drawing near to God

Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. - James 4:8

Why are we instructed to draw near to God? Because of love. We have been united in a magnificent loving relationship with Christ. Our union with Christ is a great topic for study. It assures and strengthens us, and reminds us of the tremendous feat Christ accomplished for us in our redemption.

"The saints were from the beginning joined to Christ by bands of everlasting love. Before he took on him their nature, or brought them into a conscious enjoyment of himself, his heart was set upon their persons, and his soul delighted in them. Long ere the worlds were made, his prescient eye beheld his chosen, and viewed them with delight. Strong were the indissoluble bands of love which then united Jesus to the souls whom he determined to redeem. Not bars of brass, or triple steel, could have been more real and effectual bonds. True love, of all things in the universe, has the greatest cementing force, and will bear the greatest strain, and endure the heaviest pressure: who shall tell what trials the Savior's love has borne, and how well it has sustained them? Never union more true than this. As the soul of Jonathan was knit to the soul of David so that he loved David as his own soul, so was our glorious Lord united and joined to us by the ties of fervent, faithful love. Love has a most potent power in effecting and sustaining union, but never does it display its force so well as when we see it bringing the Maker into oneness with the creature, the divine into alliance with the human. This, then, is to be regarded as the day-spring of union,—the love of Christ Jesus the Lord embracing in its folds the whole of the elected family." - excerpt from Spurgeon's Bands of Love: or, Union to Christ