Draw Near To God--4

      James 4:8 “Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you.”

   This article will conclude the four-part series on drawing near to God. The consistent lesson of the preceding three articles has been that in order to draw near to God one must find out where He is. So far, we have learned that God is in His creation, in His word, and in the church, the body of His only begotten Son. In this article we will look at passages that show God is in heaven, His dwelling place.

   In the midst of listing the numerous laws contained in the Law of Moses, Deuteronomy 26:15 says, “Look down from your holy habitation, from heaven, and bless your people Israel and the ground that you have given us, as you swore to our fathers, a land flowing with milk and honey.” Heaven is the holy habitation of God. Solomon, when he dedicated the temple, in 1 Kings 8:30 said, “And listen to the plea of your servant and of your people Israel, when they pray toward this place. And listen in heaven your dwelling place, and when you hear, forgive.” Heaven is God’s dwelling place. Cautioning his readers regarding their speech, the preacher in Ecclesiastes 5:2 wrote, “Be not rash with your mouth, nor let your heart be hasty to utter a word before God, for God is in heaven and you are on earth. Therefore let your words be few.”

   God dwells in heaven. That is where He is. If we would draw near to Him, then we must have heaven as our goal and be ever striving to get there. All of our time, energy, and our physical resources should be mere tools that help us on the road to heaven. That statement is not made to teach us that we should turn over all of our assets to some sort of central treasury. But it is stated to teach that we will have difficulty drawing near to God in heaven if we hold back from a total commitment to Him.

   How do we draw near to God in heaven? We draw near to God through prayer. When Jesus taught his disciples to pray in Matthew 6:9 He began, “Pray then like this: “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name.”  Jesus knew where God, the Father, was and where prayer should be directed. If our prayers are to be an avenue whereby we draw near to God, then we need to direct those prayers to God in heaven. In Psalm 18:6, having been rescued by God from the hand of Saul, David wrote, “In my distress I called upon the LORD; to my God I cried for help. From his temple he heard my voice, and my cry to him reached his ears.” 1 Peter 3:12 shows how receptive God is to the prayers of the righteous. “For the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous, and his ears are open to their prayer. But the face of the Lord is against those who do evil.”

   In Jeremiah 29, God sent a letter to the exiles in Babylon instructing them to be good citizens of whatever city they found themselves in during the exile. They were to build houses, rear families, plant gardens, and seek the welfare of the city in which they lived. In this letter God told them that at the end of the seventy years, “Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will hear you. You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you, declares the Lord.” (Jeremiah 29:12-14)

   God is on His throne in heaven always attuned to those who pray in an effort to be nearer to Him. “But for me it is good to be near God; I have made the Lord God my refuge, that I may tell of all your works.” (Psalm 73:28)