Awesome God Ministries
Leading people to a more intimate friendship with God

Welcome!

Our ministry and this website seek to help people find a deeper, more intimate relationship with God. People visiting this website are from many different stages in their walk with God, and we seek to have something for everyone. Feel free to just browse (you can scroll down on this page). If you want to be more intentional at what you look at, clicking on the items below will take you to an article or section on the topic:

For those who are just beginning to seek after God, consider beginning with the section on how to become a friend of God.

For those who have had a knowledge of God for some time, but who desire a more personal or experiential relationship with God, a good starting place is the lesson that goes along with the section called "God is Incredibly in Love with You!"

The top ten things we can do to establish and maintain a life-long friendship with God.

If you want to learn more about how to hear God speak to you.

If you or somebody you know is struggling with anger or disappointment with God.

For a chapter by chapter look at Tim's devotional commentary on Ephesians, called "A Life of Holy Intimacy and Power: The Radical Message of Ephesians for Believers".

For the entire collection of Matt's writings and insights about living the Christian life.

Insights on how intimacy with God might change the way you intercede and do spiritual warfare.

We hope this website is a blessing to you. If you have any suggestions on how we can make it better, any questions we might be able to help you with, or want to let us know how something on this website helped you, please feel free to contact us. Thanks!

Click here to contact us by email...

Becoming a Friend of God

The good news about becoming a friend of God is that God already desires to be your friend! So you do not have to fear rejection, because He is already prepared to accept you whenever you decide that you want to be His friend. The second piece of good news is that you do not have to change or clean up your act before becoming a friend of God. He already knows you even better than you know yourself, and even as you are, He is ready to welcome you. In fact, He knows that for many of us, it will seem an impossible task to clean up our act.

Once we become God's friend, He promises a few things that will greatly help us. First of all, He promises us a new heart. What a new heart does for us is that it enables us to truly love God, and in many cases it frees us from things that we are ashamed of or unable to change apart from God's help. Secondly, He promises to come and live in us. Talk about a close relationship! He loves us so much that He wants us to be free to share our hearts and lives with Him. And He wants us to know Him at a deep heart level, too.

As we grow to know God better, we discover things about Him that just amaze us! One of those things is His faithfulness. We find that we are often willing to give up on ourselves, yet He never does. One of His most precious promises is that, in His own words, "I will never, never, never leave you or forsake you." Contrary to what we see in many of our human relationships, God will not abandon us. This shows not only His great faithfulness, but His patience and willingness to put up with our shortcomings, too.

Continue reading about becoming a friend of God...

Graphic above is from http://rev22.org

God is Incredibly in Love with You!

God loves everyone. That's why He sent His one and only Son Jesus into the world, to die for us, so that we could be set free, and be welcomed into the family of God. While God loves everyone, He has a special love for those who choose to put their faith in Jesus. He calls us His dearly loved children. He calls us not His servants but His friends. It is in our hearts that He makes His home right now. We are invited to come boldly into His presence to talk with Him any time we want, and we are seated with Christ in the very throneroom of God. One day we will be the Bride of Christ. He has prepared an eternal home for us, and we will live with God forever.

May we never get away from the foundational truth of being a Christian: God is incredibly in love with us! He desires for us to know and embrace that incredible love. When we start to grasp the depth of love God has for us, then we are able to respond with a deeper love for Him than we thought possible. This is the amazing secret of being filled with God to overflowing. People that are confident in God's love for them are able to rise above their circumstances and live lives that reflect the heart and power of God, radiating His glory to all around us.

Reflection on God's Word

Back in March 2005, I felt a nudge by God to start writing a devotional commentary on the book of Ephesians, focusing on the theme of intimate relationship with God, to which every believer is called. I began writing a chapter at a time, and sent them out to friends, calling them a "Reflection on God's Word". The book version should be out by the summer of 2008.

Having finished the study of Ephesians in the summer of 2007, I have begun work on a second book. The working title is "The Way of Intimacy: Finding Your True Self in God". I believe this topic is very much on God's heart. What follows is a working draft from a section of the book.

	ABIDING (PART 1) by Tim Thomas April 18, 2008 There is probably no theme more important to the idea of intimacy than the theme of abiding in God. Jesus' teaching on abiding is found in the Gospel of John. Perhaps the most famous passage is in John 15:4-6, where Jesus says, "⁴Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in Me. ⁵I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing. ⁶If anyone does not abide in Me, he is thrown away as a branch and dries up; and they gather them, and cast them into the fire and they are burned." (NASB) The word the NASB translates "abide" is translated as "remain" in the NIV and the NLT. The Amplified Bible switches between "dwell", "live", and "abide". The Message uses "live", "make your home in", and "join with". It would not be wrong to translate verse 4 to say, "If you live your life in Me, I will live My life in you". The reason I chose the NASB translation is because the word "abide" reflects this understanding. We should so embrace Jesus that our lives flow out of that intimacy. It is like getting married: two people become one flesh, in some very real sense losing their previous identities to emerge with a new, united identity. This is how it is to be with believers and Jesus (Ephesians 5:31-33). We become attuned to the heart of Jesus, and live our lives out of this new sense of intimacy and mission.
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Matt's Corner

	ACNE: A PARABLE by Matt Moser January 2, 2008 When I was a teenager I had acne. It wasn't an especially bad case of acne, but it was still acne. You all have been there. You remember the feelings of horror and disgust when you looked into the mirror and saw a bright red blemish staring right back at you. You remember the bargaining you would do with your skin the night before a big event like a party or a date: "Oh, please, please, please, skin, stay clear... stay clear!" But my desperate pleadings didn't avail me of the dreaded presence of pimples throughout those awkward years. I remember times when I would be so frustrated with my complexion that I would stare into the mirror and wish that I could grow facial hair better in order to cover up my acne infested skin. Flash-forward ten years and I am now in my mid-twenties. And guess what I still get to deal with? Yup, acne. But now the joke is on the zits because I can totally just grow a little beard to cover up those horrible little blemishes. At last: Victory! Vindication! I can now hide those pesky imperfections in my skin from the sight of all eyes! Unfortunately... I've also noticed that with the beard, my face doesn't get nearly as clean when I wash it at night. I guess the beard blocks some of the cleanser from reaching the skin. Here's the dilemma: if I hide my acne under a beard then it can't be cured by the facial cleanser. But if I want my skin to heal then that means I can't hide my shameful acne beneath a beard but I have to expose it to the world. The consequences of either decision are dire: if I keep the beard then I must deal with all of the coarseness and itchiness that comes with it. But if I shave the beard then the world will know that I'm a 26 year old man that still has skin problems. Neither consequence is particularly appealing to my sensibilities. This is my dilemma; this is my plight. While it has been delightfully therapeutic to vent my skin-care frustrations with the entire wowgod.org readership, I must get to the point. You see, I entitled this little essay "Acne: A Parable" because I do see a parable in my skin-care woes that mirrors the dilemma we face in terms of our sin. When confronting our sin, we have the same two choices: either expose the imperfections of our lives before the eyes of the world or we hide them away. The consequences of the exposure of our sin may be shame, embarrassment, humiliation. But the consequence of our hiding our sin away is that it cannot be properly healed.
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Quote of the Week

"Since the focus of God's heart from the beginning of time has been preparing a Bride for His Son, He has always desired an intimate relationship with His people. And so He has spoken to us in various ways, with the consistent goal of engaging us in a dialogue about life in relationship with Him. This dialogue is called prayer, and its primary purpose is that we might come to know the heart of the One Who loves us and understands who we are and what we will become."

"He alone knows my true identity, and His words empower me to live in that identity. What could be more helpful, more healing than listening to Him? What could be more beneficial than speaking with Him in loving dialogue? Out of His heart of love, He draws us to the place of prayer, that He might communicate His intentions."

-- Gary Wiens in "Bridal Intercession: Authority in Prayer through Intimacy with Jesus", pp 14-15

Read the entire collection of quotes...

Latest Song on Intimacy

Chris Abshire, the worship leader at my church, passed away in July 2008, after living a year with cancer. He was 32. Rather amazingly, less than 3 weeks before he passed away, he and his wife, Martha, were able to record a wonderful worship CD on 2 consecutive nights at our church. While the music is still being mastered, a video taken of them during the recording of one of my favorite songs is available on YouTube. It concludes with Martha singing a really beautiful love song from their CD.

To play it, click the big arrow in the center of the screen. If it does't start loading immediately, click a second time. Some security settings on your computer block ActiveX controls. If it is blocked, you should choose to allow your browser to run ActiveX controls.

As for Me
Chris Abshire and Peter Neuberger

Ch. As for me, I will trust in You (x4)

1. Cast all your cares on the Lord
He will sustain you
His love and His mercy are great
He will not forsake you (Ch)

2. Though evil seems to surround
He will protect you
You're dry in the desert of death
Living waters He grants you (Ch)

Br. I will trust in the Name of the Lord my God (x4)
(Ch)

Read all of my favorite songs of intimacy...