Question:

How can you have an intimacy with God? How can I have aclose relation
with God?hear his voice or be blessed spiritually?

Answer:

I am certainly not an expert on this question! This is an Christian
apologetics website! Nevertheless, I like to at least make an attempt at
answering every question which comes in, so here we go.

I am sure there are many things which could be said on this question, but
let me share what I have learned in my quiet times lately on the subject.
I think of Philippians 3:10 and Colossians 1:24-27.

Philippians 3:10. I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection
and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his
death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead.

Colossians 1:24f Now I rejoice in what was suffered for you, and I fill
up I my flesh what is still lacking in regard to Christ?s afflictions, for
the sake of his body, which is the church. I have become its servant?

In both passages I see a connection between suffering for the cause of
Christ and coming to know Christ. I believe we need to offer our lives as
a living sacrifice to God (Romans 12:1) in order to become like Christ,
and in order to have the deep intimacy with Christ which we seek. This is
a hard answer, but I believe it is the correct answer. It is not through
following a formula for a great relationship with God (a certain amount of
prayer, a certain amount of Bible study and so forth), but through
becoming like Christ in his death that we come into deep intimacy with
him.

Another passage which comes to mind is Matthew 5:3-11. These are the
“beatitudes,” which can also be called the ways to a blessed life. I
believe the only way to a blessed life is to come into intimacy with God,
and Matthew 5:3-11 suggests how to do this. We come into an intimate
relationship with God through being poor in spirit, through mourning for
ours and other?s sins, through being meek, through hungering for
righteousness, being merciful, being a peace maker, and through our being
persecuted for our dedication to God.

I am sorry to give you a hard assignment, but that is what I have learned
is required to have the relation with God we all seek.

John Oakes, PhD