“Who is he who will devote himself to be close to me?” declares the Lord was the challenge that came from the Prophet Jeremiah. (Jeremiah 30:21) What a challenge to you and me! What better way could there be to live than to live close to God?
Recently, many have been honest with me. They tell me they “believe in God” or “fear God” or “worship God” but do not have a close personal relationship with God. Some say they go to church every Sunday (some for many years) but still have not experienced God in an intimate and spiritually satisfying way.
God is waiting for people who will devote themselves to being close to Him. He is desiring people who want to be close to him. This means you must invite him to the center of your life and share all of life with him. It seems that many people want to keep God locked in the Emergency Room and call him out when a crisis has arisen and then send him back when the situation becomes peaceful again. You will never be close to God if you only talk to him occasionally.
My wife and I are close because we have lived intimately together for more than 50 years. I am close to God because we have lived intimately together for nearly 63 years.
What is a devoted and close relationship? A daily and hourly conversation would be a part of it. A daily reading of his love letter (The Bible) to you. Walking in fellowship with him by constantly keeping all sins confessed.
Before Adam and Eve sinned and broke fellowship with God, they are pictured as walking with God (Genesis 3:8) in the cool of the day. Enoch is described in Genesis 5:24 as one who “walked with God”. Of course, two people cannot walk together unless they are of the same mind. (Amos 3:3)
“God, I want to live close to You! Forgive me of my sins and take
away any of the barriers that keep us apart. Amen”
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1 comment:
Hello Pastor Chilton.
I'm Rianne, and I was at the retreat in Maryland last weekend with SJBCI.
I was just stopping by to check out your blog.
Also, I have a question.
I try to get some of my friends to attend bible study. They come maybe once a month, if we're lucky. But then when it comes to retreats, like our youth retreat coming up this weekend at OCean City, they are so eager to jump aboard. I don't want to be judgemental and tell them straight out that they only join our youth when it comes to earthly benefits, but adults have started to realize this, too. How can I get them to genuinely want to be at our bible studies and really be close to God without overdoing it?
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