Being Near to God

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Psalm 139:7 says "where can I go from your Spirit, where can I flee from your presence?" What we see here in this text along with many other texts is the reality of divine imminence. The truth that God is here. Wherever you are, God is near. The reality that no person is nearer or farther from God than another person.

And yet the reality is that Christians can live and their experience can be as if this truth were not so. In Gen. 28:16 Jacob admitted that he did not realize the presence of the Lord was where he was. That was his trouble, and for many of us today it may be ours.

Do you live as if God were near? What difference might this be making in our lives?

And yet knowing that God is near is not all there is to be experienced. We are reminded that the presence and the sense of or realness of that presence are different things. To be sure there can be the one without the other. And that may be the experience of many of us today. Beyond simply knowing God is near, do you live in the active awareness of the presence of God? If so, you will experience this truth of His presence in a whole new way. Being aware of His presence and celebrating that through active obedience and worship takes our lives to a whole different place.

This one truth could be the difference between a nominal Christian life and the life of a believer whose face radiates from Him being near and personally experiencing this.

God is here believer and desires to be known in deeper ways by His creation. His nature is to reveal Himself, and He has done that thru Christ and this is recorded in the Word. And yet even still today He desires to be known well and intimately by His people, not with new revelation, but experiencing what we know about God in a deeper way. But we must seek Him in order to experience this.

Heb. 11:6 states "and without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of those who seek Him".

Is that you believer? Are the one who it can be said is a "seeker" of God? Moment by moment sensing His divine presence? Do you experience His presence moment by moment? Coming to know Him more intimately and with a deeper understanding? Have you experienced the reward of this?

God desires an intimate relationship with His creation. That we become more and more increasingly aware of His presence and love for us and His desire for fellowship with us. And the difference between a nominal Christian life and one whose face glows from having been with God is not up to God, but up to us. For God has made Himself available to us, He has made a way for us to boldly enter into His presence as we saw in Hebrews 10:19, but how we respond is up to us.

Seek God. Live in His presence every moment. Cultivate this posture. And enjoy Him no matter what we face. Don't settle for reading our chapter, having short devotions, rushing in and rushing out, attending meeting after meeting hearing of other's experiences with God, thinking this will satisfy our longing souls and even God Himself.

The results of this are everywhere in and around us. Shallow lives, hollow philosophies of religion without personal knowledge and experience. Don't settle for less than knowing God personally and deeply. Don't be like Jacob when he didn't realize God was in the place where he was.

Trust God at His promise, that He is a "rewarder of those who seek Him". Run to God and experience Him and His presence in a fresh new way. You will be delighted with what you find. We have the ability and privilege to know Him if we will respond in faith to His invitation and seek Him diligently.

May that be you today and moving forward.