“Draw near to God, and He will draw near to you.” – James 4:8

GOD IS GRACIOUS in the many ways He speaks to us through the most commonplace ways of life. One particular occasion that I frequently recall, during my art college years, was in the midst of a busy crowd while trying to converse with one of my fellow students from a distance. No matter how much I attempted to lip-read, it was all to no avail until I came closer to actually hear what they were saying. Immediately, I was made aware of how similar it is in our walk with God; at a distance, and with all the distractions accumulating in our lives, it is virtually impossible to hear what God is saying to us until we draw near to Him.

The wonderful aspect is that as we draw near to Him, He simultaneously draws near to us. Granted that we may occasionally hear God faintly from a distance, but intimacy with God never flourishes that way but only as a result of a perpetual close walk with Him. Dispute it as much as we want, but after years and decades have rolled on, while we hold tenaciously to our ‘pet’ theological creeds, we will come to the sad discovery that we have not budged an inch forward in our personal knowledge of Him.

The apostle Paul’s chief desire was in knowing Christ, but that growth in the experiential knowledge of Him never came without Paul straining forward to the upward call of God in Christ Jesus (Philippians 3:13-14). This was in no measure to secure his salvation, but to taste the realities of it; it wasn’t law-works but the law of grace and faith working powerfully in Him; it was Paul working out his salvation with fear and trembling.

We can be as close to God as much as we want to. It was A.W. Tozer who said that “Before the Judgement seat of Christ, many Christians will hang their heads in shame because of all the unsearchable riches in Christ they failed to explore.” Of all the opportunities we squander and waste for the lesser things of this life, we ought to be sobered into greater love and aspirations for Him.

The Christian faith is a living faith because of the God Who lives eternally, and God still speaks today. Many of the Reformers and well known Puritans spoke of blissful communion with God; it is a two-way relationship and it is at our own loss when we close the door to such truths. “Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with Me” (Revelation 3:20). That is not a message to the world but to the church, to believers already in Christ. Furthermore, it is a message to believers who think they are doing quite alright, persuaded they are spiritually mature and not like other carnal churches, but the truth of the matter is shocking as we read in the preceding verses. 

With sadness, even after 18 years, I reminisce over a church, a body of believers I once knew dearly – a people I loved and among a people I grew spiritually. To this day, I am thankful to God for such fellowship, a fellowship with other believers I have never tasted since. By notorious and well respected leaders of other churches, it was said of that particular church, “You are a demonstrative New Testament church…You are marked in heaven, but be warned – you are also marked in hell.”

That church no longer exists. Pride, as tares, had been allowed to grow among the wheat. God is no respecter of churches, no matter how fundamental and sound in doctrine it may be, no matter how much talent and influence it may have and how ‘resourceful’ it feels in the hands of God. You can have every program under the sun in your church to entertain the bored; you can have mission outreaches across the world; you can have the youth flock like you’ve never seen before, but if you have not the presence of God in your meetings coupled with humility YOU HAVE NOTHING – NOTHING!

God is a jealous God and will not give His glory to another, and no matter how far down the road we may be in the faith, we will never be immune to pride’s temptation. It is so ingenious at disguising itself, that if we think we are humble, that monster still resides and reigns in our heart. Only a constant closeness to God will dethrone that sin that had Lucifer cast out of heaven. A constant closeness to Christ breeds humility, an atmosphere where the Holy Spirit is eager to rest. It is seeing our desperate need of Christ, that indeed, without Him we are nothing.