We see in James 4:8 ‘Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded’. God wants us to come closer to God so that He can come closer to us because He loves us. I believe, God allowed the current Covid-19 situation so that we can come closer to him. We have to experience the true blessedness of His presence (nearness of God) in our life. Holy Spirit wants to show the glory of Jesus, He will show, our areas where we are not Christlike, there we will have repentance about our sins, brokenness, cleansing, weeping about our sins and fullness of Joy in our heart. When we see His glory, we will see ourselves and will have desire and cry from our heart, Lord I want to be like you. He wants us to grow from one degree of glory to another degree of glory. Are we experiencing that nearness of God? Do we have that desire in our life? Why we are lacking this? Bible says the main reasons is our sin.
We see in Isaiah 59:2: – Your iniquities have separated you from your God; your sins have hidden his face from you so that he will not hear.
In Isaiah 6:5, we see the glory of God in His presence. In Exodus 3:5 we see God showing to Moses what is hindering him from coming closer to God. God told Moses, you cannot come closer to me, the place you are standing is holy, remove your sandals. Similarly, God will show us to remove the dusty sandals in the form of pride, jealousy, complaining and murmuring attitude, anger, defilement of flesh and spirit, sins which entangles us in our lives. We cannot see these things with our naked eyes. We need to have the brokenness and the crushed spirit to see His glory.
Psalm 34:18 -The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.
In Exodus 33:14: – Then he said to Him, “If Your presence does not go with us, do not lead us up from here”. We see Moses is longing for His presence but he is not satisfied with it and further in verse 18 “Then Moses said to God, “I pray You, show me Your glory!”, he wants to see God’s glory. This should be our desire and prayer also, to open our eyes to see His glory in His presence and to reflect His glory in our lives.
In the new covenant life our desire to gain the glory of Lord , we see in 2 Thessalonians 2:14 (It was for this He called you through our gospel, that you may gain the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. ) the reason we were called, was to gain the glory of Lord Jesus in our lives so that we will be conformed to the likeness of Christ.
In Philippians 3:8 (More than that, I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish so that I may gain Christ) we see Paul urging us the same . We need to experience His presence, have His divine nature and beauty in our lives. In Psalms 73 we see Asaph’s honesty, for our encouragement. We see in V 28 “But as for me, the nearness of God is my good; I have made the Lord GOD my refuge, That I may tell of all Your works”. When he came to God’s presence, he could see the nearness of God, as his good. This is what we need to experience in our daily life.
In Hebrews 10:19-22 “19 Therefore, brethren, since we have confidence to enter the holy place by the blood of Jesus, 20 by a new and living way which He inaugurated for us through the veil, that is, His flesh, 21 and since we have a great priest over the house of God, 22 let us draw near with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water”.
Hebrews 4:16” Therefore let us draw near with confidence to the throne of grace, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need”.
Hebrews 7:25 Therefore He is able also to save forever those who draw near to God through Him, since He always lives to make intercession for them.
He is able to save us. Therefore, dear brothers and sisters, let us draw near to God. As Asaph says the nearness of God is good for me. May God bless us.
