Made Near
But now in Christ Jesus you who formerly were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. Ephesians 2:13[1]
Far, Far Away
Have you ever been separated from a loved one? Imagine the feeling of the families of soldiers in the Vietnam war. There was no way for them to get in touch with their loved ones. Letters were not a sure way of communicating. Many would listen to the radio each night in order to hear if their husband, their father, their son had been killed. Even more painful than their absence must have been the great fear that they may be uncomfortable, injured or even killed.
Yet there is another way to be far from someone. This can happen in a number of different ways. Perhaps there is someone in your life for whom you share a mutual distaste. For one reason or another you are unable to draw close to this person, you simply don’t get along, you are repugnant to each other. Though you may see this person every single day you find that you are so far separated in your relationship with this person that you may as well be on the other side of the world. There are many variants of this. Perhaps there is someone you want to be close to, yet they don’t seem to want to be close to you. This is a terrible and painful experience.
Far from God?
So we can think of some ways in which we can be far from other people, but what about our relationship with God. First we must ask what relationship we were meant to have with Him. The account of our creation tells us much about God’s intentions for us.
Then the LORD God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being. Genesis 2:7
Man is the only animal who gets this treatment from God. Man was formed from the dust and then God placed His lips to man’s nose and intimately and personally breathed His life into Adam. It is intimate and near. Genesis 3:8a says: “They heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day…” God was accustomed to spending time with them each day. He wanted a deep and vital relationship with His special creatures. However, the fall broke that relationship. Adam and Eve were cast out of the garden and were no longer perfect in their innocents. They were broken, and when they had children, they also were broken (Genesis 5:3).
Because we are from that long line of broken people we find that we are positionally stuck in a place that is far from God, but what about our own experience? We find that, apart from Christ, all that we could do was sin and act in ways that are shameful to us. We were pushed farther and farther away from God and just like Adam and Even in the Garden we hid ourselves from God. We were far away in both ways. We were far from God because we were born as imperfect sinners, we continue to flee from God by our thoughts, words and actions, because we are so ashamed of ourselves.
Does anybody know the way back?
Humanity is thus in a difficult position. He is unable to reach God and unable to clean himself up. He is in a great deal of trouble. He is far from God in his position and far from God in His condition. What is God’s answer? GRACE! God answers every human deficiency with the same answer – grace, grace and grace again! Grace is God’s free gift, with no strings attached, and it is by His grace that God takes us and draws us near to Him again. By His grace he takes us back to the place that he intended for us to be, near to Him, and in an intimate relationship with Him. How does this work?
Our Eternal Positional
Before we put our faith in Jesus we were far from Him in our very position. We were, in our position, still stuck in Adam. We were still far from Christ, still stuck in our basic sinful and rebellious position. When we put our faith in Christ we were placed into Him, and we were given a place to sit in him. Right next to the Father. (Romans 6:1-11; Ephesians 1:3-14; 2:6). That’s a big deal. The second we put our trust in Jesus Christ we were given an eternal position at the right hand of God. So now we are close to Him, but remember being in the same proximity doesn’t mean the relationship is now on autopilot and we don’t need to think about it ever again. Quite to the contrary, there is an aspect of this that deeply affects our day to day position.
Our Daily Condition
So this takes us to our day to day walk in our lives. There is an aspect of this nearness to God that is true of us whether we know it and feel it, or not. That is the positional side. We sit next to someone our whole lives, but if we never interact with them they will remain to us, a stranger. Let’s look at another purpose statement: “what we have seen and heard we proclaim to you also, so that you too may have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ.” 1 John 1:3 God wants to have fellowship (an active daily relationship) with us.
So where do we go from here?
Imagine you are a girl at a dance. You are infatuated with a young fellow and yet he is all the way across the room. Nobody has asked you to dance all night and you are quite certain that he sees right through you. To make matters worse you’re hair has gone flat and you spilled a drink on your clothes, thus making you look a complete mess. Then the guy you are interested in walks across the room and asks for a dance. What do you do? The thoughts race across your mind…get cleaned up first? Suggest next time? Just make a break for the door? Of course all of those ideas are silly…the answer is to dance with him!
This may be a picture of what Scripture is talking about when it says “Draw near to God and He will draw near to you cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded.” James 4:8. We know that God’s desire for us is to have a deep, vital and active relationship with Him. He has cleaned our hands, he has purified our hearts and we have the choice of how to live as a result. We can draw closer to Him in relationship (thereby forsaking the sinful things of the life that we left behind) or we can continue to live as if it weren’t so. Hebrews 10:22 tells us: “let us draw near with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.” We have been sprinkled clean and washed pure, all that is left to believe that God has cleansed us from our sins and draw near to Him in relationship.
Conclusion
We are already near to God in our position, but how to draw near to Him in the conditional sense? Well, how do you draw near to anyone in relationship?
Talking – Just like you would talk to anyone you are intimate with we must talk with God. The word that is often used for talking with God is prayer.
Listening – If you never listen when someone else talks you will never know that person very well. God’s method of speaking to us is through the Bible, when we read the Bible we find out what God has to tell us about Himself, about ourselves, about His love for us and the freedom that He would have us live in.
Spending time in groups – Usually we find that when we hang out with our dearest friends altogether we are even more excited about our friends. Spending time with other Christians is an important part of drawing near to God. We find that when we are in community and fellowship with other believers we get to see that the same God who is working in us, and is faithful to us, is also working in others and is faithful to them.
Introducing them to others – a friend who you really love and are not ashamed of will surely go with you anywhere. Because you know what a great friend he is, you may want to introduce your friend to others who are not yet acquainted with him. We sometimes call this “evangelism”. You will grow in your relationship with Christ as you share Him with others in your life.
Trust – If you don’t trust your friend, what is the point. Surely you have a prioritized list of friends that you trust more and less, and you show them exactly as much of yourself as you believe you can trust them with. God wants you to trust Him with your whole life. Your entire life! From the smallest detail to the greatest disaster, God wants to trust you that He is “working all things together for good” for you (Romans 8:28).
Draw near to Him today.
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