An Invitation Into God’s Presence

Have You Ever Felt Far Away From God?

Have you ever felt far away from God? Have you been in a place where you know Him, you love Him, yet you cannot seem to connect with Him? I know I have. During my battle with Lyme Disease, I felt worthless. For months, all I could do was lay in bed and watch TV. I could not read because my eyesight was affected. To work took more energy than I had. Taking a shower would often exhaust me and send me back to bed.

Laying there day after day, I wondered how my life came to this. I knew God had plans for me. I just did not know how this fit into it. How would I ever do the things He placed in my heart if I could not function? In this place, my identity slowly went from mom, pastor’s wife, marathon runner, to one of a sick and useless person.

God gave me a wonderful doctor, who often reminded me I was not Lyme Disease. He would tell me I had Lyme Disease affect me, but I am not Lyme Disease. Those words spoke volumes to me, and I needed that reminder so often.

So often we get stuck. We don’t understand why God has us somewhere. Yet every point in our life prepares us for something else He has for us. Over the past four posts, I have shared some of what Jesus accomplished for us when He died on the cross. In this post, I want to remind you how, through the cross, Jesus reconciled us to God.

What does that mean exactly? It means He made a way for us to have a personal relationship with Him. In the time before Jesus, God only spoke connected to the majority, through the prophets and priests. After the fall, most people did not have a personal relationship with God like He invites us to do. So let’s look at a few ways Jesus conquered this.

The Garden Of Eden

To do this, we need to step back into Genesis to the Garden of Eden. God created paradise for humanity to live in. He created a place of lush gardens, animals that lived in harmony, and Adam. The pinnacle of creation was Eve, who God made from Adam’s side using one of his ribs. We read in the final verse of chapter one, “Adam and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame” (Genesis 1:25, NIV).

God gave Adam one instruction: “You must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil” (Genesis 2:17, NIV). I don’t know if you have ever noticed this before, but this was told to Adam before God created Eve. Ladies, you know how your men sometimes forget to tell you things… 😉

In chapter three, the serpent arrives and deceives Eve. She took the forbidden fruit and ate it and shared it with Adam. At that moment, sin entered, and they felt shame. This leads us to one of our first pictures of Jesus.

God comes to the garden and sees their shame. To take this shame away, God clothes them, and to do this, the first animal had to die. Did you catch the imagery? To remove their shame from sin, an innocent animal had to die.

The Garden Of Gethsemane

Now let’s move ahead to another garden, the garden of Gethsemane. This is where Jesus began feeling the weight of our sin and shame. He was preparing to be the innocent One to die for our sin and shame. He prayed so hard, His sweat became blood.

As in the garden of Eden, the serpent came and deceived Eve into eating from the tree. Adam and Eve followed their own will and desires and did what God instructed them not to do. Within the garden of Gethsemane, Judas came to deceive Jesus. He sold out to the Pharisees and gave up Jesus’ location for His arrest. It was within this garden that Jesus gave up His will for our reconciliation with God.

A Hill Called Golgotha

When the soldiers brought Jesus to Golgotha to hang Him on the cross, they had already whipped, mocked, and beat Him. The soldiers took His clothes from Him. Remember the shame Adam and Eve felt in their nakedness after they sinned? Jesus took that shame to the cross. He died to take that shame away.

Deuteronomy 21:23 NIV states, “For anyone who is hung is cursed in the sight of God.” Many translations say, “hung on a tree.” The place where the first sin took place, and the curse began, was at a tree. Then Jesus took on the curse, and took away all of our sin on another tree, the cross.

We have the joy of reading this fulfillment in Galations 3:13 NIV, “But Christ has rescued us from the curse pronounced by the law. When He was hung on the cross, He took upon himself the curse for our wrongdoing. For it is written in the Scriptures, ‘Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree.’”

For The Joy

He endured more than any of us can fathom and yet we read in Hebrews, “For the joy set before Him He endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God” (Hebrews 12:2b NIV) “For the joy?” Nothing about this seems joyful.

But God…

As I said in the post on healing, I believe with every whip; He thought of you. He had joy in this suffering because He thought of you while He endured. Jesus knew you would live forgiven, you would have eternal life, you would live healed, and His death would reconcile you to God. It brought Him great joy to do all of this for you.

Jesus Reconciled Us To God

With every painful breath on the cross, He thought of you. He made a way for us to come to God. Through the shedding of His blood, God sees us through the blood, and sees us as righteous. Do you get the power of that? When we accept what Jesus did for us, no matter what we have done, no matter how awful we think we might be, Jesus took it all away. He bled for us to reconcile us to the Father and have a beautiful relationship with Him.

Those long days in bed, when I felt like God had nothing left for me and I felt as far from Him as possible, He showed up. I know wherever you are; He wants to show up for you too. Just keep asking. Keep spending time in prayer and in the Word.

I have learned when I feel distant, it’s me that is distant. Jesus did not endure the cross, so we could feel distant, alone, and useless. He died to give us reconciliation.

So come.

Except the invitation God has laid out for you to come into His presence and dwell in the shadow of the Most High.