Closeness with God
(Maintaining our relationship with Him)

Good morning everyone, MB here once again. This morning, during my alone time with God, I was thinking about the relationship that I have with him the closeness that I have with him and what it takes to maintain it. I was also thinking about how many people struggle to do this and the not so pleasant results of such a struggle.

First, what does it mean to be close to God? What does it look like? It might look somewhat different to everyone, but the core is the same. To be close to God means to feel his presence or at least to know he is with you beyond the shadow of a doubt through every second of your day. It means to know that he’s just a mere thought or prayer away. It means to be comforted and feel safe in the knowledge that the all powerful creator of the universe is surrounding you. He’s standing with you. He’s standing behind you. He’s standing in front of you. There’s no place where he isn’t. It’s knowing that you are so loved by him that he could, and would do almost anything for you.

Now, what does that sound like? To me it sounds like a very devoted husband to his wife minus the all powerful part of course. If you look at it, that way you see exactly what you have to do to maintain your closeness with God, to nurture your relationship with him. The bond of a husband and wife is such that if either one goes somewhere without the other, and they come back, smelling like another woman or another man depending on who left, it would hurt the one who was left behind. If I went out without my wife regardless of what I was doing, if I came back, smelling like another woman’s perfume regardless of the reason, it would hurt her. Same would go for me if the shoe was on the other foot.

If I decided to go out somewhere by myself, even if I didn’t come back smelling like someone else, I’m sure it would bother my wife somewhere deep inside and I know it would be the same for me. This world is full of opportunities for married people in particular to engage in extra marital activity. This most ungodly practice has ruined many the marriage, many a relationship, many a connection between men and woman. It does the same on spiritual levels, where God is the one you’re neglecting or worse, stepping out on.

I’ve shown you what it looks like in flesh and blood so now let me go over just a little bit of what it looks like spiritually to “step out”. You’ve dedicated your life to God, you promised to love and serve him for the rest of your days here on earth and in eternity. You say you’ve given your heart to him and you truly feel you have. You pray throughout your day every day, you read his word with every spare moment that you have, you seek to be in his presence perpetually, and you feel that you will never abandon him not only that you never will, but that you never could. then one day, you hit a rough patch in your life. A rough day, a rough week, a rough month, a rough year, a rough decade or two. In the beginning, you stayed close to God. In the beginning, you held fast to your connection with him, but it didn’t last long.

You got increasingly more focused on the worries that you had and all of the worldly things around you. You got increasingly focused on the fear you had of the future, and not the one who has already written it out for you. You got increasingly focused on your wants and desires instead of focusing on trying to discern the will of God at any given moment.  You stopped reading your bible, you stopped praying, you stopped worshiping. Because of all the cares that you now have in your mind, you’ve without realizing, turned away from God entirely.

One day, while walking alone spiritually… You come upon someone who claims to be a Christian and introduced you to something called “the new age”. They hand you a crystal and say it can help you, the hand you a book, not a Bible book on new age “healing techniques”. They tell you that the God that you claim to follow and the one that you once loved he’s just trying to control you. They tell you that he may have created you, but he has no right to rule you. They tell you that if he really loved you, he would set you free and give you the key to power and prosperity.

You know this is wrong, but your life is not what it once was. You have worries, you have fears, and you have cares that you have never had before. You’re no longer feeling God’s presence in your life let alone being presented with his abundance. For years now, you have been trying to pull yourself up by your boot straps and do it on your own. Pride has grown within you and you refuse to admit you were wrong and turn back to God.

Everything that this person who follows the new age is telling you sounds sweet to your ear, like a beautiful melody, melting your cares away. Every word that they have spoken to you is like a beautiful aroma, arresting your nose, hypnotizing you and drawing you closer. Before you know it, you have spent another decade away from God. You’ve spent this decade following the new age learning all there is to learn. The God you once new, the one true God who loves and desires you, it’s nothing but a distorted memory to you now, a shadowy figure of your past.

You don’t know it, but you have a new god now. It’s name is “self”.

This path that you now walk is the wrong path. It leads you further and further away from the one true God of the Bible. It leads you further and further away from your savior, Jesus Christ. Worst of all, it leads you closer and closer and closer still to an eternity in hell. All the while, God, whom you’ve pledged your life to, and who loves you dearly waits for you to come back to him. With eyes full of tears, he waits to hold you in his arms again.

I encourage you all who have read this far to examine your life, examine your relationship with God, examine your intimacy with him. Is it as strong as it could be is it slipping or has it already slipped? Keep him in the forefront of your mind. Keep your eyes fixed and focused on him and no one else. When you gave your life to him, he took that very seriously as should you. You formed a bond with him, a covenant, a marriage. Don’t step out on God. He certainly won’t step out on you.

-MB