Our Heavenly Father's greatest desire personally involves you. It is a vision for you that enables and empowers all the other plans and dreams He has placed in your heart. Pursue it and you will discover the fullness of all that is yours in Him. If you don't, it is assured that much frustration lies ahead as you struggle to do and achieve for Him with no results. So what is this that God so greatly desires?

As He was preparing His disciples for His death, resurrection, and ascension into Heaven, Jesus said that He was going to prepare a place for us. (John 14:2) In verse three He shares the desire of His heart: "If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself, that where I am, there you may be also." He said the same thing in the High Priestly prayer just a short time later the same night in John 17:24: "Father, I desire that they also, whom You have given Me, be with Me where I am, so that they may see My glory which You have given Me." 

The ultimate desire of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit, and the key to understanding our Christian walk, is this: He desires to be with us. That speaks of an intimate relationship. The Almighty God, Creator of heaven and earth, the Eternal, wants to be with you! Meditate on that awesome truth for a moment. What unfathomable love and mercy He has for us that He would desire us. However, we often replace the intimacy He longs for with "Christian busy-ness", "religion" such as works of service, duties, and rituals to the point that there is no "one on one" relationship with Him. But this is what He desires above all else!

Consider the creation story. God created all the animals, birds, fish, etc. "after their kind". (Gen.1:20, 21) Consequently, each one gathers to its own kind: birds hang out with birds, fish with fish. But God created man "in His image" so that we could walk and be with Him! (Gen.1:26) When Adam sinned and broke the intimate union, God didn't leave him to die and spend eternity in Hell. Immediately He set in action the plan of Salvation which would send His own Son to the earth to die for our sins and restore mankind to Himself. In the meantime, He covered Adam's sin with animal skins, so they could be together again.

This same story of God longing to be near us continues throughout the Bible. He had Moses build a tabernacle in the wilderness so that "He could live with them". (Ex.25:8) David built a tabernacle for the Lord where worship went up to Him twenty-four hours a day. Afterwards, David's son Solomon was allowed to build the permanent Temple in which God's presence could dwell. But the greatest of all, was when Jesus came to the earth in physical form. The prophets said, "He shall be called Emmanuel", which means "God with us". There it is again! Jesus was God being intimate with man as He had not been since the Garden of Eden. But it didn't stop there. We have gone a level deeper! Jesus said, "If I go away, I will send you the Holy Spirit", and He did! (John 16:7) (Acts 2) Today we are the temple, tabernacle, sanctuary of the Holy Spirit! God lives within us. Closer than our breath. (I Cor. 6:19, 20)

THE BOTTOM LINE

Let these truths change your life, by changing the way you view your Heavenly Father.

* Starting now, approach Him through the blood and name of Jesus, (not your own righteousness) knowing that His greatest desire is to be with you!

* Make Prayer "the thing" you do before all else. Isn't it interesting that the Lord designed the Kingdom to work through prayer, so that you have to be near Him for things to function properly??

* Let go of the voice of condemnation from past sins. They only fuel a wrong picture of your Father in Heaven and His love for you. If you have repented, the sins never existed.