Return to Table of Contents

The Pastor And Biblical Intimacy

Interview With Henry Blackaby

Henry Blackaby

Jesus said in Matthew 22:37–40 that the greatest commandment was to love God with all our hearts and love our neighbors as ourselves. This is the essence of the gospel. It is also the basis for building healthy intimate relationships.

Richard Schoonover, Enrichment journal associate editor, interviewed Henry Blackaby to discuss this important topic. Blackaby has been a sucessful pastor, director of the office of prayer, revival, and spiritual awakening for the Southern Baptist Convention, and noted conference speaker. He is currently president of Henry Blackaby Ministries. He has also written Encountering God, Created To Be God’s Friend, and What the Spirit Is Saying to the Churches, books that focus on an intimate relationship with God and others.

Blackaby’s insight into biblical intimate relationships will help pastors become models for developing healthy relationships.

Why Is Intimacy Important In Relationships?

Blackaby:God created us to have intimate relationships. The word koinonia sums up these intimate relationships.

First John 1:3,7, says, “Truly our fellowship [koinonia] is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship [koinonia] one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin” (KJV).

John gave God’s definition for intimacy. We cannot have one type of relationship with God and another type with people. Intimacy with God creates intimacy with others.

As Scripture unfolds it is fascinating to see the heart of God in His covenant relationship with His people. The essence of being a child of God involves intimate interdependence, which every individual needs for growth and maturity. God created us to have interdependence, but sin causes self-centered independence. Redemption brings us back into interdependence with God and His people. When we experience God’s fullness, we will have that intimacy.

What Does It Mean For A Pastor To Have An Intimate Relationship With God? How Does A Pastor Develop That Intimate Relationship?

Blackaby:Having a relationship with God is a choice. God created humanity for fellowship with Him. God gives us a desire to have a relationship with Him and then enables us to have it. When that relationship is broken, God works to restore it. A person who does not have a relationship with God has chosen to quench the Holy Spirit and resist God.

When I read Scripture, the God of the universe who authored it is present, and the Holy Spirit is my Teacher and brings me into a deep relationship with God. If a pastor listens to the Holy Spirit within him, he knows God is drawing him to a closer relationship. A pastor needs to understand that his life centers around his relationship with the Father, Son, and Spirit.

A pastor’s relationship with God is manifested in his obedience to Scripture. A pastor develops this relationship by immersing himself in Scripture and letting God work in his life. God cleanses His church with the washing of the water by the Word (Ephesians 5:26). I cannot function apart from an extended time in Scripture. But it’s not just reading Scripture; it must become an intimate time with God.

You Mentioned In Your Book, What The Spirit Is Saying To The Churches, That God’s People Have Moved From Relationship To Religion. How Is This A Danger For Pastors?

Blackaby:For a pastor to move from relationship to religion is a profound danger. The leaders of Israel practiced the Law, kept the sacrifices, and honored the feast days. These were designed to bring the Israelites into intimacy with God. But it is easy to fulfill religious requirements and assume you are in right relationship with God.

When God came to the leaders of Israel, He said, “Return to Me.”

They replied, “Wherein shall we return? We’re doing everything correctly.”

The religious leaders never understood they were standing on the edge of judgment. God judged Israel and its religious leaders because they forsook their relationship with Him.

Today we have evangelical orthodoxy. Many believe if people are doctrinally correct they are in proper relationship with God. This is not true. In Matthew 15:8 Jesus said, “These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.” We may leave the impression that attending all the church’s activities is evidence our heart is right with God, but that is not true. The key to intimacy with God is the heart.

Religious leaders are in grave danger because they handle the sacred things of God. Pastors often assume that if they are preaching every Sunday, visiting members, guiding the church, and if the church is growing, they must be in a right relationship to God. That’s not always true. The gravest danger to the people of God is when spiritual leaders engage in activity and move from relationship to religion.

Every time I talk with a pastor who is in trouble, sooner or later he will say, “I’m not spending enough time in God’s Word, in prayer, or in fellowship.” Most pastors who are in trouble are not walking in an intimate relationship with God.

How Does Our Intimacy With God Affect Our Relationships With Our Family And Church?

Blackaby:Intimacy with God is the foundation. Genesis to Revelation reveals that our relationship with God affects our other relationships.

When we began to have children my prayer was, “Lord help me have a relationship with You that will encourage my children to serve the God they saw their dad serve.” There would be nothing more painful to me than to have one of my children, who lived in my home for 18 to 20 years, choose not to serve God.

Everything about my walk with God should be attractive to those with whom I am related. But if my relationship with God is not authentic, my life will not bring about what God intended. Intimacy with God is foundational for marriage and parenting.

In 30 years of pastoring we saw only one divorce in our churches because intimacy with God prevents that. The forgiveness and reconciliation we receive from God is so real we practice it with our wife or husband.

When couples told me they were no longer in love, I told them that was a symptom, not the problem. The problem was they had lost their relationship with God. A person cannot walk in an intimate relationship with God and not love his or her spouse and children the same way they are being loved by God.

As A Pastor Builds Healthy Relationships Within The Church, How Is It Going To Strengthen His People And The Ministries Of The Church?

Blackaby:Healthy, intimate relationships in the church begin with an understanding of the Church. Christ is not a figure head; He is the Head of every church. He is present and active.

My primary purpose as a pastor was to shepherd the people of God and bring them to Christlikeness. When a pastor has an intimate relationship with Christ, he understands what Christ is doing in his people and church. The church is God-centered, God-initiated, and God-oriented.

God adds to the Body as it pleases Him. If a pastor understands that each person in the body of Christ is loved by God, and that God has entrusted that individual to the church and to the pastor, how should he as pastor relate to each person?

I designed the church by working with people. We took our definition for church from Scripture. The church is a living body, and each part is necessary. I guided people so they would know where God put them in the Body, to understand how the Spirit equipped them to function in the Body, and how to interrelate with one another according to Scripture. When that happened, the people saw their significance, and God worked through them. Each felt he or she was part of the others’ life. But to do this, a pastor must walk with God to know what God has in mind for each individual.

My son and I wrote a sequel to Experiencing God called Your Church Experiencing God Together. This book is designed to help people understand how to relate to one another. The primary pattern for relationships is the pastor. If people are taught to love one another, the model for love needs to be the pastor, his wife, and children.

I never withheld my children from the church. Many people say you cannot get too close to your people because some may feel you have favorites. That is nonsense. I told the church at our first service, “I want to help you raise your children, but Marilyn and I can’t raise our children apart from the intimacy within the life of the congregation. We give you permission to help us raise our children to be the most godly they can be.” Today, all five of our children have a deep love for God and for His people because I taught them from the Scripture and in practice that we needed to love one another. I was the pattern for that love, as well as my wife. The pastor needs to keep Christ as the Head and the Holy Spirit as the life of the Body, and then live out that intimacy from the Scriptures with his people.

In our church every deacon was assigned spiritual care over a segment of the congregation to help them grow in Christlikeness. I began every deacons meeting by asking them to tell how the people under their care were growing toward Christlikeness. Some would say, “This one is struggling or this one has turned away from God.” Then the deacons began to consider how we could help those who were moving away from intimacy with God. One would say, “I work with the dad. I will talk with him.” Another would say, “Our teenage boy is in the same class with their teenage boy.” So people in the church interrelated with one another.

That is how I functioned and modeled love as a pastor. In fact, I made a commitment to God that I would never preach what I did not incarnate. A person who speaks one way and lives another is a hypocrite, and God hates hypocrites. Even if I had a tremendous truth the people needed, because I sensed my own need, I did not preach that truth until I was living it.

What Can Pastors Do To Build Strong, Healthy Relationships Within Their Communities To Show People Outside The Church The Love Of Christ?

Blackaby:We have forgotten that evangelism is a by-product of discipleship and have made discipleship a by-product of evangelism. We have it backwards. The last thing Jesus said to the disciples in the Great Commission was, “Teach them to practice everything I have commanded” (Matthew 28:20). This is what the Early Church did in the Book of Acts. They spent their time teaching more than head knowledge; they taught knowledge and application. They turned the Roman Empire upside-down. The same result can take place today.

God puts Christians in the community to fulfill His purposes. Each week I was in the workplace with my members. If a lady was on the cleaning crew at the hospital, I asked to accompany her as she went from room to room. I met her companions and strengthened her witness. The hospital staff saw me as I related with my members.

Many in my church were teachers, so I became involved with the teachers in the public schools. I would visit them and met their principals. Some of the principals said, “You are the first pastor who has talked with me. Ministers criticize the school system but will not come, talk, and build a relationship with us.”

I spoke with the superintendent and the director of education. I told the high school English teachers, “Let me give you our perspective as conservative evangelicals about the literature you require students to read. It contains material they should not even repeat.”

They replied, “Nobody has ever talked to us this way.” We helped change the school system in a secular society. I put our children in public schools so we could be salt and light.

I taught my people what it meant to be salt and light in the community. Our people were involved in almost every crisis that happened within the community. They saw the impact we could make.

I worked with the police department and rode with patrolmen. In one church I pastored the mayor was a deacon. I went to city council meetings. Councilmen saw me and the members of the church involved in the community. We should not pull out of society. The salt has to be applied in the heart of society. But I had to teach and model it. In my preaching I often used illustrations from my involvement in the community to show that God uses us as salt and light.

We also had great testimony times. When we came together, we shared what God was doing, and the burdens we had for people in the workplace. Week after week God transformed lives. I would look out over the congregation and see 8 or 10 people who would have taken their lives had we not intervened.

When someone made a profession of faith I had the person who requested prayer for this person’s salvation testify. This is powerful. This was an answer to prayer. We celebrated that as a part of our worship. When that is done over and over, the congregation sees how the church can affect the community.

People need to have an authentic witness in their lives and in their family before they can bear witness effectively in the community. We tried to help them have an authentic intimate walk with God. When people had an intimate walk with God, I did not need to teach them soul winning because their lives were a witness. You could not keep them quiet.

I told them to anticipate that what God told them in their morning devotions, they would have opportunity to share with someone that day. The workplace became their mission field. A pastor’s intimate relationship with God, and intimacy with God in the lives of the people of God, will result in an explosive affect on the community and the world.