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Getting Close to God

Some people get nervous when the conversation shifts to things that are relative. For them, only absolutes matter. If you can’t identify it, quantify it, and verify it, it’s suspect. But lots of things are legitimately relative. A change in perspective really does make a difference. Your point of view does determine your response to the facts.

The parent of a university student who is just entering the final year of her program may tell a friend, “My daughter is finishing off her degree.” At the same time, to the student herself, the end seems far away. All she can see is a mountain of work facing her in the next eight months. She wonders if she’ll be able to handle it all.

The military elite seated around a boardroom table in a meeting with senior politicians sees the end of the mission in 18 months as imminent. Meanwhile the recently deployed new recruit, separated from his wife and new baby, sees it as almost interminable.

To a child on his way to grandma’s house, the journey seems unimaginably long until he gets to her street and begins to recognize the local landmarks. Then, suddenly, it’s almost over.

Try to picture an astronaut visiting the International Space Station. Chances are, you think of that person as very far away. In fact, the Space Station orbits earth at only about 360 kilometres, a comfortable 3 to 4 hour drive on earth. It takes much longer to safely traverse the same crow’s flight distance through space and into the earth’s atmosphere than it does on the ground.

The Bible refers to relative distances in the spiritual realm. For example, Paul wrote to the church in Ephesus: “Now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. [Ephesians 2:13] the comparison here is between the time when Christians were once “far off” from God and their having been “brought near” by Christ.

Though it doesn’t specifically state it in this verse, our relative distance from God - far off or near - is determined by our response to the death of the Lord Jesus on the cross. Even though our physical location is exactly the same, the act of faith when we move from not believing in Jesus to trusting Him changes our spiritual location by a measureless amount.

When we change our perspective on the Lord Jesus Christ and shift to seeing Him as our personal Saviour, enormous changes take place. We move from being without hope to full of hope, from darkness to light, from death to life. That’s about as big a change as you can get!

When it comes to getting close to God, there’s a world of difference between being far off and heading away and being brought near by the blood of Christ.

Ron Hughes
© June 2008