Episode 005: Your Heart is Always Haunted

Have you ever felt like God was distant? Like your sin created space between you and Him or that you had to work your way back into His presence?

What if that’s not actually true?

In this episode of Renegade Grace, Jess takes on one of the most deeply ingrained beliefs in modern Christianity—that our connection with God can be disrupted—and unpacks the truth about God’s nearness, our union with Christ, and the myth of “damaged fellowship.” 

You’ll discover:

• Why the original lie in the garden was about God being distant and withholding 
• How we’ve misunderstood God’s sovereignty and turned it into something cold and impersonal 
• What it really means to be fully united with Christ—not just close to Him 
• Why your relationship with God isn’t something you maintain—but something He secured 
• And how to understand the “but what about…” verses that seem to suggest distance 

If you’ve ever felt like you’re constantly trying to get closer to God—or worried that your mistakes have pushed Him away—this episode will challenge that belief and invite you into a deeper awareness of what’s already true.

Because the truth is— you’re not trying to get closer to God… you already are one with Him.

Show Notes:

Link to Jess’s Books: CLICK HERE

Instagram: @renegadepastor

Email: jess@renegadegrace.com

Website: renegadegrace.com 

Verses Referenced in Today’s Episode: Colossians 1:15–20; John 1:14; John 1:18; John 14:18–20; 1 Corinthians 6:19; Galatians 4:6; 1 Corinthians 6:17; John 17:20–23; Colossians 3:3–4; 1 Corinthians 1:9; 1 John 1:6; Colossians 1:13–14; 2 Corinthians 4:6–7; Ephesians 5:8; 2 Timothy 2:13; Isaiah 59:2; 2 Corinthians 5:19; Ephesians 2:13; Colossians 1:21–22; Psalm 51:11; Ephesians 1:13–14; John 14:16–17; James 4:8; Exodus 20:18–21; John 14:23

Greek Words: Sumphutos (Strong’s 4854); Eudokeó (Strong’s 2106)

Listener Reflection Questions:

• Have you ever felt like God pulled away from you? What shaped that belief?
•  How does the idea of being united with Christ (not just close to Him) challenge or change how you see your relationship with God?
• Have you believed your sin creates distance between you and God? How does this episode challenge that? 
• What might change this week if you lived with the awareness that you are already one with Him?

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Have you ever felt like God was distant? What if the entire idea of getting closer to God is based on a lie? What does it really mean to be in Christ and Christ in you? What if damaged fellowship isn't actually biblical? We're tackling all these questions and more in today's episode, so you know what to do. Buckle up, Buttercup. Welcome back to the Renegade Grace Podcast. It's me, Jess, your Grace Obsessed host, and we're continuing our Relearning the Gospel series today. And we have been learning a lot so far in our series. We've been rebuilding from the ground up. We started off by looking at covenants and realizing something super huge, which is that we're not living under a system of law or performance. We're under a new covenant secured completely by Christ. Then we moved on to forgiveness. We took a look at forgiveness and learned that we are fully forgiven, and that forgiveness is once for all time finished and final. From there, we stepped into identity in our last episode, and we learned that we're not just forgiven, we've actually been made new and have new spiritual genetics. So today we're going to keep on going on this track of relearning. And we're going to take it one step further because if grace is rooted in the finished work of Jesus, and if we're living in a new covenant secured by him, and if we're truly made new, then that raises a really important question. What does our relationship with God really look like? If all those are true, right? If the gospel really is true and the covenant is dependent on Jesus, my sins are taken away, and his spirit lives in my heart, and I share his nature, is he still distant? Still out there somewhere watching, waiting, evaluating, measuring? Or is he closer than we've realized? What if the biggest lie we've believed is about how near God really is? Because the very first lie humanity ever believed was actually about distance. The very first lie that humanity ever believed was this God is withholding and distant. See, that's the lie that the serpent whispers to Eve. He says, God's withholding something from you. He told you not to eat that fruit because he knows that when you do, you'll be like him. You'll know good and evil for yourself. God didn't give you everything. God doesn't have everything to give you. Take it for yourself. And it's clever, really, because it it builds on something true, right? We know that God is different from us, bigger than us, holier than us. And so the enemy didn't have to convince us that God was bad. No, no, he just had to convince us that God's goodness wasn't fully accessible to us, that maybe we needed to reach for it ourselves. And here's the thing: that lie didn't stay in the garden. We've been believing it ever since. We believe that God is holding back something from us. And we rarely say it outright. We rarely teach this outright, of course. Instead, we teach about, you know, blessings to work for, rewards that are coming one day in heaven for our good behavior, jewels in our crown, fresh anointings, fresh fallings of his spirit, all fresh on us. We sing in our churches. And when do we get these things? Oh, well, yeah, when we've done enough, behaved well, or believed hard enough. Alternatively, we we teach things like, oh, that our fellowship is broken when we sin, or that he's distant, he pulls away when we sin, because you know, he can't be in the presence of sin. Where I don't know where we got that idea. There's multiple places in scripture where God's around sin, he's around people and sin. So I don't know why we think that our sin is somehow more powerful than him and chases him away. But we say things. We say, uh, of course, God will never leave you or forsake you, but you can leave him. He'll wait, you know, wherever you leave him because he's so loving and all that. But you can certainly wander away to a far-off place and wallow in sin, distant from him. Be careful. Be careful, we warn. Don't backslide or you'll be distant. Backslide, right. As if our relationship with God is some kind of cosmic slip and slide and we're worried about falling backwards down it. Oh, but you know, don't worry. Don't worry, though. You can work your way back to closeness. You can draw near and work back into that intimacy. How, you ask? Oh, well, through your goodness. You know, your goodness, the goodness you've reached for for yourself. Bible study, church attendance, confession and contrition, good Christian behavior. Man, that sounds good, doesn't it? Sounds real good. Sounds godly. But do you hear the lie from Eden? God's goodness is out of reach, but don't worry, you can have it for yourself. Just reach out and take it from that tree of measuring good and bad. No, no, no. Don't pay attention to that other tree over there. Yeah, yeah, I know it's called the tree of life, but don't look over there. See, the serpent has gotten no new material. And I mean, why should he? We're still falling for the old classics. So what's the truth about God? It's a good question to ask. See, God is not just bigger, better, and more powerful than us. I mean, yeah, he he is. He's transcendent, meaning he's exists above everything, outside of everything, beyond all limitation. But he's also intimate, meaning he is woven into the smallest details of your life. He is both things in equal measure at all times. He's infinitely big and he's infinitely close. We actually see this about God from the very beginning. He speaks the universe into existence with a word. But when he creates humanity, well, he gets his hands in the dirt, he breathes life into us, kisses dirt, and makes man. Colossians chapter one tells us that all things were created through him and held together in him. You see, he's over it all and inside it all. And then God does something even more wild. See, he doesn't just stay out there, right? He steps in. He spoke all of creation into existence with a word. And then and then the word became flesh and dwelt among us. You see, Jesus enters our world. Why? Well, I think it's because God knew something. He knew that we would struggle to relate to what feels far away. And so he made himself relatable, touchable, knowable, close. That Colossians passage goes on to say that God was pleased to have all his fullness live in Christ, and through him Christ, to reconcile us. In other words, God was willing and happy to come close to us through Christ. He didn't do it begrudgingly or under duress. He was pleased. In Greek, chose gladly to be fully present in Christ and by extension in us. God chose gladly to be fully present in Christ and us. See, Satan's version of God is withholding, stingy, and distant. That's the pitch. Jesus' version of God is generous, pleased, and close. Which do you think is more accurate? So I've spent most of my life in church, and in my lifetime, I've heard lots of stories about who God is, you know, about his character and his personality and what he wants from us. Religion's told me lots of tales about what God is like, and at the end of all of those fables is this call to action that it's my responsibility to pursue God. Chase after him, look for him, be in pursuit of God. What you do when you find him, well, no one's quite figured out yet, but what we do know for sure is that we should be pursuing him. Unfortunately, what that communicates is that he's hiding away somewhere, you know, tucked out of sight, waiting for the magical day when your worthy pursuit ends at the finish line of him. And if you listen to this message long enough, you'll eventually conclude that you'll never get to the finish line, you know, at least not in this life. But you must, by no means, ever stop running, keep doing, keep working, keep trying your hardest, putting forth your best efforts and stretching your farthest towards godliness. Now, let me ask you: does that sound more like Satan's version of God or Jesus's? Hmm. For all of humanity's existence, we've been trying to claw our way up to God. I mean, we built towers and constructed temples, all under this banner of pursuing God. Like I said, it hasn't changed any in the last 2,000 years. We just have new packaging for the enemy's same sales pitch. God's withholding some of his goodness from you, but don't worry, you can get it. Just read this Bible study or do this program or serve in this ministry, spend hours in prayer, work towards closeness. Now look, none of those things are bad on their own, okay? They are good things. I do those things. I I love those things. I am wildly obsessed with scripture. I study more than I need to because I love scripture, okay? I love them. There are plenty of reasons to do those things. But earning closeness isn't one of the reasons. The pursuit of God isn't one of the reasons. Why are we still trying to eat from the tree that resulted in death when we have the tree of life in us? What if, just what if all this time we've been pursuing God and missing the point? What if the Christian life is not actually about our pursuit of God, but rather God's relentless pursuit of us? You see, this relentless pursuit peaks in God Himself stepping down into our world to meet us, to be us, and to sacrifice himself in order to be close. This is his grace leaning towards us. You know, a big part of our problem is that we view and teach that Jesus is some kind of example for us. Like we see him as this standard that we should be modeling or trying to live up to. And I don't think that was his purpose on this earth. Jesus didn't actually come to show us what we should try to be like. See, he came to show us exactly what God is like. Jesus is God coming close to us. He was sent to set the record straight. He came to silence that very first lie, that one in the garden that slipped off that tongue of that serpent. And he came to show us exactly how excessive and gracious and generous God really is. Jesus came to make an unfathomable God tangible. He came as a flesh and blood representation of God's stubborn delight and people hellbent on independence. It's really an audacious reality, and yet true, that the God of the universe we try desperately to wake our way towards. Instead, he takes on the fragile form of our humanity as if to say, no, no, children, let me come to you. God's action of grace reveals itself in its initiation of relationship with us. God is excited to be in relationship with you. He doesn't suddenly stop that after you become a Christian. Like, why do we think he stops that after you become a Christian? Like he's super excited for people to like believe in him and enter into relationship with him. But then after you become a Christian, he stops? Like he stops being excited and then the works on you? Come on. He's not excited to initiate relationship and then all of a sudden burdened by the upkeep of it. That would be that'd be like saying that God's great at dating, but he kind of sucks at marriage. You know, like that's silly. He doesn't start the closeness and then it's up to you to maintain it. Closeness with God doesn't work that way. So how does it work? That's a great question to ask. How does it work? Well, I think Jesus gives us a bit of insight in John chapter 14, and he says, I will not abandon you as orphans. I will come to you. In a little while, the world will not see me any longer, but you will see me. Because I live, you will live too. You will know at that time that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you. You are in me, and I am in you. Okay. Hmm. Well, that's a lot to unpack. That's a big concept. And, you know, I do have a little bit of a leg up because I am a good Christian girl. And I learned in Sunday school, as far back as I can remember, that when I accepted Christ as my savior, he would come to live in my heart. We teach kids that. We know that. We sing songs about it in Sunday school. And it's it's true, right? It's absolutely true. 1 Corinthians 6, 19 says that his spirit makes our body his home. Galatians 4 says that the spirit of his son comes to live in our hearts. And all those things are true and good and good knowledge to have. But what does that really mean? Because I didn't really understand for a long time. Because even though I grew up in church, it was a very strict, conservative, fundamental, legalistic space. So we definitely never talked about the Holy Spirit or any of that, you know, weird stuff. Quote unquote weird stuff. So I really didn't know what it meant for God's spirit to live in me. I mean, we heard about it in the Bible and we sing songs about it, but I don't really know what that meant. I always just kind of pictured this the spirit as this like vapory ghost thing. But that that may or may not have something to do with how much sci-fi I watch. Okay. Like I can I can't confirm or deny that. Either way, in my little kid brain, the picture was that this vapory ghost thing came to live in me kind of like a ghost haunts a house. There was a very clear separateness, apartness to God and me. And I was the house, and God was the ghost, and we were just, you know, in the same proximity. And the problem became that because we were separate in my mind, that meant that when he was upset with me, which was often because I was a problem child, when he was upset with me, he could leave, and then I was left there alone. My heart no longer haunted. In 1 Corinthians 6 17, Paul writes that the one united with the Lord is one spirit with him. One spirit with him, united. There's a supernatural fusion thing happening here through the Holy Spirit, where we become bonded with the very Spirit of the Lord. That's what Paul's saying here. This is a coming together of both me and Christ, uniting and melding us together as one, inseparable from each other. The word here for united in Greek means congenital, innate, and implanted by birth or nature. You see that? You see what that means? Your nature is no longer separate from his. We talked about this in our last episode, this new sharing of the divine nature. And this is further proof that your spiritual genetics have changed. So, if Christ died to sin, rose in righteousness, and is seated in heaven, and you're bonded as one to Him, what does that mean about you? It means that you're no longer trying to get closer to God, you already have full access, full union, and full inclusion. You've been brought into divine relationship. You see that? If what Jesus said is true, that he is in his father, and you're in him, and he is in you, then what's happened is that you've been brought into Trinity relationship. That's what's happened. See, because you're all in one another. You can't get closer to God than you already are. You're fused at the heart level. Spirit union. Okay. Does your brain hurt yet? Because it's a pretty big concept. This is a pretty, pretty big idea. And I I know it is, because it's a heaven concept, right? So let me see if I can give you kind of a tangible example of what I'm talking about. Important thing for you to know before we get into this that I am a nerd who was raised by nerds. My dad is a pretty big history buff. He loves pretty much any show on the history channel. I enjoy less shows on said channel. However, we do have one show that we both love watching. It's called Forged in Fire. Don't know if you've heard of it, but it's this competition show where blacksmiths forge knives out of various materials. And in the final round of the competition, they recreate a sword or a knife from history. Right. Listen, I warned you, okay, we're nerds. But from watching this show, I learned about this really cool, special and difficult-to-make kind of steel, and it's called Damascus steel. And Damascus steel is made by taking two different types of steel and what doing what's called forge welding, forge welding them together. So that means that they take two different steels, they put them in the forge, hot, hot forge together, until they essentially melt together. And then they hammer and twist and fold them both together until they become fully integrated as this new piece of steel. And the super cool thing, and what makes this steel really unique and special is that you can actually still see the two distinctly different types of steel. And it makes this like really beautiful, unique pattern within this steel. It's like just very artistic. And even though this isn't like a perfect representation, right? Because heaven things are hard for us humans to replicate, to me, it's really a beautiful visual of the supernatural thing that happens when we're bound to Christ. You see, the Holy Spirit forges us together as one beautiful new piece of artwork. And even though I'm still me and Christ is still Christ, we're one, inseparable, a new thing altogether. A work of art, really. I think he says that in Ephesians, or a masterpiece, a work of art. That's what happens when we become one with Christ. And it's it's very cool because you know, if you look at that piece of metal, you you can't separate the steel anymore. They're they're one piece of steel, and yet they're both uniquely themselves. And I think it's I think it's a beautiful representation of what it looks like to be fused to Christ. And and this is what happened. This is what has happened to you. To me. We are fully united, fused, forge welded together with Christ. You can't get any closer than completely one. Jesus actually prayed for this to happen to all that would be. Believe in him. In John 17, he prays for this. And we're going to read it here in just a minute. But I just want you to think about that. Okay. Just think for a minute about the fact that Jesus prayed for this. That means Jesus wanted this to happen. You ever think about that? Jesus prayed for this. That means he wanted it to happen. He wanted closeness with you. God didn't have to drag him into this union. Jesus wanted it enough to pray for it. He prayed not only for us to be united, for him and us to be united, but that our unity would be the same level of unity that He and the Father share with one another. That's pretty close. So let's look at the passage. It's John 17. I'm going to start in verse 20. I'm not praying only on their behalf, talking about the disciples, but also on behalf of those who believe in me through their testimony. That's you and me. I pray that they will all be one just as you, Father, are in me, and I am in you. I pray that they will be in us, so that the world will believe that you sent me. The glory you gave to me, I have given to them, that they may be one just as we are one. I in them, and you in me, that they may be completely one, so that the world will know that you sent me, and you have loved them just as you loved me. Now, okay. There's so much in that passage, man. Three verses, and there's just so much in that passage. Stop for just a moment to consider that. Okay. You are as united to Christ as Jesus is to God the Father. That's what that passage says. The same level of unity, an equal measure of closeness as Jesus and God have with each other. In essence, you have been inserted into the closeness of the Trinity. You can't get any closer than that. In fact, Jesus says that God loves us just as he loves Christ. Did you catch that at the end of that? You have loved them just as you have loved me. So Jesus says. There is no sin, no thought, no action, no human effort that could make him be less one with you. That also means there is no measure of devotion, sacrifice, religious adherence, committed service, or pious action that can bring you closer to him. You are one. Colossians chapter three says that you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. See, this isn't proximity. This is full union. Listen, I uh I get it. Okay, we we feel distant sometimes. We make a mistake, we do something that doesn't line up with our new nature, and we feel bad. We feel like God pulls away. We feel out of alignment. But just because we feel something doesn't make it true. Yeah, our feelings are real, but they're not reality. We can't use them as our barometer for deciding what is true about our relationship with God. But I do get it. I do. We feel distant and we freak out and we don't know what to do with this whole God is completely close thing. We panic. This is sure, sure, we can agree doctrinally that we're fully forgiven and we're loved unconditionally. But when it comes to actually applying that to our daily lives, uh, we're not so sure we can go that far. So we make up fun phrases to say, like your relationship is secure, but your fellowship is broken when you sin. And so we dice up the gospel to make some creative religious dish, like we're in some kind of celestial chopped episode. And uh listen, as fun as that sounds, and despite the fact that I would 100% binge that show, unfortunately, that's found nowhere in scripture. I understand it makes sense in our human relationships. And so we use our humanity to try to understand God instead of the other way around. I've heard this more times than I can count preached from behind pulpits. They say things like, well, I can be in a relationship with my child, but if they do things to hurt me, our fellowship is damaged, even though I never stop loving them. I've heard this exact scenario taught from behind pulpits like more times than I can count. At least twice a year. Okay, okay, sure. Sure. That might be true for us, human to human, right? But guess what? God doesn't work like we do. I don't know if you've noticed that. I don't know if you've heard that, but God doesn't work like we do. I mean, when has he ever worked like we do? Never. So let me say this really clearly. According to Scripture, Scripture, relationship and fellowship are the same thing. They are expressions of the same reality. To be in fellowship with God is to be saved. To be out of fellowship with God is to be unsaved. To be in fellowship with God is to be in relationship with Him. To be out of fellowship is to be out of relationship. And scripture shows us our connection to God is based on His faithfulness, not ours. First Corinthians chapter one says, God is faithful by whom you are called into fellowship with his son Jesus. Okay, so God is faithful. He's the one who called you into fellowship with his son, Jesus Christ, our Lord, called you into salvation. Now, I know what some of you smarty pants who are listening right now are going to try to do. They're going to try to cite 1 John to counter this, which is really kind of the only verse that even remotely comes close to possibly being able to manipulate into an idea of loss of fellowship. 1 John 1:6 says if we say we have fellowship with him and yet keep on walking in darkness, we're lying and not practicing the truth. Okay. So I spent a lot of time on our forgiveness episode teaching through this specific set of verses, first John chapter 1. So I'm not going to get deep into it again, but here's what I'll say. This verse is not about believers falling in and out of closeness. It's about unbelievers rejecting the light. Let me ask you, what do we know about us as God's kids now that we're one with Christ? What do we know about the truth about us as God's kids? Well, if you don't know, here are a few scriptures. Colossians chapter 1, verse 13. He delivered us from the power of darkness. Okay, so we've been delivered from the power of darkness, and transferred us to the kingdom of the Son He loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. So we've been delivered from the power of darkness. Are we walking in darkness? No, we've been delivered from it. And transferred, okay, we've been transferred to the kingdom of the Son He loves. How about 2 Corinthians chapter 4? For God who said, Let there be light in the darkness, has made this light shine in our hearts, so that we can know the glory of God that is seen in the face of Jesus Christ. We now have this light shining in our hearts. But we ourselves are like fragile clay jars containing this great treasure. This makes it clear that our great power is from God, not from ourselves. Okay. So He's made the light shine in our hearts, and we have this light shining in our hearts. That's what it says. Are we walking in darkness? Or are we children of the light? Well, we've got the light in our hearts, so I'm not sure how we can walk in darkness. Let's go to Ephesians chapter 5, verse 8. For once you were full of darkness, but now you have light from the Lord. So live as people of the light. Once you were full of darkness, now you have light from the Lord. So we've been delivered from the power of darkness. He has made the light shine in our hearts, and we have light from the Lord. That's what Scripture says about us as believers. So are we walking in darkness? No. So therefore we have fellowship with him. Scripture says we are children of the light, not walking in darkness. That means we're in fellowship. Our fellowship cannot be damaged because we can never stop being in full unity with him. Our oneness is dependent on Jesus' oneness with the Father. That's what Jesus Himself said. So, in order for God to be out of fellowship with us, that means that he would have to be out of fellowship with Christ. Do you believe that? Do you believe that God would be out of fellowship with Christ? Because that's what it would take, child of God, for him to be out of fellowship with you. How can we believe that? 2 Timothy chapter 2 says that he cannot deny himself and therefore he cannot deny us. That's what 2 Timothy says. Are we learning and growing? Absolutely. Absolutely. Every single day. We learn more about the truth of who we are and who God is. Our minds, our thinking, feeling, and behaving. That's being renewed. The more we know the truth about God's closeness, our forgiveness, our new nature of goodness and godliness, the more we know these things, the more we live them out. These things are actually results of closeness, not requirements of it. See, the lie is that our action results in earning more. The truth is that our having everything results in overflowing action. Let me repeat that. See, God does it backwards. Hmm. God does it backwards. See, he does things upside down and backwards. But, you know, actually, maybe we're the ones who are backwards, and God's got it the right way around. All right. It's that time again, Renegades, everyone's favorite segment, the but whatabouts? So put on your grace glasses, buckle up, keep your arms and legs in the vehicle at all times. But what about number one? But what about when the Bible says that our sins have separated us from God and they keep him from hearing our prayers? All right. So this is Isaiah 59, verse 2. It says, But your sinful acts have alienated you from your God. Your sins have caused him to reject you and not listen to your prayers. Well, this is absolutely true under the old covenant, and also true of unbelievers, which is actually who Isaiah is writing to and about. But in Christ, this barrier is gone. You got to remember what we learned in our forgiveness episode about what happened to our sin when we received Christ. Remember that he didn't just cover it, he didn't just atone, he took it away and destroyed what was against us, abolished it, cleansed us, and has forgotten all our sin. We we learn this, right? And as it says in 2 Corinthians 5, he reconciled us to himself, not counting our sins against us. How about what it says in Ephesians? Specifically, actually, of Gentiles who've never had a covenant and who were never God's people for before Christ. Paul says, you were alienated. But now, but now in Christ Jesus, you who used to be far away have been brought near by the blood of Christ. So going back to our Isaiah passage, your sinful acts have alienated you from God. Paul says you were alienated. That's true, you were. You were alienated, but now in Christ, you who used to be alienated have been brought near by what? The blood of Christ. He says something similar to the Colossians. He says, You were at one time enemies of God, and this was expressed through your evil behavior, but now you are reconciled, holy, and blameless. You see, your sins cannot separate you from God anymore because he removed them from the relationship equation and put Jesus there instead. So, you know, this was a math equation. A plus B equals C, U plus your sins equals no relationship. Now he's U plus Jesus equals full relationship. Your sins aren't part of the equation anymore, and therefore not part of your problem. Gotta remember the covenant you're under. You gotta remember what Jesus did, and you gotta remember that our relationship is built on Christ's faithfulness now, not ours. Alright, next up. But what about when David prayed for God not to leave him or take the Holy Spirit away? Doesn't that mean we can lose it? Alright, so this is from Psalms, of course, because that's when, you know, David likes to get moody. Psalm 51, 11. He says, Do not cast me away from your presence and do not take your Holy Spirit from me. Okay, so we gotta ask the question again. When did David pray this? It's an important question we gotta always ask. So David prayed this under the old covenant before the cross. Right? So what's our second question? Are we different than David? Are we the same as David? David was a man after God's own heart. We have God in our hearts. See, he's not out there anymore. He's in here. In Christ, the Spirit never leaves us. As it says in Ephesians 1, we're sealed forever. That's what it says in Ephesians 1. Sealed by the Spirit forever. And listen to what Jesus says about the Holy Spirit, predicting his coming. He says, Jesus says, Then I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to be with you forever. See that? See how long it is? The advocate will be with you forever, the spirit of truth, whom the world cannot accept because it does not see him or know him, but you know him because he resides with you and will be in you. That's John 14. Okay. So Jesus says of the Spirit that He's coming and that He's staying for how long? Until we sin, until we mess it up. No, He's with you forever because He will be in you. That's what Jesus says. So what is David's worried about here in his prayer? We don't have to worry about it anymore. Because we have something better than what David had. We have Christ in us, full union with him. Okay, our last but what about for the day? But what about when James tells us to draw near to God? Doesn't that mean we can get closer? This is a great question. This is probably the best question in terms of whatabouts for this particular topic. This is James chapter 4, verse 8. He says, Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Okay, so notice the language here. James is addressing sinners, and he tells them to cleanse your hands and purify your hearts. This is evangelistic. This is an evangelistic appeal to receive cleansing in Christ. How do we know this? Because James never calls believers sinners anywhere in his letter. Never once does he address believers as sinners. Instead, he calls them brothers and sisters or beloved brethren. In this verse, much like we've talked about multiple times in multiple episodes of this podcast, James, much like a modern pastor, is preaching to both saved and unsaved in their sermon, James is doing the same. He's calling double-minded sinners to salvation, not telling Christians they're far away. He's writing to Jews mainly. It's worth mentioning that actually. It's worth mentioning that James is writing this letter to fellow Jews, okay? People who have a history of being afraid of God's nearness. I would like to think back to Exodus. Okay. Back in Exodus, Israel was scared to come close. And instead, they begged Moses to go speak to God on their behalf. You can read about this in Exodus chapter 20. They they get scared, they tell Moses, you go talk to God, you go talk to God. They have a heritage of distance, the Jews. The Jews that James was writing to has a heritage of distance, hiding behind judges and prophets and high priests. So really James's statement is also very comforting. He's telling them God's eager to meet anyone who turns to him. Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. You don't have to be afraid of him, is what James is saying. You don't have to be afraid. You can come near. God's accessible now. See. The moment someone believes, they draw near. Because he makes his home with them forever. Or what John said Jesus says in John chapter 14. See, believers already have God living in them and are one spirit with him. We don't move closer. We don't move closer. We learn what we already have. Let me leave you with this as we wrap up today. God's not far from you. He's in you. You are in him. You're one. Stop trying to get closer. Instead, wake up to how close you already are. Okie dokie, artichogey, that does it for this episode. If you want to keep up with me in between episodes, you can check me out on my website, which is renegegrace.com, or reach out to me via email. My email is Jess at renegadegrace.com. Also, if you're in the DFW area, you can come hang out with me at church on Sundays if you want. If you're looking for a church, I'm at the Grace Church in Las Calinas. We're off of North O'Connor Boulevard in Las Calinas, Texas. So if you want to come hang out, love, love to see you, love to meet you. There's lots of like-minded Grace Renegades there and pretty good Grace Center teaching. So if you want to connect, hang out. Come hang out. Um, you can also connect with me on Instagram. I am at Renegade Pastor. There's a link in the show notes if you're interested in buying any of my books. I do talk about these kind of topics in detail. And also, you know, I tell some stories from my childhood, which is super fun for everybody. So you can check those out. In the link in the show notes. Also, as always, I have a list of all the verses that were referenced during today's teaching. So I encourage you to don't just take my word for it. Look up the scripture. There's lots of good stuff in there. Okay, I think that's all on my checklist of things to talk about. Thanks for listening to Renegade Grace. I hope to see you again next time. We will tackle the topics of surrender and dependence next time. Until then, don't forget, Grace already did the work. You just get to live from it. Okay. Love you. Bye.