“Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.” Hebrews 4:16
Have you ever had a relationship with a person through a third person? Let’s say you’re friends with Susie and Susie has a friend, Joe. Does that automatically make you friends with Joe? Maybe you’ve met Joe, but you don’t really communicate with him or spend any kind of time with him. You just hear about him through Susie. You maybe even talk about Joe as if you know him. Would you say that you and Joe are friends? I don’t think there are many people who would call that a friendship. To have a relationship of any kind, there needs to be time spent together and there needs to be communication. Without those things, you can’t really get to know the person. You can only get to know about them.
How often do we do that with God? Maybe we hear a lot about God. We go to church and hear sermons about God. We need that. We need to be a part of the body of Christ to encourage one another and learn from each other. Maybe we read devotionals every day. Nothing wrong with that! They can give us a new point of view or point out something we hadn’t thought of before. We may even talk about God a lot. We have Christian music playing and we sing along without really hearing the words. There’s nothing wrong with any of that. In fact, it can all be very helpful in our Christian walk. But as we do those things, are we also talking and listening to God? Do we go to Him in prayer and share with Him what’s on our hearts? Do we listen for His voice? Are we spending time in His word and asking His Spirit to teach us? Or are we relying on a third person to be the intermediary between us and God?
A friend was recently helping me with computer issues and we were talking about the wireless modem. He made the comment that it’s always better to have a direct connection. In other words, wireless is good and convenient, but there can be things that may interfere with the connection. But when we have a wire that goes directly from the modem to the computer, those interferences don’t have a chance. It’s the same with us and God. When we depend on others, whether it’s a pastor, author, musician, Bible study leader, or anyone else, we’re basically depending on the less-than-perfect wireless connection that can be interrupted and distorted. What we need is a direct connection with God. That can only come by approaching His throne ourselves. We do that by spending time in prayer and in His word. That’s how we receive God’s mercy and grace, those things we need to get us through the trials we face on this earth. When we have that direct connection, even the storms raging around us won’t be able to interrupt the tie we’ll have with our God.