December 1

We are going to consider the things we need to know and do in order to gain a deeper and more intimate relationship with God. One of the questions put to me most frequently during the years in which I have been a minister and a counselor is this: "Why does one person seem to have a closer relationship with God than another, even though both have been on the Christian way for the same length of time?" Even the most casual observer of the Christian life cannot help but notice that people do not travel along the road leading to deeper knowledge of God at the same rate. We grow old at the same rate. But progress in spiritual things is not made at a fixed rate. From time to time I meet people who have fewer years of Christian experience than I do, yet they seem to know God more profoundly. They leave me feeling seriously challenged and humbled. You have come across this yourself, haven't you? Surely you have met people who, though younger than you in terms of discipleship, are able to forgive injuries more readily than you, seem to be free of the nasty censoriousness you sometimes struggle with, and are swift to praise others whom they see doing more effectively the things they want to do themselves. Why? This is the issue which over the coming weeks we must make plain. Lovers of Scripture will have no doubt that God wants to move closer to us. The question we have to decide is: Do we want to move closer to Him?

Prayer:

Father, make this time in my life a time of vision and venture in the things of God. May it become a time of spiritual advancement to a degree I have never before known. I ask all this in Christ's Name. Amen.

For Further Study
1 Cor. 3:1; 14:20; Eph. 4:1-14
1. How does Paul describe the Corinthians?
2. What was Paul's desire for the Ephesians?