Hi friends,
Recently a new member emailed me this question:
I was wondering, no matter what, how I can be close to God.
If so, how do you know you are close?
There are so many good ways to answer this question from the Scriptures. But the verse that comes to mind today is James 4:8,
Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you.
In other words, God constantly pursues us with his love (we call it God’s uncommon pursuit).
The only question is: are we responding to God’s love with faith and a desire to be close to God?
So, how do we draw near to God? Here are some practices that I’ve found helpful:
- Reading the Bible
- Talking with God (“prayer”)
- Listening to and singing along to worship music
- Going to church
- Participating in a Bible study
- Writing down my honest thoughts (Spiritual journaling)
But this raises the question: how do we know that we are close to God?
It starts with faith. What is faith? It sounds like this…
- I know that God loves me.
- I trust that God is with me
- I believe that Jesus is my Lord and Savior
- I want to know God more
- God, I love you
Sometimes, but not always, trusting God leads to an emotional experience of God’s nearness. For instance, when I first prayed to God, I felt an unbelievable joy beyond any experience I’d ever had. For an entire evening at church, I worshipped God with heartfelt joy.
At other times, God’s presence feels more like a quiet, gentle nearness.
I’ve heard people describe it as a sense of inner peace that goes beyond any circumstances.
One of the best tests? We see our lives transformed. We start to love God and love our neighbors. To be clear, it is not that we do these things so that God loves us. Rather, because we are connected to the Triune God of love, we are transformed by his grace to love God and love others.
For me, those are the two essentials: a faith in God that leads to faithfulness.
I’d love to hear how you would answer this question.