Come near to God and he will come near to you.
I’ve always thought this statement to be a little bit odd. But then, I don’t think I have always thought about God the right way. If God is a stationary object, it makes sense (in a worldly sort of way) that if I get nearer to Him, He will be closer to me. But that is not what James says.
God doesn’t just wait for us to come to Him. He wants to be united with us. So he is very willing to come to us. Like the father in the parable of The Prodigal Son (Luke 15: 11-32) when God sees us coming home he comes out to meet us.
When James says “God opposes the proud but shows favor to the humble,” (See “Pride”) he is telling us something important about God. Only the humble can approach God. If we come to God with a stiff neck and a chip on our shoulder we will find ourselves fighting God. There is only room for one God and you and I are not him. We are made in his image, we are loved and cared for by him, but we are not him.
Pride is like the devil. In fact, pride is the hallmark of what being a devil is all about. Pride of self is the belief that we are important.
In the span of all creation, an infinite universe of stars and planets floating in a greater spiritual infinity, man is nothing. If it were not for the fact that God loves us we would have the same significance as the grains of sand on the beach. But God does love us. He wants to be near us. He wants us to love him back. That is why the first commandment is to love God above all else. When we do that, we open the door for God to come near. And when he is near, nothing else matters.
Application: This week be conscious of your need for God and see how he responds.
Food for Thought: Since God is not a physical being, what does it mean when James writes that he comes “near” to us?
God is omnipresent. This is more about our discovery that He will never leave us nor forsake us. We have times in our lives that we feel his presence more, and less, than other times, but He changes not and is the same yesterday, today and forever. Sometimes we think that we need Him less than other times because our pride will tell us that we can do without Him or with less of Him.
Excellent points JEC. Well said. He is not far from any one of us. If we feel far from God, He is not the one who moved. That is why if we draw near to Him He is there. I think that often He is just waiting for us to submit and humbly come to Him. The question is, why do I resist?
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