What does it mean to be intimate with God? with Mo Isom Aiken - GotQuestions.org Podcast Episode 42

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Today's episode, we're going to be discussing what does it mean to be intimate with God.

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And our guest on today's show is Mo Isom -Akin, the author of Fully Known, an

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Invitation to True Intimacy with God. So Mo, welcome to the show. Thanks.

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Thank you so much. It's a pleasure to be on. And thanks for digging into the book. It means a lot to me. So Mo, what does it mean to be intimate with God?

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It's a big question. It's a great question. And it's the question that really

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I had to wrestle with that kind of birthed this book. I think it's the gospel, ultimately.

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If we look in the garden, we see that Adam and Eve, they communed with God. And the word of God says, and they were naked and unashamed.

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And so in perfection, that communion was an intimacy where nothing was hidden, all was exposed.

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And therefore, there was a oneness, right? It's the same thing that marriage ultimately prophesies, that two become one flesh.

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Ultimately, we make our covenant of marriage and we continue to grow into one flesh for two to become one, while the same is the marriage of the bridegroom to the bride, right?

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I think this is the gospel story that we are separated from God, that we forsook that position in the garden.

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Really, when sin deceived us, we are held captive by sin, separated from Him.

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But the work of Jesus was to come on a rescue mission, to redeem us, to deem us back into right standing with God.

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And ultimately that the life, our walk would become just like a marriage, a covenantal connection with Christ, where we become one flesh, where we can be naked and unashamed, again, in intimacy with God.

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Nothing hidden, all exposed, and ultimately connected powerfully to hear

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His voice, to walk with Him, to do His will. This is really what it means to be intimate with Him, but this is like the hardest thing ever for us.

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It's the gospel in totality. We say relationship, not religion, but most of our lives, we don't really have healthy relationships.

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We don't really want to be vulnerable. We don't really want to be seen or known. But the beautiful work of pressing in and exploring this, at least for myself, revealed not only greater connection and oneness with God, but it helped heal and redeem relationships with my neighbor, relationships with man.

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And I think that's the greatest two commandments, right? To love the Lord, our God with all, to love our neighbors as ourselves.

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So what it means to be intimate with God, it is the gospel story, it is the gospel invitation.

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And it's not easy. It's hard, but it's holy to press in and explore what

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He means by that. Excellent. What would you say was your motivation in titling the book

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Fully Known? Or what does it mean to be fully known, and how do we get there?

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Yeah. You know, I remember all of this sort of began for me. I was wrestling.

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I was doing a lot of good works, right? I was, I'd come to know Jesus. I was working for the kingdom, pouring myself out, but it was like one day my spirit just came up for air and couldn't help but cry out,

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I feel so far from you, God. How is it that I am longing to do your will,

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I'm working for the kingdom, yet I feel disconnected. I feel far.

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And it brought me to Matthew 7, 21 through 23, where it says, not all who say to me,

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Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only those who do the will of my Father. On that day, many will say to me, do we not prophesy, do we not perform miracles, do we not cast demons?

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You know, and he says to them, I will say away from me, I never knew you.

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And that can be a terrifying scripture, right? I mean, for me, it was like, that's the one we just want to skim past really fast, so we don't really want to think too much about, because what does that mean that we could call him

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Lord, and yet here, but I never knew you. And so I began to press in, and that word knew, it's a

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Hebrew idiom. It means yada, yada intimacy, and it's the same version of the word used when the scriptures are talking about sexual intimacy.

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So Joseph had not yet known Mary, or the man took his wife and he knew her.

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And so I sat there with this revelation, like putting these puzzle pieces together in my mind and I'm like,

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Lord, what is that all about? I mean, we don't often connect sexuality, sex with Jesus, with the gospel, but really when we understand this intimacy, this deep, connective, transformational, like the most, what we think of when we think of a husband and a wife in covenantal love, the deepest form of intimacy is the same he was using when he explained what he desires with us.

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And so I'm like, okay, I don't want to stand before you in here away from me, I never knew you, and I don't want to miss knowing anything about you.

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All that I can know in these days, all that I can discover that you would grace me with the revelation of how could our walks ever become stagnant or stale or boring if we're really seeking to know

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God and allowing ourselves to be fully known, this yada intimacy.

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And again, I think of a husband and a wife and the covenant of their marriage, there is such a vulnerability and a transparency.

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And if one is offering everything up and the other is closed off and rejecting it, how can true intimacy really be fostered, right?

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The beauty is that God is offering the fullness of himself to us. It's usually us, we who need to take that invitation to not only draw near to him, but allow him to draw near to us and to allow him to search our heart and know us, to see all that hidden sin, all that stuff we don't really want to deal with, all of the shame, all of the fear, all of these layers we hide behind.

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He wants to undress them for lack of a better word, to peel these layers away. And our invitation is to allow ourselves to be fully known with the great gain of continuing to know him, his heart, his character, his word, his spirit more and more.

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So I understand it when I see those parallels. It really confused me at first, but then when

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I understood yada intimacy by way of the communion with God day in and day out, it made perfect sense.

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It helped a lot click for me. Yeah, no, for sure. There's a lot of parallels in different aspects of the marriage relationship and other relationships that do illustrate our relationship with God.

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And obviously they're not perfect parallels, and eventually the analogies break down because not everything is exactly the same, but there's so many pictures of how

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God created the relationships with other people to be that also illustrate our relationship with God.

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Exactly. Exactly. So what are some examples of how we trade being fully known with cheap substitutes?

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Yeah, great question. These were like the hardest walls

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I came up against in this journey. And that when I received this invitation from him to true yada intimacy, to realize, oh,

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I have that covenant with Christ. I have the spirit within me. I have this responsibility almost, this invitation, but also this responsibility of yielding myself into the fullness of healthy relationship.

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Well, why is that so hard for me to understand? Oh, because I have a number of different things in my life, in my past, in my experience, a number of different ways that I have experienced counterfeit intimacy, or I have experienced unhealthy relationships.

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I have a lot of very formative things that are confusing me to God's true nature in the way that he truly loves.

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So therefore, they're blocking me from wanting to draw nearer.

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Again, he took this picture of relational health, relational progression, and sexuality, but also he started to use all of these broken counterfeit forms to just illuminate to me how it also happens spiritually, what

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I can understand in the physical. And so I talk about masturbatory faith.

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People like, ah, when I say that word, but think about the parallels. It's self -seeking, self -serving, by my own hand, on my own time.

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It is a counterfeit form of intimacy that may give us the rush, but it leaves us barren.

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And so how do we also understand spiritually when I want the highs of God, the rush of God, I want

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God to move on my time when I say how I desire, and I just want the feel good response?

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Well, that's counterfeit intimacy, and it doesn't actually bear any fruit. Also, spiritual porn, when we're looking on to other people's intimacy or intimate expressions with the

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Lord, when we're always looking for others and how they commune with God, what revelation they received or what teaching they can impart, the body is meant to function in health together, but our faith is not meant to be a spectator sport.

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And so, again, that's something that we can look upon and get the rush or the surge right, but it bears no actual fruit.

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Same with porn, same with our spiritual condition in that way. And the list kind of goes on of all of these physically broken forms of intimacy that confuse us to who he really is.

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And I remember, man, my promiscuity in college, big part of my testimony, just always seeking and hoping someone would stay.

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Like maybe if I just expose all of myself to you and give you all, maybe you'll choose me, maybe you'll love me, but it wasn't cultivated out of a healthy posture.

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It was performative. And how many of us function that way in our relationship with God? Maybe if I can do enough, if I can be good enough, if I can perform for you, you'll love me enough, right?

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You'll stay. And this is broken intimacy. So I think

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I break down about six or seven ways that he illuminated these counterfeit forms of intimacy to me.

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And they're the same physical, sexual struggles in the natural. You see attacking the body of Christ like crazy.

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I mean, every corner we turn, we're like under assault. Attacking the world really, but the body of Christ so sucked into these things and then become so ashamed.

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And it's so hard because we're meant to be known by our love, right?

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You'll know they're my disciples by the way that they love. And if we are confused about his love, we'll become confused about how to love one another, about our own worth and value.

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And the whole system breaks down. But if we can see, oh, I believe this about God because of what

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I've experienced, you know, relationally with another, God, tell me who you really are.

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Tell me what your love is really like. And we press in to the word of God to allow him to heal us.

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It can open our eyes and we can be drawn into true relational intimacy with God that does bear good fruit, kingdom building fruit.

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The word of God says fruit conceived by the spirit, born of the spirit.

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Well, when we will commune with the spirit of God, oh, he's faithful.

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He sows seeds of life. They gestate if we keep the metaphor going and are labored forth and we see the kingdom built here on earth as it is in heaven.

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But, you know, when the refining fire of the spirit comes, some things are going to be They were never of him in the first place, even if they looked like good kingdom work, right?

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That's how I realized I was kind of functioning when I was burnt out. But there are other things that if we'll know intimacy with him, he'll be able to birth forth from our life that will remain.

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They carry eternal weight and they impact the lost and the least in the body of Christ for the glory of God.

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And that's what I want to be bearing, right? That's intimacy with God allows us to produce.

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So again, this is the God questions podcast. I'm with them. Mo Isom Aiken, author of fully known.

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So Mo, I've read your other books as well. So I'm more familiar with their testimony, but and I see a lot of what you're talking about, what you've written in your other books.

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The first book, um, wreck my life, journeying, journeying from broken to bold and then sex,

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Jesus in the conversations, the church forgot. So just tell us this briefly, obviously, because I know as we're talking before, we could talk about this stuff all day, but briefly, um, by your testimony and your other two books and how all of that works together and led you to fully known.

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It's been such a neat journey of this kind of progressive unpacking and this progressive depth.

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Really, if you move through the three books, it's my own journey to have God drawing me deeper and deeper into more understanding and healing and wholeness.

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So wreck my life kind of covers my testimony of coming to faith through a lot of brokenness from eating disorder and self -harm and suicide of my dad, depression, anxiety, promiscuity.

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And then man, a radical encounter with, with Jesus that changed everything.

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Um, and how my life began to transform after that. But then I realized when

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I was writing that book, man, there's, there's a lot of meat to unpack here around the sexual layer of all of this, that parallels perfectly brokenness, confusion, pain, struggled with like addiction to pornography with promiscuity, with all of these different, you know, painful elements and then encountered

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Jesus and everything changed. And so, um, I, I, I knew that had to be a work of its own.

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And I wrote sex, Jesus, and the conversations that church forgot, uh, testifying there, but also unpacking all that he had shown and taught me.

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And then fully known, he just took it even further as I stayed in that place, which just an encouragement to anyone listening.

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I think sometimes we'll get revelation from God and we think, Oh, I get it. And we move on, but there's a lot of weight and power in staying in some places and allowing him to excavate even deeper, exploring topics even more deeply and just continuing to seek after his heart because fully known he then showed me,

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Hey, remember all that, that you came through. I want to use it for my glory. I want to reveal the depths of my gospel through it.

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And so that was when the parallel of intimacy with, and the natural and intimacy and the spiritual kind of clicked for me.

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So I would always say, if someone's going to read a book, start at wreck my life because fully known is a deep dive and a hard dig through a wreck.

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My life is testifying to the glory of God. It's simplest place when I first came to believe and they kind of progressed from there.

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Sure. So I'm just picturing, um, who

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I think would be most benefited by reading fully known. And to me, it's the, it's the

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Christian who knows the Lord and even loves the Lord, but has been very satisfied with a,

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I don't know, average or typical Christian life. So what would you say to this person to motivate them to one, um, possibly be interested in wanting to read your book, but then also even more than that, to have a more intimate relationship with God?

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Why should they bother? Yeah, I, I wrote the, um, what's it called?

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The acknowledgement or, uh, the dedication in the book I just wrote for all those who hunger and thirst for more.

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I think there's a number of us. This is really for the professed believer. It is for the one who's been walking with him and in relationship with him.

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Um, but I, I don't know about you. I know for myself that I can't shake.

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There's a piece and a part inside of me because the spirit of God is within me that when

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I get stagnant or comfortable or coasting, it may feel good to a degree, but there's always a piece of me that's still crying out for communion for more right.

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Of, of the one who we were made to know who's vast in man, miraculous, wonder working, understanding we, we should get to the end of our lives with our fire burning like a bonfire within us.

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Not like in the posture of, well, I've been a Christian for 60 years. And so what else is there to learn?

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Oh, come on. There is always more of God. And so even if I'm feel like I understand it all,

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I believe that true humility is what compels us to understand there's more, there's more.

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And so it was when I, I really began to embrace the scripture, humble yourself before the

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Lord and he will lift you up. We are intended to move from glory to glory, or the word of God also says from strength to strength, right?

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That it is this continued revelation as we are made more and more like our maker, he will begin the good work.

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He will complete the good work that he began in us. And as long as we have the humility to continue to say yes, to engage in that process, the reward and the fruit, it's inexplicable.

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We are made, it is our birthright inheritance as children of God to hear the voice of God, Galatians 5, 25, to live by the spirit and stay in step with the spirit.

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He moves in power. He moves through us to be the hands and feet of Jesus, right?

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To see miracles, to see healing. He bears fruit in us, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self -control, all of these things.

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There is no law against them and there is no limit to them. And so it's by his will, what he decides.

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And I always want to be a vessel that says, hey, I'm hungry and I'm thirsty for more.

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And I want to be your hands and feet and I want to be yielded to your will. And so there's always going to be tension, right?

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He's always got to break through some stuff, like break some stuff down so that we can kind of break through.

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He's always wanting to do this good work. And I think sometimes we get stagnant because really, real talk, we kind of just don't want to do the work.

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The more that we grow in intimacy with him, the more real and the more deep things truly become.

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And sometimes that can be challenging, but it's not without, like in our flesh, it's impossible.

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But by his spirit, all things are possible. And so it's not without his grace leading us through, empowering us through.

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So I would say to anyone who maybe is like, I don't know, I'm kind of at a good spot. I would just say, man, let's find our way to a posture of humility to say,

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God, search my heart and know me. Let me be honest. Is there a part of me that's still restless, that realizes there's more?

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Lord, grace me. Give me your grace to continue to walk forward and to pray bold, radical prayers and to see how you move in response in ways that allows me to be even more effective for your kingdom.

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Because that's, we're just sojoiners, right? I mean, I don't want to be a stagnant sojoiner. I want to be one who passes through and sees the power of God move.

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And that's the beauty of the invitation mirrored to him as we become all the more in tune with his still small voice and all the more effective in being his hands and feet.

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Sure. That's a struggle I've had many times in my Christian life is being satisfied with where I'm at.

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And thankfully, even though there's been numerous plateaus in my Christian life, there hasn't been a significant time of backsliding or anything like that.

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But to me, getting to a point where, huh, I think I'm in a pretty good place with God and settling for that rather than pursuing an even greater and deeper intimacy.

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And occasionally God just sends me a wake -up call. It's like, you know, if you think this is good, imagine if you went even a little further.

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Those little wake -up calls have been super helpful in driving me to learn God's word better, become more intimate in my prayer life to really seek his heart and ask him to mold me into the image of Christ and so forth.

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So what I'm probably enjoying most about your book is just to do a wake -up call to there are better and deeper things in our relationship with God than what we're experiencing now.

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Yeah. I would encourage anyone. That's so good. I would encourage anybody listening who feels like, well,

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I believe that and I understand that and I want that, but I feel kind of like I've tacked out the resources around me.

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Like there aren't other people in my life that are hungry in that same way. Or I don't feel like I'm surrounded by fellowship that's challenging me, like calling me up to more.

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I just feel in my spirit to remind you that you can ask

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God for that. Pray and say, I want more of you. And I know we're not meant to walk in isolation or alone.

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We're meant to know intimacy with you. That's like that ebbing away from the world, right?

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In our prayer closet, in the intimate place. But at the same time, we are also a body.

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Like the bride is also the bride of Christ. And we're meant to do life together.

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And so pray and ask Him, man, I'm hungry and I want more, but I don't know where to find it.

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And God, will you please send me others who are hungry in the same way or someone who can disciple me into even greater depth or revelation of a resource that will answer the questions in my heart.

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We just got to keep asking. He wants to equip us and gift us with every good and perfect gift for the advancement of our faith and for the advancement of our walk.

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But sometimes I think we get like stagnant because we kind of get like, not hopeless, but we feel a little discouraged or we don't know what comes next.

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Well, ask Him and I believe He'll be really faithful to move on our behalf. Awesome.

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I love how you said that. So, Mo, other than, of course, having four kids, being an author, having to put up with your husband,

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Jeremiah, what's the Lord giving you these days to keep you busy? Oh, my goodness.

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You named all of the things. I will say the newest journey has been homeschooling my four kiddos.

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Only one is kindergarten age. The rest are under, but I'm still wrangling all of them in the process.

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You know, it's been so beautiful because that labor that's very unseen and very unpraised,

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I guess, by the world, it's so profound. And sometimes breaking things down, especially around the

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Word of God, and we call them our character lessons, but when we're studying what it means to walk like Jesus, sometimes breaking things down into the simplest form is very profound for me as an adult.

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I'm like, wow, I got what self -control means now, but I don't know that anyone ever just taught me the simple definition.

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And the Lord will just start spinning and stirring in my heart how that can be exercised in greater capacity or even just ministering to me in the process.

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So it's so brilliant to watch light bulbs click in their mind as they're learning.

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And it's also just so brilliant to see how I think of the scripture when Jesus is really talking about himself, but he says, unless the seed falls to the ground and dies, then the fruit, the life can't be birthed forth.

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And he's speaking of himself to the cross, but he's also, I think, speaking to the life of the believer and that unless we're willing to go into that unseen place to die to ourselves in many ways, or to be hidden, then how can the greater fruit birth forth?

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Like that's that humility we talked about. And that was a whole sermon series to say,

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I'm learning it through homeschooling my kids. It's like, it's so beautiful. God wants to use all things for his glory.

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And that is keeping me very busy right now. I bet. So again, this has been the

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Got Questions podcast with Mo Isom Aiken. I'd encourage you to check out her books.

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We'll include links to those in the description field on YouTube, but also at podcast .gotquestions .org

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and also on the show notes for this episode. So please check them out. So Mo, thank you for being on the show.

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Yes, my pleasure. Thank you so much for having me. And I really enjoyed our conversation today.

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So this has been the Got Questions podcast. Got questions? Bible has answers.