Right now, I have the honor of speaking at National Collegiate Week, and I’m sitting in North Carolina with about 400 college students and workers. The theme of the week is “Permeate,” and I am tasked with expanding that theme from the word of God. 

The particular direction we wanted to go with the theme was about depth. That is, what does a deep relationship with God look like, and how can I get there?

I know, I know – can’t believe they asked me either. Nevertheless, it’s been really cool to talk through some of these principles as we’re discovering what it means to live deeply with Jesus together.

The route that I have gone is through weaving a biblical metaphor through all my talks. The metaphor is one of “walking.” My thesis is that when the Bible wants to talk about the way we interact with God, it doesn’t use the words, “personal relationship with Jesus Christ.” Though the principles and ideas behind that phrase are certainly in the Bible, you don’t find that exact wording in its pages. Often, though, you find the word “walk.”

Walk with God.

Walk with Jesus.

Walk in love.

Walk in purity.

Walk.

So why walk? That’s what my talks have been about. What are the distinctive characteristics of a deep walk with God? I led off by saying that this walk is person-oriented rather than destination-oriented.

You might argue – but aren’t we as Christians supposed to be destination-oriented? Aren’t we to gaze toward heaven? Aren’t we to remind ourselves that heaven is our true home? And isn’t that where we’re all walking to?

Yes, and no.

We should remind ourselves that heaven is heaven not because of the lack of Kleenexes, or because there’s no funerals, or because of golden streets, or because of mansions. Heaven is heaven because God is there, and there is where we can have unbroken, untainted, unfiltered intimacy with Him. So from that perspective, our destination isn’t so much a place as it is a Person.

That’s Who we’re walking toward, and that’s also who we’re walking with.

Incidentally, I found out that my new friend, and great worship leader, James Tealy, has been livestreaming the worship services to his site.

If you want to watch the talks or be a part of the experience, just check out jamestealy.com. You can see all the services from the week there.