The Nearness of God

This Sunday we continued to ponder together the amazing truth that God delights in being near us. In deeply spiritual and mysterious language Paul talks about Christ living in us and that his life in us is our hope of glory (Colossians 1:25......)


I have been circling around this great truth the last three Sundays because I am convinced that we simply don’t ponder it enough; we don’t let it soak in. Of course, one of the reasons we are uncomfortable with the notion is because there is still a big part of each us who don’t relish the idea of God’s intimacy with us 24/7. I went so far this week to suggest that we are actually more comfortable with the idea of a God who is primarily motivated by a desire to punish people for wrong-doing than we are with a God who won't leave us alone until he has defeated every enemy of human flourishing that opposes God’s best for us. A God who delights in punishing and is primarily drive by a retributive pathos is a more familiar category for us than the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ. The former concept is more at home in our world of broken promises, vengeance, and a culture devoid of a passion to forgive and be reconciled. The God of the gospel, however, is in our business, reminding us that we are too good to indulge sin. He calls us to repent so we might have a deeper experience of the joys that he provides instead of settling for the cheap substitutes we often revel in.

Amazingly, a lot of Christians, or many of us at one time or another, have had a sub-Christian view of God. We have imagined God as driven primarily by a desire to punish. On this view, Jesus takes the punishment and we are off the hook.... “Thanks God!!!!! See you in heaven.”. But God is not primarily motivated by a desire to punish but a desire to make people whole. C.S. Lewis in the Chronicles of Narnia is so very effective in helping us get a glimpse of this aspect of God’s character. I know so many of you know this story well but here are the quotes relevant to the point I want to draw out:
Lucy asks Mr Beaver is "Aslan a man!" said Mr. Beaver sternly. "Certainly not. I tell you he is the King of the wood and the son of the great Emperor-Beyond-the-Sea. Don't you know who is the King of Beasts? Aslan is a lion, the Lion, the great Lion."
"Ooh," said Susan, "I thought he was a man. Is he - quite safe? I shall feel rather nervous about meeting a lion."
"That you will, dearie, and make no mistake," said Mrs. Beaver; "if there's anyone who can appear before Aslan without their knees knocking, they're either braver than most or else just silly."
"Then he isn't safe?" said Lucy.
"Safe?" said Mr. Beaver; "don't you hear what Mrs. Beaver tells you? Who said anything about safe? 'Course he isn't safe. But he's good. He's the king I tell you."

God is good but he is not safe. It is a risky business to meditate on the nearness, the intimacy, of God’s presence with us. When we do, pretty soon we discover that the parts of our lives we want to hide away from him are bare before him and we feel afraid. How should we respond to his relentless pursuit of us? Dare we ask him to take away our crutches and give us new legs to walk? How would we live with the real thing when we have dulled our senses with the ersatz pleasures of self-indulgence? Is the real thing big enough to satisfy? We all have parts of our lives we try to hide from God. This season of Lent, let’s be bold and ask God to tear us away from the God who leaves us alone and give us the God who won’t rest until we are perfectly human, robustly our true selves in Christ.

Questions for discussion:

1. Sometimes we don’t set something (sinful, self-destructive is what I have in mind) before God for him to work on for us because we can’t imagine living without whatever thought pattern or behavior it is. What can help us have the courage to bring it to God anyway? What are some of the lies we believe that keep us form bringing this sort of thing to God?

2. Are you getting more comfortable with the intimacy of God? Doe it seem too

3. If a friend of yours were to ask you what God wants to do in this world, what would you say? Would you talk about his desire for human flourishing? What examples and experiences could you offer form your life to illustrate your point?