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God wants us to know Him as He truly is, and Jesus is the accurate revelation of God. Believers are the last revelation of God.
If you would experience a great disappointment, would it be distressing to you to know that God knows? I ask this question because there is a strong emphasis among us: you have to strive perfectly to enter in; you have to obey perfectly to enter in. But there is also the truth that God is a merciful God. How does a person’s pursuit of God and God’s mercy intersect? The question is this: Do we do the sanctifying or does God do it? The answer is that Christ is the answer to our every failure and lack and need. Christ is our life. Our confidence is in God, not in ourselves.
We are always drawing near, but at the same time we are always present with Christ, always there. The human heart thinks we have to fix ourselves before we come to God, but this is impossible. God is where I am and can do for me what I cannot do for myself.
What hinders us from drawing near? For some, it is because they have failed and can’t tell God, so they have to suppress it. We know this leads to depression and a bad end. For some, it is the result of their parents and pastors demanding perfection of them before they can belong. The freedom we have to come to our parents and pastors as we are determines how much freedom we have to come to God as we are.
We cannot improve ourselves before we come to God; we come to God to be improved. God receives sincere seekers where they are and then acts like He can’t get His work done without them.