How Close Do You Feel To Jesus Today and Why?

[Starise]

Do you see your relationship to Christ as a constant in terms of how close you are to Him or do you see yourself as moving from close to distant?

 

[missmuffet]

I feel very close. He is within me and He has given me the Holy Spirit. God is my Lord and my Redeemer. Without Him I am lost. 

[Your closest friendnt]

59 minutes ago, missmuffet said:

I feel very close. He is within me and He has given me the Holy Spirit. God is my Lord and my Redeemer. Without Him I am lost. 

Why you are saying that you will be lost.

You still will know who you are and where you live and you will still have your memory and still going to Heaven.

I do not know if you believe that, but that's what is going to happen. 

At your last breath if it is exhale with faith in Jesus Christ you will be taken to him. Whether you believed that or not. 

[missmuffet]

1 minute ago, Your closest friendnt said:

Why you are saying that you will be lost.

You still will know who you are and where you live and you will still have your memory and still going to Heaven.

I do not know if you believe that, but that's what is going to happen. 

At your last breath if it is exhale with faith in Jesus Christ you will be taken to him. Whether you believed that or not. 

I am not saying I am lost. I am saying if I did not believe in Him I would be lost. 

[Your closest friendnt]

5 hours ago, missmuffet said:

I am not saying I am lost. I am saying if I did not believe in Him I would be lost. 

Are there believers who are lost in this world? 

If they are, then we believers who are lost in this world, are they not.

Back to you YCF v. MisszM, and why you are saying, what is your secret thought in saying I AM NOT LOST? 

Do you mean to say that you know where you can find Jesus? 

[Your closest friendnt]

15 hours ago, Starise said:

Do you see your relationship to Christ as a constant in terms of how close you are to Him or do you see yourself as moving from close to distant?

 

I have a difficult time to respond to your request because I think it will all depends on the sircumstances of the moment all around. 

There many books attempting to guide people in that direction and I will never say anything against anyone but most of them they quide the readers to experience what they have experienced. 

And yet Ì am trying to stay relevant to the OP.

Jesus gave us the Holy Spirit-the Paracletous for this purpose, 

We say Jesus but what we dealing with is the Holy Spirit in the New Testament.

And we are grown up now in the faith and we have learned to discern what it is the good thing to do and avoid what we think we should not do.

As we mature we must experience the working of the Holy Spirit lives as we go on living, when we are out of the church and a prayer meeting and the place of worship.

In prayer and worship we can experience the presence of the Holy Spirit and that would mean that the Holy Spirit in working in our hearts or in our selves giving us gifts so help us with our needs even gifts to grow in areas that we need to grow.

The Holy Spirit is working in us without us knowing even directing our paths and our words and we may have no idea about it.

Some people become conscious and they are bless to know that before it happens or when it is happening or there after when they begin to ponder about what happened. 

And are wondering about that....

This is the point where things begin to develop as we began to recognize that the Holy Spirit was involved.

And eventually we are getting closer to understand when the Holy Spirit is at work as the Lord lets us have those experiences and he is captivating and taking over our hearts.

He can let us know before things happened at times according to his will and to show that he is involved and he cares about us this way he takes over our heart and we learn to love him this way and look forwards to him.

Most of the time people wants the Holy Spirit to be revealed to them in certain ways and it happens as they asks, and what about giving the initiative to the Holy Spirit to have the opportunity to be revealed to each one of us in the unique way it has propose for us.

There are days where I want the Lord to saw up in my sircumstances and in my feelings the way I expect, and how about when the Holy Spirit shows up in my heart. 

If expect the Lord to show up the same way he did last time, is like I am telling him what to do and how to do something to satisfy my expectations, I know that soon I am going to feel weak and very weak because he did not show up to empower me.

I have to be strong and try to do the right think as I think I should do and do not bring into play my own agendas because I will be disappointed because they may not be the agendas of the Lord whom I have asked to come along with me, or may not be the agendas of the other people, and why do I have to ask the Lord to change the agendas of the other people to accommodate mine. 

The same thing I can experience regarding health issues. 

Health issues can make a devoted believer very bitter and disappointed, this is very sensitive and I had my experiences and what I have to say it is to trust him for our health and continue to pray and not to tell him how we want to be and what he has to do, but always to trust him for our health. 

Thank you 

 

[Sower]

17 hours ago, Starise said:

Do you see your relationship to Christ as a constant in terms of how close you are to Him or do you see yourself as moving from close to distant?

Close.
I am encouraged that God is faithful in directing my path, keeping me close, holding my by the scruff of the neck.
When I falter He is always there with a wouping  or an encouragement through His word.
I'm continuing to more fully understand "not I but Christ in me"  (It works)
John 15 says I can't do anything without abiding in Him.
God has definitely drawn me closer these last years. Like I'm on a ride, sometimes bumpy, but always by His side.
Like the saying;    I ain't what I wanna be, but I'm better than i used to be.
I'm discovering that;
God is Light
His promises are true.
The scripture means what it says.
His will is the best for me.
Even if it has to hurt.
Some pain is sweet, comforting.
Because He cares...I'm in His hands, and,
ain't nobody going to take me out of His hands!
So, closer....


 

[AnOrangeCat]

I feel closer. I've mentioned in a couple of threads that I made a new friend over the internet in the last half of last year. They've got enough in the way of issues that I felt obligated to pray for them often and provided enough fun, bright spots that I thanked God for them pretty much daily. They've really been a stimulus to step up my act in a lot of ways. It's been tough the past few months since she's been gone since the start of November without almost no warning or explanation but I find that God is using this situation to draw me closer to Him. When I read the Bible I often find encouraging things regarding faith and patience and perseverance.

[Starise]

I appreciate the thoughts. It's interesting to see the various ways we view our relationship with the Lord.

I guess I asked the question because I would often base how I felt in relation to the Lord on any given day. In other words feelings were involved. Yet in much the same way as a child is apprehensive about jumping into the arms of his father from a great height, I think we sometimes have that same feeling even though we are steadfast in His grip.

On any given day I might not feel particularly spiritual. I might not feel like the Lord is there. I might not feel close to Him, yet deep down I know He is there even though the experience isn't what I has envisioned.

Admittedly sometimes I am not close to the Lord because I wandered away. I try not to slip up, yet often my efforts are in vain. In those times I feel like I failed my heavenly Father because I have. How does this affect my distance from Him? It seems there is always something I could have done better or something I should not have done. I run fast to my Lord and beckon Him for forgiveness.

Sometimes it feels like a tug of war with my flesh. That old flesh that gets angry sometimes, says bad things sometimes, isn't always as considerate as it should be, carries around a bad attitude sometimes. Gets tired of being tired. If I truly got what I deserved I would get hell. Thank God, He rescued me. Sometimes I have little voices whispering in my ear that maybe I'm not really saved. Maybe I only think I'm a believer because after all I don't always feel like a believer. This was what led me to get baptized twice years ago. It's the nature of my personality to overthink everything, so I over thought my salvation. If I was really saved why did I do that or why did I say that? A real Christian wouldn't do that.

In the end the Lord always wins. My salvation isn't up to me or my feelings. My proximity to Him can become distant if I allow sin and don't confess it immediately. I don't like the feeling of my sin standing in the way of me and Him, so I don't let those things go for long. It has been said we are saved whether we confess sin or we don't. That may be true but it affects our relationship with Him.

-Tim