How Close Do You Want To Be To God?
There are times in the life of a Christian when certain passages of Scripture become especially meaningful. One of those passages for me is Psalm 91:1-2,
“He who dwells in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty. I will say of the LORD, ‘He is my refuge and my fortress; my God, in Him I will trust.’“
The passage provides a promise to the person who chooses to dwell in the secret place of God, which speaks of the notion of closeness to him.
While in the Old Testament, access to the secret place of the Holy of Holies was restricted to one person on one day of the year, Christians today are not limited in this fashion. We have direct access to God through Jesus Christ. We can dwell in the secret place any time we want.
Our problem is that we are often content meandering on the outskirts, or watching other people dwell with God. For some reason, we seem to be afraid to truly dwell in close communion with God on a daily, even moment by moment basis.
Why is that?
Perhaps in one word, it is because of distractions. We are easily distracted from dwelling close to God. We see the lights, the glitz, the glamour, the exciting, the showy, the emotional, the frilly, and the easy things of life, and we are very quickly and easily drawn away from God to the things of this world.
This is not to say that all that is available to us on this earth is evil. God gives us things to enjoy, for sure. Yet we are distracted from the glory and beauty of the Creator while engaging in the things of the creation. We ascribe to the creation what is only true of the Creator. And so we wander from the communion with God that we so desperately need.
The truth is, that we are as close to God as we want to be. Our unwillingness to adopt a God-centeredness in our lives is the reason why we adopt the mindset of this earth, why we adapt to the ways of this earth, and why we come to believe that the ways and the mind of God are boring and not truly worth pursuing.
How close do you want to be to God? How much communion with God is too much communion?
James tells us to draw near to God and he will draw near to us (James 4:8).
- How much of our Christianity has been filled with the appearance of spirituality without the closeness to God that it so desperately needs?
- How much of our worship is taken up with our desire to feel good rather than an awareness of our desperate need to draw closer to God?
- How much of our day is filled with busy-ness and distraction, to the point that we say we don’t have time for God?
The answer to those three questions is probably “more than we want to admit.”
And we wonder why modern American Christianity is a mess!
O Christian, understand how desperately you need God today. Draw close to him. Learn to yearn for the secret place to be with the Most High God. Be aware of your need for God throughout your day as you parent your children, as you work with unbelievers, as you interact with your spouse, as you clean your house, as you work on the car, as you manage your finances, as you serve in your local church.
Do not neglect the necessity of being with God in his Word and in prayer. Enjoy the fellowship with God in close communion that is available to you because of Christ.
You are as close to God as you want to be today.
Taigen Joos is the pastor of Heritage Baptist Church in Dover, NH. He blogs here, where this article first appeared. It is republished here by permission.