The Key to Intimacy with God!
- Feb 1
- 9 min read
The Key to Intimacy with God!
There is a single key to Intimacy with God, and it is A HEART OF GRATITUDE!
Ever since God spared my life from cardiac arrest and a possible death last year, I have rededicated my life to Christ. There is not an hour that goes by without me thanking my God for His matchless mercies and grace, and my own precious family for the powerful prayer of intercession they offered to fight for my life.
I am alive to the amazement of everyone, including the doctors in my own family. Here are their comments:
“Uncle, you have experienced a medical miracle!”
“Brother, medical sciences cannot explain how you received life back, but take it!”
I am taking it only with my heart of gratitude.
We must maintain a heart of gratitude, thankfulness, and giving thanks to God in everything. I thank God for at least seven things in my life.
Thankful for My Healing!
Jesus healed 10 lepers, but only one, a Samaritan, came back to thank Him. “Now it happened as He went to Jerusalem that He passed through the midst of Samaria and Galilee. Then, as He entered a certain village, there met Him ten men who were lepers, who stood afar off. And they lifted up their voices and said, ‘Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!’ So when He saw them, He said to them, ‘Go, show yourselves to the priests.’ And so it was that as they went, they were cleansed. And one of them, when he saw that he was healed, returned, and with a loud voice glorified God, and fell down on his face at His feet, giving Him thanks. And he was a Samaritan. So, Jesus answered and said, ‘Were there not ten cleansed? But where are the nine? Were there not any found who returned to give glory to God except this foreigner?’ And He said to him, ‘Arise, go your way. Your faith has made you well’” (Luke 17:11-19).
I never forgot the many times God healed me of sicknesses and pain:
· Healed from tuberculosis at 17!
· Healed from bleeding ulcers at 19!
· Protected and preserved from heart problems since 2018!
· Delivered from death at Quito, Ecuador, on October 21, 2023!
· Healed from bleeding ulcers on October 27, 2025!
· Delivered from death looming from a cardiac arrest on November 30, 2025!
My life has been spared with a purpose, and I will NEVER FORGET to thank the Lord every day for it. The world looks different to me – the houses, cities, streets, and the people! I AM BORN AGAIN TO A NEW LIVING, AS ALL THE OLD THINGS HAVE PASSED AWAY AND THINGS HAVE BECOME NEW!
Most importantly, I thank my God, never forgetting what He has graciously done for me. I praise and worship Him with all my heart and soul.
Thankful for the Revelation of God’s WORD!
Jesus Himself thanks the Father for revealing God’s mysteries to His disciples: “I thank You, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that You have hidden these things from the wise and prudent and have revealed them to babes” (Matthew 11:25).
Simon Peter acknowledged that Jesus offered the WORDS of Eternal Life: “Then Jesus said to the twelve, ‘Do you also want to go away?’ But Simon Peter answered Him, ‘Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. Also, we have come to believe and know that You are the Christ (the Holy One of God), the Son of the living God’” (John 6:67-69).
Here are the words instrumental for my growth in God:
· My healing Scriptures when I suffered from bleeding ulcers at 19: “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live” (John 11:25). “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever” (Hebrews 13:8). It was also the Experience of My Salvation!
· God’s promise to me at Penn State University in the summer of 1982, when my scholarship came to an end: “Offer to God thanksgiving and pay your vows to the Most High. Call upon Me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you, and you shall glorify Me” (Psalm 50:14-15). God miraculously sustained Hema and me in the summer of 1982, in the first year of our marriage, to prepare us for the ministry, and has done so in the same miraculous fashion since 1990.
· When I was waiting for the unknown results of my heart in June 2018, early at 3 AM, I heard the voice of Jesus: “I am with you always, even to the end of the age” (Matthew 28:20).
· When I was hospitalised in a critical condition at Quito, Ecuador, on October 21, 2023, I heard the voice: “I am with you (regardless of what right or wrong decisions the staff take)!”
· A vision of Heaven (January 2024).
· During my latest battle with GI bleed leading up to the cardiac arrest in October 2025: A vision of Jesus carrying me and standing before the threshold of the Old Jerusalem Temple!
God’s WORD has become a lamp to my feet and light to my path (Psalm 119:105). I have hidden God’s WORD in my heart to overcome temptation (Psalm 119:11) and to remind myself of God’s WORD in times of sleeplessness, sickness, and pain. I shared the WORD of God with the doctors and nurses in the hospital minutes after I was released from the ventilator. God’s WORD sustains me, and I thank God for the revelation of His WORD! Jesus said, “It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing. The words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life” (John 6:63). I am alive and thankful because of God’s WORD in me.
Thankful for the Unity and Harmony!
Psalm 133, one of the Psalms of Ascent, speaks of the blessed unity of the people of God: “Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity! It is like the precious oil upon the head, running down on the beard, the beard of Aaron, running down on the edge of his garments. It is like the dew of Hermon, descending upon the mountains of Zion; for there the Lord commanded the blessing—Life forevermore.”
Unity begins at the altars of home. We as a family prayed since the early days: “Lord, please grant us the same anointing from the head of the household to everyone in the family.” It is not only prayer but dedication to live lives with God’s Word, prayer at the altars, and communication of God’s greatness with contentment that led us to enjoy the “commanded blessing of God – Life forevermore.”
The success, growth, and blessing of everyone in our family are indicative of the sacrifice, submission, and obedience to God by each one. I thank God for my family that has grown to love God and be dedicated to Him. THE BEST IS YET TO COME! I am thankful for the peace, unity, and harmony in the family!
Thankful for the Fellowship!
Apostle Paul: “I thank my God upon every remembrance of you, always in every prayer of mine making request for you all with joy, for your fellowship in the gospel from the first day until now, being confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ; just as it is right for me to think this of you all, because I have you in my heart, inasmuch as both in my chains and in the defense and confirmation of the gospel, you all are partakers with me of grace” (Philippians 1:3-7).
Since we received our callings in 1989, while it was clear that we would not pastor churches, Hema and I still subjected ourselves to a group of people in godly fellowship and prayer. While the members have changed, we still have a Prayer Team today that we are accountable and transparent to for all our spiritual needs. Until we built the Global Prayer Center, we prayed in our living room, churches, and other places. We had grown tremendously in the prayer support of the saints, while the members also had grown to higher levels in God. A whole team of prayer warriors showed up at the waiting room of the emergency floor of the hospital when I suffered cardiac arrest. They were instructed by the Spirit of God to pray from 2:30 AM to 4:30 AM on November 1, 2025, while at the same time, my pulse rate climbed to over 200, and the doctors were suspecting attacks on my heart at any moment. As soon as the prayer ended by the Prayer Team at 4:30 AM, the beeping and the alarms stopped to the amazement of the doctors and the nurses. I am thankful for the prayer support with agreement by a team of dedicated prayer warriors. Jesus reminds us of the power of prayer with agreement: “Assuredly, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven. Again, I say to you that if two of you agree on earth concerning anything that they ask, it will be done for them by My Father in heaven. For where two or three are gathered together in My name, I am there in the midst of them” (Matthew 18:18-20).
God is no respecter of persons. However small your team of prayer is, for as long as there is unity, dedication, agreement with God and each other, there is POWER in prayer and fellowship! But you are very POOR, however big you are in the structure of the organisation of your ministry, if YOU DO NOT HAVE A DEDICATED TEAM OF PRAYER TO SHARE YOUR BURDEN AND YOU, THEIRS!
Thankful for Worship!
“Enter into His gates with thanksgiving, and into His courts with praise. Be thankful to Him and bless His name. For the Lord is good; His mercy is everlasting, and His truth endures to all generations” (Psalm 100:4-5).
There is no entry into the gates of heaven without thanksgiving!
There is no admission into God’s courts without praise!
WE THANK GOD FOR WHAT HE HAS DONE FOR US!
WE PRAISE GOD FOR WHO HE IS!
Giving thanks and offering up praises to God are something we do here while we are alive, for the dead will not praise God: “The dead do not praise the Lord, nor any who go down into silence” (Psalm 115:17).
I cannot help but thank God every day, in various moments of the day, and praise Him for His grace, mercy, love, forgiveness, and justice that redeemed me to KNOW HIM and WALK WITH HIM!
I thank those around me, my family and friends, for the blessing they are in my life. I live every day that tomorrow is not mine to postpone things that I must do today, which includes praising, worshipping, appreciating, and being filled with gratitude for God and the people around me.
That which I appreciate in the Lord stays with me!
That which I take for granted is taken away from me!
WORSHIP USHERS ME INTO THE PRESENCE OF GOD, AND I AM FOREVER GRATEFUL!
Thankful for the Joy of the Lord!
Thanksgiving is an expression of JOY GODWARD! Therefore, it yields the fruit of JOY in my life as a fruit of the Spirit: “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness (meekness), self-control. Against such, there is no law” (Galatians 5:22-23).
The reason why many are lacking JOY in their lives is that there is no thankfulness in their hearts. Happiness is through happenings, but JOY is a force from heaven that fills us for as long as we have a thankful heart to appreciate, adore, and worship God for all that we have received! AS WE REACH HEAVEN WITH THANKFULNESS, HEAVEN REACHES BACK TO US WITH JOY!
Thankful for My Calling!
“And I thank Christ Jesus our Lord who has enabled me, because He counted me faithful, putting me into the ministry, although I was formerly a blasphemer, a persecutor, and an insolent (violently arrogant) man; but I obtained mercy because I did it ignorantly in unbelief. And the grace of our Lord was exceedingly abundant, with faith and love which are in Christ Jesus. This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief” (I Timothy 1:12-15).
I do not have a testimony of Apostle Paul, but my life before Christ was equally miserable, chaotic, and bad. Though my mother told me through her vision before her first pregnancy that she would be the mother of four sons and that the firstborn (me) would serve the Lord to the nations, I never believed it until God came after me with His matchless mercies and grace to capture me. He did not abandon me but chose me as His servant. I AM FOREVER GRATEFUL FOR HIS CALLING UPON MY LIFE! MY PREVILEGED POSITION IS MY CALLING AS “GOD’S SERVANT,” AND I AM SO THANKFUL FOR IT.
Apostle Paul reminds me every day: “For you were bought at a price; therefore, glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s” (I Corinthians 6:20). “You were bought at a price; do not become slaves of men” (I Corinthians 7:23).
I am thankful for life from death!
I am thankful for the knowledge of knowing my God!
I am thankful for God’s Salvation, His WORD, His Holy Spirit, and His Guidance!
I am so thankful for the unity and harmony within my family!
I am blessed and thankful for the fellowship of saints around me!
I have the Joy unspeakable!
I am thankful that I am God’s servant!
Prayer
“Heavenly Father, I thank You for being my Father through my Lord Jesus. I am Yours, and Yours alone. In Your Precious Holy Name, Amen!”
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John Jeyaseelan
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