Christian Pathway

Think about the ways we can come close to God. 

For me I feel close to God when I am out with the pastors or working for the homeless.
I feel close to God when somebody asks me to explain why I am a Christian, cos he always helps with an answer.

I feel close up here, sometimes it’s actually a distraction, this feeling of doing what he wanted me to do, to be what he wanted me to be.  The feeling is so strong at times it’s hard to ignore and focus

So here’s a question I have for you this morning 
How do you go about feeling close to God.

An obvious way is prayer because  and that makes perfect because 

Ken leech wrote a book on prayer and he said Prayer is the experience of God, made possible because it is the movement of Man to God and God to man.    

What he means by that is God is alert to prayer and when we reach out during prayer, he listens and comes close, which is why our lord taught us one. 

When Jesus says in our reading   ⁷ “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. ⁸ For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.

He means pray, ask him in prayer.

It means 

When we pray later god will incline his ear and pay attention , and come close! Because god is alert to everything all times including your prayer .

Prayer can be done as simply as an internal  thought.  

It doesn’t need to be special because it’s up to god, we are asking a thing of the greatest force in all creation 

Because it’s up to god even our most feeble ask , can be answered. 

So, if you feel like prayer is talking to yourself , remember it isn’t because it simply cannot be. God knows everything at all times and is therefore intensely present in everything you do. 

God didn’t nod off during you trying, he didn’t have  a little senior moment like when you go into a room and forget why you went in. God Doesn’t do that, so you didn’t talk to yourself, he heard every word you said, every faltering attempt self doubting moment , god  is totally absorbed  by his conscious alert presence.

As a result of that 

As I said earlier When we pray, we go into relationship  with God,   and as a result  of that with each other, because God is in us all, you are in relationship with the same god in all of us and so  your prayer is part of all of us.

Yuri Gagarin was a Soviet cosmonaut who made history as the first human to journey into outer space, the first one to  complete a single orbit around Earth in just 108 minutes.  
When Yuri Gagarin came back from his first orbit of earth, he said he had been right round and he said he didn’t see God.
A Russian orthodox priest replied, if you haven’t seen God on earth, you won’t find him in space.  

I am with the priest because Jesus said you can find him in the poor, the victimised.  Jesus is here, in us all… He said you are in me, and I am in you, so look at the person next you and realise Jesus is in them. 

also, the god you pray too, the god in you is also in them and intensely aware of both of you

This ironically is the goal of Christianity to see God in every human we meet, because he truly is.   
He is in us, and we are in him. When we pray, we intercede at this level, the deepest connection we have which is why it’s called intercessions.  You are in relationship with him and therefore with essentially everything, at the level of the foundations of everything.

When we do intercessions later, we have to realise this is true ministry, this is the most effective form of Christian action at the deepest level of reality.  You are asking  the Jesus in us all to take action here with us, now.

Bonhoeffer said that Jesus resolves the incognito in us all, the same Jesus in me is in you,  we can’t know what inside another person, but we know the Jesus in us both so when we pray we appeal to the thing that binds us all together, and stirs him into action

What we are appealing too is the greatest force in all creation always intently aware of us at all times.

This omnipresence begs the question, why does Jesus in today’s reading want us to persist in prayer. He heard you the first time?

He isn’t asleep and needing a nudge. He isn’t too busy with other things and needing to fix the wheel that squeaks the loudest.   He is intensely aware of you at all times in all places.

He did it for the same reason he rested on the seventh day, not because god needed a rest after being knackered by the big bang.

It was an example to us,  when we pray we come into a relationship with God, which is literally what everything is about, making us, dying for us, coming back again the whole thing. 
God wants to be near his creation. 

In short if you really want to please God – pray reach out to him, that brings you closer to god, because look what he did to be close to us.

Prayer is the movement of us to god and god to us, and this means when we pray thy kingdom come, thy will be done, the act of prayer brings it a little bit closer.  You just asked  the creator of everything to come closer,  your kingdom come please.

There are many things we can do to bring our lord close.

But prayer is the greatest of these things, prayer stirs the God that is in all of us and asks us to share in him. It truly makes his kingdom come.

St Cyprian (the first African martyr) said this of the lord’s prayer, it is public and for all, we pray not for a single person but for the whole people, because we are all one.  The God of peace, the teacher of harmony, who taught unity, willed that each should pray for all as he carried us all in himself alone.

So when we pray later remember we just reached out to God and in doing so he moved closer to us,  and this is the greatest experience of God, relationship.


When we pray, we go into relationship with God, 
Amen