Come close to God, and God will come close to you. Wash your hands, you sinners; purify your hearts, for your loyalty is divided between God and the world.- James 4:8 NLT

Think about your closest relationship. It may be a friend, a spouse, a parent, or maybe a sibling. What makes this person close to you? Do you talk to them every day, do you go to them for advice when things get complicated, or maybe in the difficult moments of life sit with them in silence? When we become close with someone, we tend to want to spend all of our free time with them, telling them the exciting things going on in our lives, and sharing every detail of our days with them; which is a wonderful thing. What a blessing to have someone like this.

Now, think about how dramatically different our lives could be, in the best way possible, if we developed that same close relationship with Jesus. Not just believing in Him for our salvation, but a closeness that is so deep and genuine that we run to Him FIRST with our good news, we ask His advice FIRST when presented with a troubling situation, where He is the FIRST person we say good morning to and the last person we wish a good night. By making Him our best friend and our closest companion, through talking to Him more than we talk to anyone else, our lives and faith can be transformed. We can seek His presence more than we seek the presence of any other. We can read His words in the Bible more than we read any novel or social media posts.

God is promising us His presence if we come to Him. He wants to be close to us, He wants to hear about our everyday moments just as much as He wants to guide us through the big life altering ones. But we first need to come to Him; to focus on our relationship with Him and not the world around us. To show Him our loyalty through our presence with Him and our desire to draw near to Him.

So, let’s fix the focus of our thoughts and our days to be on Him and our closeness to Him. And soon we will feel His ever comforting peace-filled closeness in return.