Drawing Near God

If you carefully read the Letter to the Hebrews, you will find multiple calls for us to draw near to God or to the throne of God.  James echoes the same call: “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 ESV).  I’ve found the admonition a wise one to follow.  I’ve practiced it and preached it.

But “draw near to God, and he will draw near to you” is not the whole truth.  Oh, it is true, at least it has been in my life; but there is something truer and more amazing: God draws near us!  That’s the gospel—the good news about Jesus and the Good News that Jesus is.  God draws near us!  Were this not true, I’m not sure where I would be. 

Of course we can’t become apathetic to the extent that we just leave it all up to God.  God does expect a response from us.  Yet my experience tells me that God is slow to accept negative responses from us.  Perhaps he hears our “no” and knows that we speak it out of fear or out of disbelief that God could care about us or out of an immaturity that mistakes our wills for God’s will.

God does not give up!  Knowing this to be true in my own experience, I celebrate the image of Jesus as the high priest “designated by God” (Hebrews 5:1-10).   Perhaps this sense of God pursuing me, of never giving up on me, comes because Jesus, my priest and your priest, is continually interceding in our behalf. 

It is the Good News: the One who bids us draw near draws near to us.  The one who bids us be pure in our commitment becomes the One who prays for us and makes it possible for us to draw near to the God who draws near to us.  Amen and amen!