Draw Near to God

Matthew 11:28-30 28 Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.
I was thinking to share about this passage, and this morning when I listened to the Bible, I heard this passage again, this confirmed that the Lord wants me to share this passage.

I shared before that when we get up in the morning, the first thing we should do is to pray and read the Bible.  We come before Him, wait before Him, wait before His presence, so that we have the strength and joy to face daily work. We should also read the Bible, seek His leading.

After a day’s work, in the evening we should come before the Lord to rest before Him. The Lord led me and let me know that He is pleased when we worship Him in songs.  If we can play musical instrument, we can worship the Lord with that too.  I use guitar to worship the Lord in songs. After some time of worship, we can come to the Lord and rest before Him.

Lamentations 3:25 The Lord is good to those whose hope is in him, to the one who seeks Him;
We should come before the Lord, wait before Him, seek Him, seek His face,  seek His presence. By so doing we can find rest in Him, find joy in Him. May God bless each one.

Psalm 37:4 Take delight in the LORD, and he will give you the desires of your heart.

What does it mean “Take delight in the LORD”? “Take delight in the LORD” means to exalt Him so highly that we seek after Him above any other person,  any things, thoughts, or actions in our lives, especially those things that would knock Him out of first place. In other words we always put Him first.

It is always my desire to seek after Him, to draw near to Him. In 2017 the Lord led me to share the gospel to my high school classmates using wechat and build a gospel site to share the gospel.

I put the Lord and His work first, the Lord helps me in my computer work, helps me to pass my English exam and even inspires me to pray for the sickness of other people for healing and they get healed.  There were many times the Lord help me to solve computer problems,  one time one of my colleague asked me to solve a computer problem, right after the solution, I was thinking to go to my colleague office to tell him, and he came to my office instead,  it was the right timing. In 2018, I had to take an English exam. the passing mark for both written and oral are 65%. I got 67.5% for my written, 86% for my oral. It is by Lord’s grace, I could pass the exam, so don’t have to spend time preparing again,  so that I can spend more time in prayer and Lord’s work.

Amazingly the Lord also inspired me to pray for people’s sickness.  I prayed for different people for their sickness, some got healed very fast, some after some time, some got complete healings, some got partial healings. the Lord also reminded me chasing after Him, not after miracles. If we chase after Him, then the miracles will accompany us. Thanks the Lord, glory to His name.

Mark 1:35 Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where he prayed.

Here we see that Lord Jesus in the early morning went to a lonly place to pray. Lord Jesus gave us an example, we should also do the same, the first thing we need to do every morning is to pray, draw near to God, seek God, seek His face, seek His preserence.

Luke 10:38-42 As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him. She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet listening to what he said. But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She came to him and asked, “Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!” “Martha, Martha,” the Lord answered, “you are worried and upset about many things, but only one thing is needed. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.”

Here we see that Mary sits at the Lord’s feet listening to the Lord’s word while martha distracted, worried and upset about many things, the Lord says that Mary has chosen the good part.  Besides praying and drawing near to God in the moring, we should also do so in the evening. I also find myself that if we put the Lord first,  put prayer and drawing near to the Lord first, the Lord will take care the rest and our life will be more productive, as we know that He is the vine, we are the branches, we need to totally depend on Him in order to bear fruit.

John 15 ⁵ “I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. ⁶ If you do not remain in me, you are like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned. ⁷ If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. ⁸ This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.

Here it says that the Lord Jesus is the vine, we are the branches, we need to abide in the Lord in order to bear fruit, apart from Him, we cannot bear fruit, we can do nothing.  We are not so busy that we can not spend quality time with the Lord, not even busy with the Lord’s work.

If we don’t abide in the Lord, we will dry up, unable to bear any spiritual fruit. We cannot depend on ourselves to bear fruit, but need to totally depend on the Lord to bear fruit.

2 Chronicles 7:14 if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land.

In order for God to heal us, we need to humble ourselves, sometimes it is because of pride, the Lord allows sickness to humble us. We need to seek His face, seek His presence.  We first seek His face, seek His presence before seeking His healing. Seek His face, seek His presence is the most important thing. Some sickness are because of sin, some are not. We need to confess our sin, repent our sin in order to get healed.

The Lord always knows what is best for us. We just sit at His feet, listen to His words, communicate with Him daily, and He can make our path flourish.

But we are often busy in a bunch of trivia, such as sending children to school, attending a business meeting, making a sales plan, and so on. The same is true in the church. There are many things to deal with – to help the poor, to find the lost, and to heal the sick. But do you know? This kind of trivial matter will be looked after by the Lord, as long as we put Him first, sit at the feet of Jesus and listen to His teachings.

How did Jesus respond to Mathar’s complaint that her sister only knew to sit at His feet and not help her to serve the Lord? “Martha, Martha, you are bothered by many things. But there is only one thing is needed, Mary has chosen the good part, it will not be taken away from her.” (Luke 10:41-42)

However, many of us are like Martha. We are worried about many things. We are too busy to sit at the feet of Jesus, communicate with Him, and listen to His teachings. When we don’t rely on Him, we can only rely on our own strength and wisdom to solve problems. But your plan can never be better than God’s plan.

My dear friends, when you make a decision, do you want God’s wisdom and plans to get involved? Then, like Mary, choose the good part, spend time with Jesus,  draw near to Him, seek His presence, listen to Him. You will find that the Lord will take care of  your problems, teaching you and guiding you to the path of righteousness.

Luke 18:1-8 Then Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up. 2 He said: “In a certain town there was a judge who neither feared God nor cared what people thought. 3 And there was a widow in that town who kept coming to him with the plea, ‘Grant me justice against my adversary.’4 “For some time he refused. But finally he said to himself, ‘Even though I don’t fear God or care what people think, 5 yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will see that she gets justice, so that she won’t eventually come and attack me!’”6 And the Lord said, “Listen to what the unjust judge says. 7 And will not God bring about justice for his chosen ones, who cry out to him day and night? Will he keep putting them off? 8 I tell you, he will see that they get justice, and quickly. However, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?”

Here the Lord teaches us we should always pray and not to lose heart. Sometimes the Lord hears our prayer right away, sometimes not right away. We should not lose heart, we should like this widow persistant in prayer. Continue praying until we see results.

Luke 11:5-13 5 Then Jesus said to them, “Suppose you have a friend, and you go to him at midnight and say, ‘Friend, lend me three loaves of bread; 6 a friend of mine on a journey has come to me, and I have no food to offer him.’ 7 And suppose the one inside answers, ‘Don’t bother me. The door is already locked, and my children and I are in bed. I can’t get up and give you anything.’ 8 I tell you, even though he will not get up and give you the bread because of friendship, yet because of your shameless audacity[a] he will surely get up and give you as much as you need.9 “So I say to you: Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. 10 For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened. 11 “Which of you fathers, if your son asks for[b] a fish, will give him a snake instead? 12 Or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? 13 If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!”

Here is another parable about persistant in prayer, we should keep on knocking the door until it is open. Here is talking about asking the Heavenly Father for the Holy Spirit, seeking Lord’s presence, seeking Lord’s face. The Lord Jesus is the vine and we are the branches. We need to abide in Him in order to bear fruit, apart from Him, we can do nothing. Eternal life is to know God and Lord Jesus, that is to have intimate relationship with the Heavenly Father and  Lord Jesus.