“How can I connect with God?” Do you feel disconnected from God? Many do. Most people would like to get closer to God. Drawing near to God is necessary to salvation and thus to the Christian life.
God is near. Anyone can draw near to Him, then He will draw near to them (Jas 4:8). The apostle Paul revealed that God is not far from anyone no matter where they live or in what time. Everyone can grasp for Him and find Him (Acts 17:24–28). The times and the boundaries of our dwellings have been set and established by God for this very purpose.
God wants you to find Him and has blessed all people everywhere to be able to do that. From the Siberian wildernesses to the South American rain-forests, everyone can find God. Jesus promised, “Seek and you will find” (Matt 7:7). Everyone can see God’s invisible attributes of His eternal power and divinity so that they are without excuse (Rom 1:20).
When people desire to draw closer to God, they are wanting communion, fellowship, and reconciliation with God. Christ’s death, burial, and resurrection was to do exactly that by reconciling God and man through Christ.
Here are five actions to draw closer to God:
1) Draw near to God by humility.
Most people professing to be Christian are not truly following Christ because they refuse to lower themselves and humble themselves to every word of Christ. The Spirit of Christ spoke in James 4:7–10 saying,
Therefore submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Lament and mourn and weep! Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and He will lift you up.
Humility is essential to submitting to God. Jesus is the author of salvation to those who obey Him (Heb 5:8–9). For the Spirit of Christ has revealed the words of Christ through His Apostles and prophets to transform us back into the image of God (2 Cor 3:18; Eph 3:3–5).
Humility helps believers overcome sin. Believers resist the Devil and he flees. Christians draw near to God by cleansing our hands, because all are sinners without Christ. If you are disconnected from God, this is because of one’s sins (Col 1:21). Believers draw near to God by purifying their hearts no longer remain doubled-minded. The Greek word for “double-minded” is disuchoi, which literally means “two-souls.” Sinners are double-minded who claim the Christian faith and yet practice evil.
James expressed, “Lament and mourn and weep!” Mourn for your sins. Who wants to mourn over their sins? Who weeps? Many look down on such humiliation. “Why should I feel sorrow for my sins? I’m forgiven. I will only rejoice!” No believer is forgiven if that person continues to sin (Gal 5:19–21; 1 John 2:3–4). Many people think that sorrow over sins is a bad thing. Few want to feel guilt. The Spirit of Jesus Christ instructs, “Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and He will lift you up” (Jas 4:10). Christ’s teaching is clearly revealed through Paul in 2 Corinthians 7:10 saying, “For godly sorrow produces repentance leading to salvation, not to be regretted; but the sorrow of the world produces death.” If believers would humble themselves, then they would have a lasting joy. Jesus will lift the lowly up.
What does it mean to be humble? To be humble means to make yourself low. The original words are used for mountains being brought low in Luke 3:5. Christ being in the form of God came in the likeness of man (Phil 2:8). Believers must lower themselves before God to draw near to Him. James taught, “Cleanse your hands” and “purify your hearts.” These phrases mean the same, and these actions are the result of humble submission to God. This is how believers come near to God, and this is how Christians first come near to God in salvation. Christians purify their souls by obeying the truth (1 Pet 1:22–23).
2) Draw near to Christ by being crucified with Christ.
Many professing Christ feel disconnected from God and Christ. There is no connection for them. What are they to do? What have happened? Did God move? No. People move away from God unto other false gods and they worship their flesh, their eyes, and their pride.
What must believers do to move closer to Jesus? Believers draw near to Christ by taking up our cross daily. Jesus taught, “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me. For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will save it” (Luke 9:23–24; cf. Matt. 16:24–27). In other words, Paul depicted, “I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live in the faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me” (Gal 2:20).
When taking up one’s cross daily, that believer commits to death of personal wants and desires. The Christian has lost the limited life and gained eternal life. Because the Christian is dead and crucified, the believer is not ashamed of Jesus.
Christians are born again through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead (1 Pet 1:3). Christ washed believers with the water (Eph 5:26). Believers must be born of the water and the Spirit as Jesus instructed (John 3:5; Titus 3:5). Just as Noah’s family was saved through the water, Peter says that baptism now saves us through the resurrection (1 Pet 3:21). When buried with Christ in baptism, believers are raised with Christ from that burial into the newness of life (Col 2:12–13; Rom 6:3–7). This is where the believer is crucified with Christ, and furthermore, continues to put to death evil (Col 3:1–3; Gal 5:24).
3) Draw near to God by hungering for righteousness.
When believers thirst for the life and the righteousness in Christ, all they want is get closer to Him. Jesus revealed in John 6:35, “I am the bread of life. He who comes to Me shall never hunger, and he who believes in Me shall never thirst.” Jesus expressed, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink.He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water” (John 7:38–39). For Jesus said, “My words are spirit and life” (John 6:63). Therefore, Jesus revealed, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, For they shall be filled” (Matt 5:6).
Humility brings believers to the Scriptures. Look at what Jesus proclaimed in John 14:23, “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our home with him.” People come to God in loving obedience, and then God and Christ comes to them and makes Their home with them.
Remember Christ’s great invitation:
Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am meek and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light. (Matt 11:28–30)
However, many professing the Christian faith do not truly come to Christ. They resist Him in resisting His words. They neglect to “observe all things” that He has commanded (Matt 28:20).
4) Draw near to God by overcoming evil.
What hinders many from drawing closer to God? This goes back the fall of man. Sin separates humanity from God. “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Rom 3:23). “The wages of sin is death” (Rom 6:23). “Death spread to all men, because all sinned” (Rom 5:12). This death is a separation from God and something that will carry over into “everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of His power” (2 Thess 1:7–9). The Spirit spoke through Isaiah 59:1–3,
Behold, the LORD’s hand is not shortened, That it cannot save; Nor His ear heavy, That it cannot hear. But your iniquities have separated you from your God; And your sins have hidden His face from you, So that He will not hear. For your hands are defiled with blood, And your fingers with iniquity; Your lips have spoken lies, Your tongue has muttered perversity.
Sin alienates people from God (Eph 4:19; Col 1:21). Inventing one’s own righteousness does not reconcile anyone to God, but Christ who is sinless overcame death. Jesus revealed in John 3:20, “For everyone practicing evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed.” To connect with God, humanity can only become reconciled in Christ. Romans 5:10 affirms, “For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life.”
However, some try to retain “a form of godliness” (2 Tim 3:5), so these draw near to God in a vain way. These wonder why they are not close to God and they wander why they do not feel connected to God. They say one thing and stand away from God with another life. Jesus quoted Isaiah in Matthew 15:8–9, “These people draw near to Me with their mouth, And honor Me with their lips, But their heart is far from Me. And in vain they worship Me, Teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.” There is no such way to draw near to God while neglecting worship, avoiding gatherings of prayer and study, forsaking the assembly, and neglecting communing with Christ in the Lord’s Supper (1 Cor 10:16–17, 21).
5) Draw near to God for salvation with a true heart.
Lastly and in light of the numerous references to drawing near to God, drawing near to God is the essential point in which we are saved and enter to His Church. This has been seen over and over again throughout the numerous verses. From humble submissive obedience to taking up the cross to loving God to being filled by Christ and to not worshiping our flesh, eyes, and pride; drawing near to God involves the simplicity of standing upon the Gospel by which all can be saved. As with many things in the Gospel, there are some things at the very heart of the faith that are essential and at the heart of faith by which believers live.
Draw near to God for salvation. The Spirit of Christ revealed in Hebrew 7:25, “Therefore He is also able to save to the uttermost those who come to God through Him, since He always lives to make intercession for them.” For God saves believers to the uttermost through Christ. Therefore, we draw near to God with a true heart. The Spirit declared in Hebrews, “let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water” (10:22). The true heart comes to God in faith being sprinkled by the blood of Christ when bodies being washed by pure water, which is baptism (Heb 10:19; Eph 4:4; 5:26). This is how people first draw near to God for salvation. Those lost were saved. Paul revealed, “But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ” (Eph 2:13).
Jesus declared in Revelation 3:20, “Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and dine with him, and he with Me.”
The Breath of God 
Thanks for your words, i really want to come close to God, am thirsty of him. Please, pray for me.
I certainly will. Please, pray for me. God bless you.
Hey Scott, I have been struggling with porn addiction for a while and it is ruining my life. I go for about a week without watching it I pray for strength and self control, but after that week i just collapse and give in. About two weeks ago I felt in one of those moods, but the lord gave me strength and I escaped the sin, I was filled with great joy and I almost went 2 weeks without watching porn, but today I collapsed again, and I feel worse than I ever have in my life. I cant sleep, I feel so far from the Lord, I feel extreme guilt and I am even questioning my salvation. I am too ashamed to tell my parents or anyone who can help that I know. Also I feel like the Lord is telling me to get away from my computer because I love my computer and I know I shouldn’t love the things of this earth, but I cant. I feel so lost If anyone reads this PLEASE pray for me please leave a reply if you have any wisdom or answers or anything else that might help.
John,
You have my prayers.
Guilt is good if it causes you to repent (2 Cor. 7:9-11). Confess to God, walk in the light, and you will be forgiven (1 John 1:7, 9). The best you can do is disconnect yourself from this sin. Make no provision for the flesh (Rom. 13:14). This is the answer. You can’t live next to a bar and overcome addiction to alcohol. You can’t live with a drug dealer and overcome drug addiction. You can’t live above a strip club and overcome sex addiction. If you can disconnect the internet and only use it in public places, then you should do that. You can the internet in coffee shops, libraries, etc. I encourage you to find a mentor or friend to talk to more about this. You are welcome to write me when you relapse and I’ll help as I can, but I think it would be better that someone personal helps you. All because your body has a desire does not mean it is for pornography. It is only going to hurt you. It is a sin against yourself (1 Cor. 6:13ff). The only other advice is to walk in the Spirit and you will not fulfill lusts of the flesh (Gal. 5:16ff). Get active every evening and weekend. Work at a food pantry or food-bank. Search your neighborhood for those in need and prepare bags to encourage people and give out bottled water. Help coach a sport or counsel at the YMCA. Do these in person. Don’t try to use the internet. I’m assuming you’re a teen and these are things that remember friends and I doing. The more you see people in need, then the more your mind will be to helping them rather than on other sinful distractions.
https://godsbreath.wordpress.com/2008/04/03/prevent-and-overcome-sexual-sins/
May God bless you.
Thank you so much for the advice! It is a real blessing.
I guess the link worked after I posted this. Go figure
I initially was going to write this all out but there is a better resource for you to read which is straight from Watchman Nee in a book called The Normal Christian Life. It is well worth your time to read the entire book but this chapter specifically deals mostly with what we are talking about here. If you are unaware about Mr. Nee, look him up on wikipedia or just google him. He wrote another book which spells such matters out in much greater and more meticulous detail called A Spiritual Man. Both books are very good but A Spiritual Man is much longer and covers in immense detail nearly every aspect and pitfall of a spiritual life. Here is the link to Ch. 2 of The Normal Christian Life:
http://www.neve-family.com/books/nee/normal/normal05.html
Well i guess it doesn’t want to be a link for some reason but anyhow, copy paste away and you’ll be there. I wanted to address Ezekiel very quickly though. The chapter you mentioned is most definitely referring to sins not being inherited from your father. You must understand that these are SINS as opposed to the SINFUL NATURE. Romans 5 says that one man’s disobedience made many sinners, and one mans trespass brought condemnation for all. They still inherited the sinful nature and condemnation from their father, but they would not be punished because of how their father acted in his sinful nature. In the same way, we now have the choice to follow Jesus or not and our children will not be punished because we chose to turn away from the free gift. In the old testament they were judged by their adherence to the law. Therefore a person could be punished because he was a scoundrel. In that time there was the idea that if a father was a sinful man, his son would be punished as well. God is demonstrating His fair judgment in that He will not punish the child due to the poor behavior of the father. The real point of this chapter is to say that we do not inherit punishment from our fathers due to their sin. The chapter does not specifically say that we do not inherit sin, although I used that as another way to say that we do not inherit the punishment of sin. Now it is important to note that this is under the old covenant and today Jesus is our measure of righteousness, not our actions. Through our actions, we demonstrate where our heart is at. One more point to throw in there: Romans 6:6 says that our old self must be crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing. In 6:7 we see that our death secures a freedom from sin. Why is this? It seems strange to say that if we are simply to overcome sin by effort in seeking God. What we see here is that we must die, and this death is because it is not our actions alone that are wrong and need to be rectified, but WE are wrong internally and the only way out of a fundamentally tarnished life is to die and start another one. What a predicament! But Christ again is the solution in that when He died, God put us IN Christ! We died with Him so that we might be born again with an eternal inheritance free of the power of sin and death. I feel as though each of these sentences deserves a chapter of explanation but I hope that this is adequate for now.
Hello, you certainly have a very accurate understanding of most of these things but there is one lacking element which is foundational to our understanding of sanctification and drawing near to God. This element is our inability to accomplish the described righteousness on our own. I highly encourage a greater emphasis upon our co-death with Christ enabling our walk in purity. You are most correct to say that we must purify ourselves! But an ample explanation of the foundation for this purification is of the utmost importance for in lacking this element you may unintentionally indicate that through a massive effort of our own we may begin to see the fruits of righteousness. For we have been crucified with Christ and it is no longer we who live but Christ who lives in us. If we are to accomplish this purity through great effort, we simply become very moral sinners. What is needed is a complete death of our own self in order that the struggle ceases to exist. Through Adam we inherited sin, through Christ we inherit righteousness and eternal life. We sin because we are sinners, we are not sinners because we sin. What is needed is a death of that sinner and thereby righteousness ensues through the second Man Jesus Christ by His death and subsequent resurrection. Let it be noted that we are still fully capable of sin! Should we sin, we should not regard ourselves as unsaved. Though Christ has secured our ability to die to sin, we must die to our will as well. May it be well known that only Christ can secure this freedom for us and that our work and effort will fail for most and if we happen to succeed, it is worthless if we are not accomplishing such freedom from sin in Christ. Can we even call a life free of immorality yet secured by our own effort freedom? No, it is then a glorification of ourselves, a turning to our own strength. When we pray for “strength” that we do not sin, we go about this the wrong way. We must ask for death, we must die to our will, our desire and seek a revelation of the Cross, seeing our co-death with Him as He suffered for us on Calvary. Thank you for your time.
I am certainly in agreement to dying to oneself as seen by part of these articles “How to Draw Near to God (Crucified with Christ) – Part 2 of 5“. Yet, I must respond to one point.
You affirm, “Through Adam we inherited sin, through Christ we inherit righteousness and eternal life. We sin because we are sinners, we are not sinners because we sin.”
Do you know which scripture refers to people inheriting sin while Ezekiel 18 says that do not inherit sin?
Do you know that “death spread to all people, because all sinned” (Rom. 5:12)?
We are born into a sinful world of death enslaved by the lusts of the flesh and eyes, and the pride of life (Rom. 5:12-21, 1 John 2:16). Remember that this article is about us drawing near to God as commanded in James 4:8, so that God draws near to us.
I give glory to God Almighty Maker of heaven and earth for the breakthrough HE gave me to access this life changing word from my iPad. My time will henceforth be meaningfully utilized. Praise GOD. Matthew Osunade, Nigeria.
very nice study case it helps me
Thank you. His words certainly help me on this matter.
Thank you for this article. I have been struggling with the act of spending time with God in that I haven’t done it in a really long time. I’ve just realized that I have been sinning, I didnt know being lazy was a sin but it most certainly is and it was hurtful to realize that. I want the enemy out of my head but I’ve been so complacent I don’t think I’ve ever bothered to fight him. I want to spend time with God but when I wake up I just lie there because I have no idea where to start or what to say. I’ve fallen behind in my studies because I tried so hard to be perfect that everything crumbled and now I’m a big mess. I’ve asked God to forgive my laziness but I still find myself going home and falling asleep not getting a lick of work done. I feel like complete disappointment. I know God still loves me. Im born again but I don’t want to go to hell because of laziness and pride. I’m not consistent in much of anything. How do I get back on track with God????
I encourage you to pray to God for wisdom about this and you will receive wisdom (Jas. 1:5). Also, use your gifts (Rom. 12:3ff). You must have some good to offer people whether you volunteer or do random acts of kindness. God has given you this to use (Jas. 4:17). I hope that you are not struggling with some sickness of fatigue, which I have struggled with but God has blessed me in different ways to overcome this. God loves you and He wants to use the gifts that He has given you. Keep reading the following articles, but also read this article https://godsbreath.wordpress.com/2011/11/01/created-for-christ/. I think this will motivate you.
God bless. I will pray for you. Please pray for me. I hope these articles help you and that you keep reading the Scriptures.
Thank you for this article. I have been struggling with the act of s
True. We can only have one priority, one Master, one purpose in life. We must loose our life (let God destroy everything in us that would make us proud) if we desire to gain it.
I don’t see anyone doing this. They want to look good in the eyes of man, – not God.
May God bless you, your writing encourages me in my journey. I’m asking God that He does everything necessary to make me live for Him alone. I can see my life crumble around me, and I say “God, YOUR will be done…”. Please pray for me, as I will pray for you.
Your sister in Christ, Linda
God bless you, Linda. Thank you for the prayers and I will pray for you. I’m glad that these words of Christ have encouraged you.