Do you ever think, “I feel so far away from God.\u00a0 I want to be close to God again.\u00a0 What do I have to do to get closer to God?”\u00a0 I have had these same thoughts over and over again.\u00a0 For many years, I depended on these feelings, and my relationship with God seemed up and down and up and down.\u00a0 I couldn’t maintain any consistency because I was depending on my efforts\/performance (reading my Bible, praying, going to church events & conferences, being Christ-like, attending Bible studies, etc.) to attain closeness with God.\u00a0 If I missed a quiet time, I felt far away from God.\u00a0 If I messed up, I thought God was punishing me by being distant.\u00a0 If I didn’t feel God’s presence, then I thought He didn’t care.\u00a0 If I didn’t finish all my tasks or do something the right way, then I felt like God was distant and didn’t hear my prayers.\u00a0 If I didn’t feel close to God when I prayed, then I thought He wasn’t listening.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Then God opened my eyes to the truth that as a believer, I can’t get any closer to God than I already am.\u00a0 He’s inside me–how can I get any closer than that?.\u00a0 I don’t have to do anything to get closer to God.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Do I always feel<\/em> his presence?\u00a0 No, but that doesn’t mean He’s not there.\u00a0 His presence in my life has nothing to do with my Christian performance, but everything to do with the cross of Jesus Christ.\u00a0 So now, when those feelings of distance come, I have a choice–believe the feelings or believe the truth, the promises of God:<\/p>\n “But the one who joins himself to the Lord is one spirit with Him<\/em>”\u00a0\u00a0(1 Cor 6:17)<\/p>\n “Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you<\/em>, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own?”\u00a0 (1 Corinthians 6:19)<\/p>\n “In Him, you also, after listening to the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation–having also believed, you were sealed in Him with the Holy Spirit<\/em> of promise,”\u00a0 (Ephesians 1:13)<\/p>\n “He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him<\/em>.”\u00a0 (2 Corinthians 5:21)<\/p>\n “for He Himself has said, ‘I WILL NEVER DESERT YOU, NOR WILL I EVER FORSAKE YOU,'” (Hebrews 13:5)<\/p>\n “Where can I go from Your Spirit?\u00a0 Or where can I flee from Your presence?\u00a0 If I ascend to heaven, You are there; If I make my bed in Sheol, behold, You are there.\u00a0 If I take the wings of the dawn, If I dwell in the remotest part of the sea,\u00a0Even there Your hand will lead me, And Your right hand will lay hold of me.”\u00a0 (Psalm 139:7-10)<\/p>\n Rebecca:-)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Do you ever think, “I feel so far away from God.\u00a0 I want to be close to God again.\u00a0 What do I have to do to get closer to God?”\u00a0 I have had these same thoughts over and over again.\u00a0 For many years, I depended on these feelings, and my relationship with God seemed up and down and up and down.\u00a0 I couldn’t maintain any consistency because I was depending on my efforts\/performance (reading my Bible, praying, going to church events & conferences, being Christ-like, attending Bible studies, etc.) to attain closeness with God.\u00a0 If I missed a quiet time, I felt far away from God.\u00a0 If I messed up, I thought God was punishing me by being distant.\u00a0 If I didn’t feel God’s presence, then I thought He didn’t care.\u00a0 If I didn’t finish all my tasks or do something the right way, then I felt like God was<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/anewlifedesign.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/anewlifedesign.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/anewlifedesign.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anewlifedesign.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anewlifedesign.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=57"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/anewlifedesign.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/anewlifedesign.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anewlifedesign.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anewlifedesign.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}