Are you near?

It’s both wonderfully encouraging and devastatingly convicting to understand that my relationship and closeness to God completely hangs on my shoulders. God first loved us, and sent Christ as a ransom against our sins. This is a free gift in Grace displaying the Love of God. While extending us His patience and Mercy, he remains completely Just by pouring out His wrath for sin. Jesus, being a perfect sacrifice, was able to endure the full might of God’s judgment for our sins, and come out victorious, giving us Eternal Life by conquering death. He did all that...while we were undeserving. If we feel far from God, He is not the one who moved. We moved. We have either allowed become stagnant through a lack of discipline in our Bible reading, prayer, and worship of Him, or, like the parable suggests, have allowed the world and its concerns to grow up around us like thorns and thistles choking out the fruit of The Vine to which we are grafted. Simply stop, turn away from this world and back toward God, and you will find Him immediately; right there with open arms, and like the father of the Prodigal, run to embrace you with His Spirit. “Draw near to God, and He will draw near to you.” James 4:8

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