires is to restore the relationship you were created to have with Him so that He can renew you into what you were always intended to be.

Salvation is not the reward for what you do in this life. It is the start of a personal relationship with God, not the finish line.

Our redemption rests on what Christ did on our behalf, not on what we do for ourselves. Morality isn’t the means, it’s the side-effect of the righteousness God brings to our lives.

God wants to lift you up, reveal your true spiritual identity, and unleash power and divine authority into your life. How God sees you has nothing to do with how “good” you are when you come to Him, or what you may or may not have done before. Your “packaging” doesn’t matter. Remember, Jesus surrounded Himself with foul-mouthed fishermen, tax collectors, prostitutes and other unvalued people of society.

God doesn’t require perfection in you or even goodness. He accepts you where you are just as you are because through intimate relationship, He develops your heart and mind, molding your character to achieve righteousness. You don’t achieve goodness, godliness, or Christ-like traits of yourself, you become endowed with these things from and through Him.

The personal relationship God seeks to develop with you is under constant siege from a host of of spiritual enemies. Their influence is found in the form of the spirit of religion, faithless traditions, hollow precepts, falsehoods, and more.