Some of the best insights regarding spiritual intimacy come from the saints of old (and a few new ones) — those who understood what it meant to follow hard after God. May their wisdom speak to your heart and spur you on to greater intimacy in your own life.
“To fall in love with God is the greatest romance; to seek him the greatest adventure; to find him, the greatest human achievement.“
AUGUSTINE
“The facts are that God is not silent, has never been silent. It is the nature of God to speak. The second person of the Trinity is called the Word. The Bible is the inevitable outcome of God’s continuous speech. It is the infallible declaration of His mind for us put into our familiar human words.“
A.W. TOZER
“A believer longs after God, to come into his presence, to feel his love, to feel near to him in secret, to feel in the crowd that he is nearer than all the creatures.“
ROBERT MURRAY M’CHEYNE
“God doesn’t want something from us. He simply wants us.“
C.S. LEWIS
“Waiting for God is not laziness. Waiting for God is not the abandonment of effort. Waiting for God means, first, activity under command; second, readiness for any new command that may come; third, the ability to do nothing until the command is given.”
G. CAMPBELL MORGAN
“I’m convinced that there is nothing that can happen to me in this life that is not precisely designed by a sovereign Lord to give me the opportunity to learn to know Him.“
ELISABETH ELLIOT
“Have you ever learned the beautiful art of letting God take care of you and giving all your thought and strength to pray for others and for the kingdom of God? It will relieve you of a thousand cares.“
A.B. SIMPSON
“The secret of spiritual success is a hunger that persists…It is an awful condition to be satisfied with one’s spiritual attainments…God was and is looking for hungry, thirsty people.“
SMITH WIGGLESWORTH
Need help hearing God’s voice?
Check out this three-part series on how to hear from God.
“A Christian is one who points at Christ and says, “I can’t prove a thing, but there’s something about his eyes and his voice. There’s something about the way he carries his head, his hands, the way he carries his cross-the way he carries me.“
fREDERICK BUECHNER
“You must learn to wrestle against the things that hinder your communication with God.“
OSWALD CHAMBERS
“Be much alone with God, and take time to get thoroughly acquainted. Converse over everything with Him. Unburden yourself wholly – every thought, feeling, wish, plan, doubt – to Him. . . He wants not merely to be on good terms with you, but to be intimate.“
HORATIUS BONAR
“David’s life was a torrent of spiritual desire, and his psalms ring with the cry of the seeker and the glad shout of the finder. Paul confessed the mainspring of his life to be his burning desire after Christ. That I may know Him, was the goal of his heart, and to this he sacrificed everything.“
A.W. TOZER
“Spend plenty of time with God; let other things go, but don’t neglect Him. We are not here to do work for God, we are here to be workers with Him, those through whom He can do His work.“
OSWALD CHAMBERS
“The ability to calm your soul and wait before God is one of the most difficult things in the Christian life. Our old nature is restless….the world around us is frantically in a hurry. But a restless heart usually leads to a reckless life.“
WARREN W. WIERSBE
“It became easy for me to detach myself from the course of life, so that while my hands and mind were engaged in the common affairs of every day, my spirit maintained its attitude of communion with God.“
JOHN J. LAKE
“If we cooperate with Him in loving obedience, God will manifest Himself to us, and that manifestation will be the difference between a nominal Christian life and a life radiant with the light of His face.“
A.W. TOZER
“If we think of the Holy Spirit only as an impersonal power or influence, then our thought will constantly be, how can I get hold of and use the Holy Spirit; but if we think of Him in the biblical way as a divine Person, infinitely wise, infinitely holy, infinitely tender, then our thought will constantly be, ‘How can the Holy Spirit get hold of and use me?'”
R.A. TORREY
“If you have the smile of God what does it matter if you have the frown of men?“
LEONARD RAVENHILL
“God is a person, and in the deep of His mighty nature, He thinks, wills, enjoys, feels, loves, desires and suffers as any other person may. In making Himself known to us, He stays by the familiar pattern of personality. He communicates with us through the avenues of our minds, our wills, and our emotions. The continuous and unembarrassed interchange of love and thoughts between God and the soul of the redeemed man is the throbbing hear of New Testament religion.“
A.W. TOZER
“Keep your life in its constant contact with God that his surprising power may break out on the right hand and on the left. Always be in a state of expectancy, and see that you leave room for God to come in as he likes.“
TIMOTHY KELLER
“Live near to God, and all things will appear little to you in comparison with eternal realities.“
ROBERT MURRAY M’CHEYNE
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“Be filled with the Spirit, that is, be soaked with the Spirit. Be so soaked that every thread in the fabric of your life will have received the requisite rue of the Spirit. Then when you are misused and squeezed to the wall, all that will ooze out of you will be the nature of Christ.“
SMITH WIGGLESWORTH
“Men who know their God are before anything else men who pray, and the first point where their zeal and energy for God’s glory come to expression is in their prayers. If there is little energy for such prayer, and little consequent practice of it, this is a sure sign that as yet we scarcely know our God.”
J.I. PACKER
“When obedience to God contradicts what I think will give me pleasure, let me ask myself if I love Him.“
ELISABETH ELLIOT
“In the name of Jesus Christ who was never in a hurry, we pray, O God, that You will slow us down, for we know that we live too fast. With all eternity before us, make us take time to live- time to get acquainted with You, time to enjoy Your blessing, and time to know each other.“
PETER MARSHALL
“Solitude with God repairs the damage done by the fret and noise and clamour of the world.“
OSWALD CHAMBERS
“What’s closest to your heart is what you talk about, and if God is close to your heart, you’ll talk about Him.“
A.W. TOZER
“Do not let the loud utterances of your own wills anticipate, nor drown, the still, small voice in which God speaks. Bridle impatience till He does. If you cannot hear His whisper, wait till you do. Take care of running before you are sent.“
ALEXANDER MACLAREN
“There will be no peace in any soul until it is willing to obey the voice of God.“
D.L. MOODY
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“Desire to see God, be fearful of losing Him, and find joy in everything that can lead to Him. If you act in this way, you will always live in great peace.“
TERESA OF AVILA
“God is our true Friend, who always gives us the counsel and comfort we need. Our danger lies in resisting Him; so it is essential that we acquire the habit of hearkening to His voice, or keeping silence within, and listening so as to lose nothing of what He says to us.“
FRANCOIS FENELON
“Listen to no man who has not listened to God.“
A.W. TOZER
“The enemy works overtime to keep us in shame. He knows if he can keep us in shame, he can minimize our intimacy with God.“
MIKE BICKLE
“We do not segment our lives, giving some time to God, some to our business or schooling, while keeping parts to ourselves. The idea is to live all of our lives in the presence of God, under the authority of God, and for the honor and glory of God. That is what the Christian life is all about.“
R.C. SPROUL
“Christ loved the sons of men before there were sons of men, and me before there was me. If he was going to get tired of me, he would have done so before now.”
CHARLES SPURGEON
“Comfort and peace never come from anything we know about ourselves, but only and always from what we know about Him.“
HANNAH WHITALL SMITH
“For what higher, more exalted, and more compelling goal can there be than to know God?“
J.I. PACKER
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“When I am praying the most eloquently, I am getting the least accomplished in my prayer life. But when I stop getting eloquent and give God less theology and shut up and just gaze upward and wait for God to speak to my heart He speaks with such power that I have to grab a pencil and a notebook and take notes on what God is saying to my heart.”
A.W. TOZER
“He who does not know Him, knows nothing else as it truly is.“
JONATHAN EDWARDS
“He prays well who is so absorbed with God that he does not know he is praying.“
FRANCIS DE SALES
“Tell me what time you spend alone with God…and I will tell you how spiritual you are.”
LEONARD RAVENHILL
“I live in the spirit of prayer. I pray as I walk about, when I lie down and when I rise up. And the answers are always coming.“
ANDREW MURRAY
“Hearing God is not all that difficult. If we know the Lord, we have already heard His voice – after all it was the inner leading that brought us to Him in the first place. But we can hear His voice and still miss His best if we don’t keep on listening. After the what of guidance comes the when and how.“
LOREN CUNNINGHAM
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“I cannot bear it—that we should love Jesus little. It seems to me horrible. Not to have your heart all on fire for Christ—this is execrable! Let us love him to the utmost. Let us ask him to give us larger hearts, and to fire them with the flame that is his own, that we may love him to the utmost possibilities of affection.“
CHARLES SPURGEON
“Talking to men for God is a great thing, but talking to God for men is greater still.“
E.M. BOUNDS
“The love of Christ towards His people is a deep well which has no bottom.“
J.C. RYLE
“The whole meaning of prayer is that we may know God.“
OSWALD CHAMBERS
“Those who know God the best are the richest and most powerful in prayer. Little acquaintance with God, and strangeness and coldness to Him, make prayer a rare and feeble thing.“
E.M. BOUNDS
“A ministry of power must be the fruit of a holy, peaceful, loving intimacy with the Lord.“
HORATUIS BONAR
“I urge you a nearer communion with Christ, and a growing communion. There are curtains to be opened in Christ that we have never seen before. . . therefore dig deep, and sweat, and labor. Take pains for Him, and set aside as much time as you can in each day for Him.“
SAMUEL RUTHERFORD
“Remember this. When people choose to withdraw far from a fire, the fire continues to give warmth, but they grow cold. When people choose to withdraw far from light, the light continues to be bright in itself but they are in darkness. This is also the case when people withdraw from God.“
AUGUSTINE
“I am graven on the palms of His hands. I am never out of His mind. All my knowledge of Him depends on His sustained initiative in knowing me. I know Him, because He first knew me, and continues to know me. He knows me as a friend, One who loves me; and there is no moment when His eye is off me, or His attention distracted for me, and no moment, therefore, when His care falters.“
J.I. PACKER
“We look upon prayer simply as a means of getting things for ourselves, but the Biblical purpose of prayer is that we may get to know God Himself.“
FREDERICK BUECHNER
“You must learn to wrestle against the things that hinder your communication with God.“
OSWALD CHAMBERS
“Do no harm. Do good. Stay in love with God.“
JOHN WESLEY
“There is not in the world a kind of life more sweet and delightful, than that of a continual conversation with God; those only can comprehend it who practice and experience it.“
BROTHER LAWRENCE
“Real prayer is communion with God, so that there will be common thoughts between His mind and ours. What is needed is for Him to fill our hearts with His thoughts, and then His desires will become our desires flowing back to Him.“
ARTHUR W. PINK
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“Because I am a Christian, therefore, every day in which I do not penetrate more deeply into the knowledge of God’s Word in Holy Scripture is a lost day for me. I can only move forward with certainty upon the firm ground of the Word of God. And, as a Christian, I learn to know the Holy Scriptures in no other way than by hearing the Word preached and by prayerful meditation.”
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER
“When alone with God, be alone with Him.“
SAMUAL CHADWICK
“Do not go on His errands till first you have sat at His feet.“
CHARLES SPURGEON
“Pay attention to the things that bring a tear to your eye or a lump in your throat because they are signs that the holy is drawing near.”
ARTHUR W. PINK
“It is a joy to Jesus when a person takes time to walk more intimately with Him. The bearing of fruit is always shown in scripture to be a visible result of an intimate relationship with Jesus Christ.”
OSWALD CHAMBERS
“He (God) may sometimes chasten us, it is true, but even this He does with a smile, the proud, tender smile of a Father who is bursting with pleasure over an imperfect but promising son who is coming every day to look more and more like the One whose child he is.“
A.W. TOZER
“The Bible is alive, it speaks to me; it has feet, it runs after me; it has hands, it lays hold of me.“
MARTIN LUTHER
“We don’t want to merely obey God: we need to catch His heart. It is then we will glimpse the wisdom behind His directives, and not just see them as laws.“
JOHN BEVERE
“I must secure more time for private devotions. I have been living far too public for me. The shortening of devotions starves the soul, it grows lean and faint. I have been keeping too late hours.“
WILLIAM WILBERFORCE
“The reason the world is not seeing Jesus is that Christian people are not filled with Jesus. They are satisfied with attending meetings weekly, reading the Bible occasionally, and praying sometimes. It is an awful thing for me to see people who profess to be Christians lifeless, powerless, and in a place where their lives are so parallel to unbelievers’ lives that it is difficult to tell which place they are in, whether in the flesh or in the Spirit.“
SMITH WIGGLESWORTH
“Spiritual maturity is not reached by the passing of the years, but by obedience to the will of God. Some people mature into an understanding of God’s will more quickly than others because they obey more readily; they more readily sacrifice the life of nature to the will of God.“
OSWALD CHAMBERS
“The tree that is beside the running water is fresher and gives more fruit.“
TERESA OF AVILA
“The eyes see what the heart loves. If the heart loves God and is single in this devotion, then the eyes will see God whether others see Him or not.”
WARREN W. WIERSBE
“Prayer is not a way of making use of God; prayer is a way of offering ourselves to God in order that He should be able to make use of us.“
WILLIAM BARCLAY
“Faith is taking the first step, even when you don’t see the whole staircase.“
MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.
“Spiritual life is a life in which you gradually learn to listen to a voice that says something else, that says, You are the beloved and on you my favour rests.“
HENRY NOUWEN
“Trying to know God and serve Him before we come to love Him is exhausting.“
BETH MOORE
“Get into the habit of dealing with God about everything. Unless in the first waking moment of the day you learn to fling the door wide back and let God in, you will work on a wrong level all day; but swing the door wide open and pray to your Father in secret, and every public thing will be stamped with the presence of God.“
OSWALD CHAMBERS
“Wherever the Holy Ghost has right of way, the gifts of the Spirit will be in manifestation; and where these gifts are never in manifestation, I question whether He is present.“
SMITH WIGGLESWORTH
“Once you become aware that the main business that you are here for is to know God, most of life’s problems fall into place of their own accord.“
J.I. PACKER
“Learn much of the Lord Jesus. For every look at yourself take ten looks at Christ. He is altogether lovely . . . . Live much in the smiles of God. Bask in his beams. Feel his all-seeing eye settled on you in love. And repose in his almighty arms.“
ROBERT MURRAY M’CHEYNE
“In order to grow in grace, we must be much alone. It is not in society that the soul grows most vigorously. In one single quiet hour of prayer it will often make more progress than in days of company with others. It is in the desert that the dew falls freshest and the air its purest.“
HORATUIS BONAR
“If God is not first in our thoughts and efforts in the morning, He will be in the last place the remainder of the day.“
E.M. BOUNDS
“God longs intensively for unhindered communication and total response between him and the believer indwelt by the Holy Spirit.”
SMITH WIGGLESWORTH
“There is a difference between having a rational judgment that honey is sweet, and having a sense of its sweetness.“
JONATHAN EDWARDS
God asks us to sit with Him and stay a while.
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“Whoever will listen will hear the speaking Heaven. This is definitely not the hour when men take kindly to an exhortation to listen, for listening is not today a part of popular religion. We are at the opposite end of the pole from there. Religion has accepted the monstrous heresy that noise, size, activity and bluster make a man dear to God. But we may take heart. To a people caught in the tempest of the last great conflict God says, ‘Be still, and know that I am God,’ and still He says it, as if He means to tell us that our strength and safety lie not in noise but in silence.”
A.W. TOZER
“You don’t need to know the word of God; you need to know the God of the word.“
LEONARD RAVENHILL
“The ability to calm your soul and wait before God is one of the most difficult things in the Christian life. Our old nature is restless . . . the world around us is frantically in a hurry. But a restless heart usually leads to a reckless life.“
WARREN W. WIERSBE
“Snuggle in God’s arms. When you are hurting, when you feel lonely, left out. let Him cradle you, comfort you, reassure you of His all-sufficient power and love.“
KAY ARTHUR
“Nearness to God brings likeness to God. The more you see God the more of God will be seen in you.“
CHARLES SPURGEON
“You focus on the depth of your relationship [with God]; let Him determine the scope of your ministry.”
HOWARD G. HENDRICKS
“I am never lonely when I am reading the Bible. Nothing dissolves loneliness like a session with God’s Word.“
BILLY GRAHAM
“I never get out of bed in the morning without having communion with God in the Spirit.“
SMITH WIGGLESWORTH
“You ask then how I knew He was present, when His ways can in no way be traced? He is life and power, and as soon as He enters in, He awakens my slumbering soul; He stirs and soothes and pierces my heart, for before it was hard as stone, and diseased.“
BERNARD OF CLAIRVAUX
“In the secret of God’s tabernacle no enemy can find us, and no troubles can reach us. The pride of man and the strife of tongues find no entrance into the pavilion of God. The secret of his presence is a more secure refuge than a thousand Gibraltars. I do not mean that no trials come. They may come in abundance, but they cannot penetrate into the sanctuary of the soul, and we may dwell in perfect peace even in the midst of life fiercest storms.“
HANNAH WHITALL SMITH
“I urge you a nearer communion with Christ, and a growing communion. There are curtains to be opened in Christ that we have never seen before… Therefore dig deep, and sweat, and labor. Take pains for Him, and set aside as much time as you can in each day for Him.“
SAMUEL RUTHERFORD
“I have so many things to do today. I dare not ignore my time with God.“
MARTIN LUTHER
“The difference between the truth of God and revelation is very simple. Truth is where God’s been. Revelation is where God is. Truth is God’s tracks. It’s His trail, His path, but it leads to what? It leads to Him. Perhaps the masses of people are happy to know where God’s been, but true God chasers are not content just to study God’s trail, His truths; they want to know Him. They want to know where He is and what He’s doing right now.“
TOMMY TENNEY
“Intimate knowledge of God is possible if we habitually search His Holy Scriptures and translate what we find into obedience.“
GEORGE MULLER
“In the silences I make in the midst of the turmoil of life I have appointments with God. From these silences I come forth with spirit refreshed, and with a renewed sense of power. I hear a voice in the silences, and become increasingly aware that it is the voice of God.“
DAVID BRAINERD
“What were we made for? To know God. What aim should we have in life? To know God. What is the eternal life that Jesus gives? To know God. What is the best thing in life? To know God. What in humans gives God most pleasure? Knowledge of himself.“
J.I. PACKER
“Experience has taught me that the Shepherd is far more willing to show His sheep the path than the sheep are to follow. He is endlessly merciful, patient, tender, and loving. If we, His stupid and wayward sheep, really want to be led, we will without fail be led. Of that I am sure.“
ELISABETH ELLIOT
“For too long, we’ve called unbelievers to ‘invite Jesus into your life.’ Jesus doesn’t want to be in your life. Your life is a wreck. Jesus calls you into his life. And his life isn’t boring or purposeless or static. It’s wild and exhilarating and unpredictable.“
RUSSELL D. MOORE
“The greatest sorrow and burden you can lay on the Father, the greatest unkindness you can do to him, is not to believe that he loves you.“
JOHN OWEN
“True Christianity is not merely believing a certain set of dry abstract propositions: it is to live in daily personal communication with an actual living person – Jesus Christ.“
J.C. RYLE