Solitude produces what fellowship cannot. Jesus taught us,“But as for you, when you pray, go into your inner room, close your door, and pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you” (Matthew 6:6 NASB).
If you want to live a life close to God, then you must have a special place in which you can spend time with Him. There can only be true intimacy when there is complete privacy. To focus on one thing, you must be free from the distractions of everything else.
The secret to intimacy is time together alone. Let your time alone with God be far greater than your time with Him with others. “And in the morning, long before daylight, He [Jesus] got up and went out to a deserted place, and there He prayed” (Mark 1:35 AMPC).
If you want to grow in your faith, then you must spend more time alone in the special place with the Lord. Just like a tree in the forest must sit under the light of the sun to grow, so you must get beneath your heavenly Father and let His divine light draw you upwards.
The secret to getting into God’s presence is going there. “Search for Yahweh and his strength. Always seek his presence” (Psalm 105:4 NOG).
You can be as close to God as you want to be and as far from Him as you want to be. What you want is what you will get. The Lord never limits how much we can draw near to Him, but we limit ourselves by how far we stay away from Him.
If you want to get closer to God, you can. “Come close to God and He will come close to you…” (James 4:8 NASB).
When you are all alone with God, there is no crowd in which you can hide behind. It is as if you went to a large church and sat in the middle of the sanctuary, and nobody was there except for you and the pastor up on the platform. There is no hiding when you are alone out in the open.
You will not walk in your anointing until you first sit in His presence. “But you have an anointing from the Holy One [you have been set apart, specially gifted and prepared by the Holy Spirit], and all of you know [the truth because He teaches us, illuminates our minds, and guards us from error]” (1 John 2:20 AMP).
How you are with your time alone with God is more telling of your faith than how you are in front of others. You can pretend in front of man but your Father sees right through you. You cannot hide your inner heart from an all-knowing God.
You learn about God in the classroom, but you come to know Him in the prayer closet. “He who does not love does not know God, for God is love” (1 John 4:8 NKJV).
If you don’t have a special place to be alone with God, then find one. It can be any place, so long as it gets you apart from the world where you can be alone with God. We show where our affections lie when we make an effort to spend time alone with Him.
To get close to God, you must become further from man. “And when He had sent the multitudes away, He went up on the mountain by Himself to pray. Now when evening came, He was alone there” (Matthew 14:23 NKJV).
It is good to pray to God with others, but it is better to pray to Him privately. It is good to worship God in your church, but it is better to worship Him in the privacy of your special place. It is good to go to a Bible study, but it is better to spend time in the Word alone with God.
To be near to God, you need to be alone with God. “But Jesus Himself would often slip away to the wilderness and pray [in seclusion]” (Luke 5:16 AMP).
In this special place, you can share every secret you have with God. He knows everything about you, including your thoughts and your true motives. Show Him that you trust Him by sharing your innermost thoughts with Him in your secret room.
There are some secrets that the Lord is the only one you can trust to share them with. “Trust in him at all times, O people; pour out your heart before him; God is a refuge for us. Selah” (Psalm 62:8 ESV).
The special place is where you can truly be yourself without any of the trappings you put on when you are around others. You can just be yourself and know His mercy is greater than your failures and more than enough to help you along the way.
You can be as near to God as you want to be. “Come close to God and He will come close to you” (James 4:8 NASB).
Find your special place. Anoint your special place. Pray the Lord would cleanse this place of anything evil. Pray the Lord will cleanse you before you enter this special place. Set apart one special place that marks the spot where you meet with your God, and go there often.
Prayer is a place that puts you nearest to God. “The Lord is close to everyone who prays to him, to all who truly pray to him” (Psalm 145:18 ICB).
Blessings to you always,
Paul Balius