Chasing after God

It seems that so many people today are chasing after God. We hear it echoed in our churches. I just want to be in His presence. We spend countless hours on getting atmospheres just right with lighting, music, the proper amount of haze in the air, but are all these things really a necessity in order to experience God in a real way? We have heard the saying and read the books that talked about chasing after God. There is a problem with that terminology. God is omnipresent, which means that he is ever-present or all places at all times. It means that his presence is not bound by buildings or boundary lines. His presence is all-encompassing. The psalmist David writes in Psalms 139 Where can I go from your spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to the heavens, you are there. If I make my bed in the depths, you are there. God is not playing hide and seek with us or dangling some blessing in front of us only to move it at the last second. His desire has been and will continue to be to have a relationship with us. God wants us to connect with him.

We read in Scripture that if we draw near to God he will draw near to us. At no time does it say we have to chase him down. Our closeness to God is not up to a carefully thought out lighting scheme. It is not up to a certain worship sound. It is not up to a particular way we dress. Our closeness to God is determined by us. We can choose to connect to God or we can choose to live our lives as though he does not exist. The sad part of this is that we have somehow lost the realization that our connection to God is on us. My effort to connect to him is what he sees. The more I want to experience God the closer I need to be to him. As we pray and communicate with him, he seeks to communicate with us. For many we treat prayer more like sitting on Santa?s lap than talking to the creator of the universe and the savior of our souls. God is not a cosmic genie that is at our back and call. He is, however, a friend that sticks closer than a brother. He has things to reveal to us.

When you go to church, you have an opportunity to connect to Almighty God. You may have felt like organized religion has let you down, and to be quite honest, it may have. If I am being religious in my attending and not being religious in my effort to connect and get closer to God, I will never be satisfied with a church. If I am making strides to connect to God more and more, church will take on a whole new meaning to me. Jesus Christ died for every one of us. He wants to be close to us. He is still speaking. If you want to connect with God or have questions, I encourage you to come and experience him with us at Washington First Assembly of God.

We believe in the power of God to change lives. Our services are Sundays at 10 a.m. and 6 p.m. We also have life application classes for children through adult on Wednesday evenings at 7 p.m.. Come experience him with us. Our address is 1602 E. Washington St., Washington.