Drawing Closer to Him

The strongest feature of true, saving faith is a desire to draw closer to him. “For Christ also suffered once for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive by the Spirit” (1 Peter 3:18, NKJV).

Why did Jesus suffer and die? Why did he provide justification for us? Why is his perfect righteousness accounted to us? It was that he might bring us to God. It’s all about intimate fellowship with the Father.

When Adam sinned, he lost the most precious thing any man or woman could possess: intimacy with God. Sin drove Adam away from closeness with the Father, and he actually hid from God’s presence. Ever since, whenever man sins, he has a tendency to run and hide just as his forefather Adam did.

The reason God so hates sin is because it robs us of his fellowship. He created us for intimacy with him, and he so yearned for our fellowship that he sent his own Son to die on a cross, to justify us and tear down the walls that blocked that intimacy from taking place.

The power of justification is that it made a way back to God’s original purpose in creating man: fellowship with the Father.

This present world is full of evil, slander, satanic lies, seductions, guilt, fear, condemnation; all of it is designed by Satan to keep us feeling unworthy to come into God’s presence. The devil would have us hide as Adam did to keep us from intimacy with God.

We have been delivered from all that. We have a right to God’s presence, an invitation to his throne, because we stand with a perfect righteousness before him. God invites us to the throne of grace because he accepts us as being holy in Christ. Our sin is under the blood, forgiven, and now we have a right into his holiness.

Beloved, Jesus did not die just to take you to paradise. He died so that every day you could live in beautiful, close fellowship with the Father.