Be Near to God
하나님을 가까이 하라
God values what you want at heart, from within, in truth, and has no use for your ego, your supposed merit or excellence. I value honesty, looking to your heart, and detest and condemn cunning and concealment, the slither and sleaze of a snake. Therefore one who lives with Him grows humble, humbler every day, longing for Him in meekness and modesty. Without your heart in it, your prayer, however fervent, is but cold and brazen. Full of the devil, it is like ice, chilling and repelling. The modest heart, the heart that lowers itself, as low as it can go, that is the heart that God gives. With the heart aglow, tears gush out and prayer wells forth from the innermost depth, the kind of prayer that is not of one’s making but springs spontaneously, directly from the Holy Spirit. That is of the essence. Your heart must glow. Words, cold and dead, mumbled with your lips, do not make prayer. I have said it before and say it again: A hymn, prayer in origin, but sung cold and by rote makes me want to vomit. The sound that rises out of a filthy life is hateful to me. God hates it and grinds underfoot the grumbles, laments, beatings of the ground you display while full of filth inside. Deep earnest desire makes no sound, utters no voice. Unbeknownst to yourself, tears flow, unstoppable, endless. Which way is your faith facing, to what degree, with what intensity? How earnest is your desire, how deep your longing? That is why the Bible urges you in many places to be “near God.” Near to God you have to be. Only the righteous do I seek, those who will go with me to the eternal world. What need do I have for those who are bound for hell? None at all. From way back I have said it: “I want only those, even if it be but a single believer, who will be righteous and go to Heaven, not the others condemned to hell.” This has been so from the very beginning. I need the righteous, worthy of salvation, be it a single individual, and not the rest. Spoken on November 18, 1985