Our greatest spiritual asset is intimacy with God. Without that intimacy, we will attempt to fill the void with things like experience, education, or a religious position as replacements for intimacy with the Lord. None of those replacements creates intimacy with God.

Moses helps us understand how intimacy with God works. The Lord told Moses, “I will come to you in a thick cloud, Moses, so the people themselves can hear me when I speak with you. Then they will always trust you” (Exodus 19:9). The trust of the people came because they saw and heard a living example of Moses’s intimacy with God. Moses’s intimacy with God began when “Moses climbed the mountain to appear before God” (vs. 3).

After the Lord spoke with Moses, he was told to descend the mountain and prepare the people for the Lord’s appearance. “On the morning of the third day, thunder roared, and lightning flashed, and a dense cloud came down on the mountain. There was a long, loud blast from a ram’s horn, and all the people trembled. Moses led them out from the camp to meet with God, and they stood at the foot of the mountain” (vs.16-17). 

As the people assembled at the foot of the mountain, “The Lord came down on the top of Mount Sinai and called Moses to the top of the mountain. So, Moses climbed the mountain” (vs. 20). It was in that intimate conversation with the Lord where He gave Moses the Ten Commandments.

It was in that isolated place of God’s intimate presence where Moses heard the voice of God. As the people listened from a distance, their trust in Moses was established. The same is true for us today regarding our friends, family, and those we are called to lead. Without intimacy with God, people will not be able to trust what we say or follow our example on how to live a life of faith.   

Intimacy with God is not intellectual or a static truth. It requires that we follow the instructions of the Lord’s voice, where we will hear Him speak to us in ways a lack of intimacy cannot produce. Of all the qualifications we possess in our spiritual life, intimacy with God is the greatest. It begins when we ascend the mountain of His presence to hear things a lack of intimacy cannot imagine.