Drawing close to God

Can we really accomplish things apart from God? The obvious answer is "NO". He is the power behind every effort we exert in the goal of glorifying Him. Every muscle in our body that works to make us move will not work if God will not cause it to work. Every idea we develop for the advancement of the ministry comes from the Lord and not a product of our intelligence. Gal 6:3 says it so plainly... "For if a man think himself to be something, when he is nothing, he deceives himself." Without God we can do nothing.

So if we will never accomplish anything without God, how can we be assured that He will always work through us so that we can accomplish things for Him? The answer is "to draw close to Him". To draw close to Him is to acknowledge our helplessness and our inability to accomplish anything on our own. Our pride will always push God away from helping us. But the opposite happens when we draw near to Him in humility. James 4:6 tells us that "God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble". It is His grace that grants us the power to do great things for Him. When we are proud, we sort of tell God that we can do away with Him because we believe that our strengths can easily get us through any challenge.

There's a saying here in the Philippines that goes like this, "Tinutulungan ng Diyos ang tumutulong sa kanyang sarili" (God helps those who help themselves). I remember my late grandfather, Rev. Telesforo B. Yague, Sr., during my childhood years, explained to me that this belief is so erroneous as God helps those who come helpless to Him and not those who appear to be very much capable of doing things on their own. This is so evident, even in the salvation we received from God. Are we saved by our efforts to look good in the eyes of God? No! Ephesians 2:8-9 makes this very clear. It is only by God's grace that we are saved. The same goes for whatever we accomplish in life (or should I say, whatever God allows to be accomplished through us).

So how do we draw close to Him? My answer is by focusing on Him. And how do we focus on Him? By spending intimate and uninterrupted time with Him through the reading of His Word and through prayer. The more we read His Word, the more we hear from Him. The more we spend time in prayer with Him, the more we acknowledge to God how weak we are. I believe that the reason why we hear less of God is because we are too caught with the affairs of this world. Remember how Jesus rebuked Martha for her preoccupation of doing what she thought should be done and how He commended Mary for listening to Him? He was telling Martha that every task must take a backseat when His lips are uttering words. Why? Because His words is life. In Matt. 4:4, Jesus himself declared that "man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God". It is His words that make us alive! Imagine how full of life every Christian will look if all of us would just keep our mouths shut for even just a while so that we can hear what God wants us to understand about Him.

That's what happened to us when we (the people behind Living Waters Asia) recently spent almost a whole day in prayer and fasting. Oh, the things God made us realized when we allowed Him to speak to us! God really exposed our hearts and showed us the things we've been doing that we never thought was so displeasing to Him. He also impressed to our hearts what other things He wants each of us should be doing for Him when all along, we thought that we were already doing everything He wants us to do. Not only that. He also strengthened us to do more for Him and in fighting sin in our lives. All of these things we experienced just because we stopped and gave God the microphone for about 16 hours.

But I believe, the power to do things for God we receive is not the biggest benefit of drawing close to Him. I have proven during the weekend we prayed and fasted that the greatest benefit of keeping ourselves close to God is the satisfying experience of feeling more of His presence and seeing more of His glory. Nothing could ever beat that. When God's presence and glory is so evident, you can't get enough of it. You want more. Do you understand what I'm saying? You are so satisfied and yet you can't get enough of Him. That's what's great when He is close to you. That's the reason why you are able to forget hunger when you are praying and fasting. He becomes everything for you when He is close. You will understand why Moses wanted to still see God's face when He was already talking to Him in person in Exodus 33 once you get even a small taste of His glory.

A lot of Christians sadly are seeking to be satisfied with material things when the very Source of satisfaction is already in them. The Psalmist expressed very well what is in store for us when we are in His presence... "Thou wilt shew me the path of life: in thy presence is fulness of joy; at thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore" (Psalm 16:11). Oh, if just all of God's children will seek His face!

If you want to give your comments to this month's article, send us an email at
comments@livingwaters-asia.com