The Special of the Day… From the Orange Moon Cafe…
"The God So Near"
The singer sang, beautifully…
"God is watching us, from a distance…"
Nothing, however, could be further from the truth.
"They should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after Him, and find Him, though He be not far from everyone of us" (Acts 17:27).
"Whither shall I go from Thy Spirit? Or whither shall I flee from Thy presence? If I ascend up into heaven, Thou art there: if I make my bed in hell, behold, Thou art there. If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there shall Thy hand lead me, and Thy right hand shall hold me" (Psalm 139:7-10).
A spiritual and moral gulf exists between God and unbelieving human beings, declared by the Apostle Paul to be "alienated from the life of God" (Ephesians 4:18). In terms of proximity, however, God exists "not far" from all. In fact, the Creator actually dwells nearer to every human being than anything or anyone else. Of all, Paul said, "In Him we live and move and have our being" (Acts 17:28). Indeed, the great tragedy of humanity apart from Christ involves its blindness to the God so near.
"He giveth to all life and breath and all things… He is kind unto the unthankful… The fool hath said in his heart, there is no God" (Acts 17:25; Luke 6:35; Psalm 14:1).
The most strident atheist has his being in the God who is "not far" from him. Ironically, he requires the breath given to him by the Lord he denies to reject God's reality and intimate proximity to all things. The atheist exists as the beneficiary of the One who "giveth to all life and breath and all things." God is not "watching us from a distance," no, not all all. He rather dwells nearer to us than our next breath. We will never meet a human being of whom this is not the most important truth of their existence. They may not know it, and tragically, they may never know it. The truth abides nevertheless. No human being can escape the great fact, the great truth, and the great reality of the One "not far from every one of us."
When we speak of our Lord and share the Gospel, this truth provides a powerful foundation and confidence in our testimony. We make our case from truth, and from the reality in which every human being lives, whether consciously or not. If we will be confident in our communication and accurate in our affirmation, we will always strike a chord somewhere deep in the sensibilities of our hearer. They may or may not respond to the strains and refrains. The music will sound nevertheless, not from a distance, but from the voice of the God so near.
The true Light… lighteth every man that cometh into the world."
(John 1:9)
Weekly Memory Verse
In Him we live and move and have our being.
(Acts. 17:28)
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