Closer to God

March 21, 2023

From Jeff Freeman

For my quiet time in the mornings, I have been reading the Bible through yearly.  This is the 14th year of doing it.  It has been an awesome discipline that I was challenged to implement back at the beginning.  No regrets, that is for sure.

As you read the Bible through and then contrast God’s kingdom with the world’s (Satan’s) kingdom, one can’t help but desire for God’s kingdom to come and His will to be done.

Today, as we look at the state of the world’s kingdom, even aspects of the worldly kingdom are acknowledging that things are not good.  It is continuing to get worse and worse.  The Bible describes some pretty bad scenarios just before the glorious coming of Jesus.

Enough about the negative stuff though.  Why you might ask?  Well, because during that bad stuff, God’s people, those that are true followers of God, are moving towards God.

This movement seems to be caused by 2 things:

1. God is drawing His people closer to Him.  He knows that during the last moments of earth’s history, the only safety is close to Him.  He also knows that the closer we get to Him, the more we look, talk, act, and love like Him.  Praise God that He loves us enough to do this.  Without this, we are lost for sure.  Before moving to the 2nd thing, I just want to mention that God drawing His people has always been happening.  His drawing power & love for us has always been active and always there.  There has never been a time that He wasn’t already doing that.

2. The second thing that seems to cause this movement is God’s followers actively taking steps to move closer to God.  This movement is motivated by God’s love and drawing power first and foremost.  It is also motivated by God’s Spirit dwelling more and more in us.  There does seem to be a small part that each follower of God does though.  Our part seems to be a willingness to say “yes to being drawn closer to God”.  Our yes doesn’t seem to just be a verbal yes though.   It is a willingness to move when God’s Spirit opens a way for us to move away from where I am today or yesterday.  It is a choice to follow God’s leading farther and farther away from the world’s kingdom that could be hiding in our hearts/lives.  Remember, God knows that the only way we will make it through the end is close to Him.

As we look at the state of the world today, how close are you to God?  How much longer until the end, only God knows!  Our job during this time is to tell others how good it is to be close to God.  The closer we get to Him, the sweeter the experience is so the message the world desperately needs to have shared becomes more and more powerful.

Closer my God to Thee can truly be our mission today.  You willing?