Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. - James 4:8
These words from the the book of James in the New Testament have been of great importance to me since I first read and internalized them back in my youth. God gives us a promise here--one of many incredible promises in the book of James--that His presence is available to those who will seek after Him. This verse reaffirms another verse from the Old Testament which I have also loved since my youth...
You will seek Me and find Me when you seek for Me with all of your heart. - Jeremiah 29:13
So what does it mean to "draw near to God" or to "seek God"? This is a great question because these terms can seem opaque and not achievable since God is God and we are not. Yet, God has given all mankind a pathway to come near to Him through Jesus Christ, His Son. Sadly, many folks, even those who have believed in Jesus for salvation from their sins, struggle daily due to an absence of God's presence in their lives.
This is where the ancient practice of Lent comes in and can provide you and I in 2014 a wonderful opportunity to draw near to God. The author of Hebrews, after discussing the amazing glory of God and the grace of God given to us in Christ Jesus, exhorts us to seek after God..
Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.
-Hebrews 12:1-2
We are instructed to "lay aside" those things that get in the way, weigh us down, distract us, consume our time and affections, in order that we may run the race God has set before us...looking to Jesus. The world in which we live is always competing for that which is most valuable to us...our time and our affections.
Part of the expectation of being a Christian and following Jesus is to willfully deny ourselves of the lesser things we "want" so that we will have space and hunger enough to "want" and "desire" Jesus and communion with God through His Holy Spirit. Because we are human and our lives fill up with lesser stuff, we must make room and put aside these things because God is not going to squeeze Himself into the cracks of what is left.
So on this Ash Wednesday, maybe God is calling you to draw closer to him with tangible steps that:
- combat our natural desires and impulses...
- and tell ourselves and Him that we are serious in our desire to be closer to Him.
And he said to all, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny
himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. - Luke 9:23
