3 Ways to Get Close to God When You Feel Far Away
12 Ways to Get Closer to God Right Now
50 Ways to Get Closer to God
These are some of the top results online for how to get close to God. There are over 2 billion answers so, who is correct?
How close are you to God? One of our staff, Mike Sayler, shared a beautiful illustration. Hold your hands pointing straight up. Use the distance between your hands to describe how close you believe you are to God. What do you see?
I am delighted to share with you the number one proven way to get close to God. Believe in Jesus Christ as your Savior and you are immediately as close to God as you will ever be. God is in you and you are in Him. You cannot get any closer than that. Look at these Scriptures about you being in Christ and Him being in you.
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. (2 Corinthians 5:17) I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. (Galatians 2:20) These truths are repeated many times in Scripture.
You may be wondering about 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. This book was written to Jewish people whom James exhorted to give up their allegiance to the Law as their hope for salvation and to instead, believe in Jesus Christ alone. Many Jewish people in his day were struggling to do this. Thus, they were double-minded.
What do we make of Hebrews 4:16? Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need. This is not a matter of getting close to God and His throne but rather a recognition that because of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, the Great High Priest, when we fail, sin, or are struggling, we can confidently talk to Him our God. He loves us and is sitting on a throne of grace, not of judgment.
Recently, I wrote the following. “I enjoy using your Bible app almost every day. So, I would like for you to consider something. I have seen you use the term ‘get closer to God’ several times this past year. However, because Christ is in us and we are in Him, we cannot get any closer than that. When we pray, read the Bible, sing praises to God, and do other things, we may at times feel closer to God. In the same way, when we fail or sin, we may not feel close to God. The good news is that we are always close to Him and there will never be a separation from Him in this life and the one to come.”
