It is a basic truth that God’s ways are not our ways. His thoughts are higher than ours.
Isaiah 55:9, “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.”
In this world, access to important people is usually tied to money, hard work, or who you know. If you want a meeting with a CEO, you better have a connection. If you want into certain rooms, you better have the right last name.
With God, it does not work like that. You cannot buy your way into His presence. You cannot earn your way in with effort. The only way we draw near is by the route God Himself opened through the finished work of Jesus Christ.
Hebrews 10 tells us exactly how to approach the throne of grace with confidence.
Hebrews 10:22–25, “Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water.
Let us hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering; (for he is faithful that promised;)
And let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works:
Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another, and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching.”
This is God’s pattern for staying close to Him.
1. Draw near with a true heart
The first thing God deals with is not our schedule, it is our heart.
“Let us draw near with a true heart…”
A true heart is an honest heart. Not a show heart. Not a church face. Not a critical, fault finding heart that thinks it is above everyone else.
Jeremiah 17:9, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?”
Your own heart will lie to you. The world will load your heart with distraction. False teaching will try to mix error with truth. If you are not careful, you can walk into a service, sing, even teach, and never actually draw near to God because your heart is somewhere else.
I have felt that before. There have been mornings where I stood in church and my mouth sang, but my heart was still out in the parking lot thinking about work, numbers, or some problem that annoyed me. In those moments, I was present, but I was not drawing near.
A true heart comes to God honestly. “Lord, my mind is scattered. My attitude is not right. I do not want to stay like this.” That kind of honesty is where drawing near starts.
2. Draw near with full assurance of faith
We are told to draw near “in full assurance of faith.”
Faith is not a blind leap. It is not “just believe hard.” The Bible gives it weight.
Hebrews 11:1, “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.”
Faith has substance and evidence. You cannot put it in a test tube, but it is not empty. It rests on what God has said and what God has already done.
Romans 4:21, “And being fully persuaded that, what he had promised, he was able also to perform.”
Full assurance is when you are fully persuaded that what God promised, He is able to do. Not because you feel brave, but because you trust His character.
I have watched this in my own life many times. There have been seasons where nothing around me looked stable. The thing that held me faith that God keeps His word. That He saves, keeps, and leads like He said.
You draw near to God the same way. Not by proving yourself to Him, but by believing Him enough to show up for you.
3. Hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience
Hebrews 10:22 goes on, “having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience…”
Now the focus shifts to cleansing. You cannot walk close to a holy God while you cling to known sin.
This language points back to the Old Testament. Priests were sprinkled with blood before they served. Things in the tabernacle were sprinkled to set them apart. It was a picture.
Christ is the true High Priest, and His blood is the true cleansing. When you trusted Him, that blood did more than change your record. It reached your conscience.
Hebrews 9:14, “How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?”
An evil conscience will whisper, “You are dirty. You should not pray. God is tired of you.”
If you listen to that voice and never look at the cross, you will stay at a distance. The answer is not to pretend you never sinned. The answer is to confess it and remember that Christ already paid for it.
1 John 1:7, “But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin.”
There have been times I sat down to pray and felt that wall. I knew there was a sharp word I had not made right, a thought I had let run, a sin I had excused. Until I dealt with it, the evil conscience stayed loud. When I finally humbled myself, and confessed it, that wall dropped.
4. Bodies washed with pure water
“…and our bodies washed with pure water.”
This is more than a picture of baptism. Scripture explains Scripture.
Ephesians 5:26, “That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word.”
God uses His Word like water on our lives. It washes our thinking, our habits, and even our body choices. What we look at. Where we go. How we work.
Most Christians would never go days without a physical shower. But plenty of saved people go days without any real contact with the Bible. Then they wonder why they feel far from God.
I have noticed a simple pattern. When people’s Bible time slips, their temper gets shorter, their thoughts get dirtier, and their patience with people drops. Nothing huge changes on the outside right away, but inside starts getting dusty. Then when you get back in the Word, and it is like a good spiritual scrub.
If you want to draw near, you cannot skip this. Let the Word of God wash your mind and body choices every single day.
5. Hold fast without wavering
Hebrews 10:23, “Let us hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering; (for he is faithful that promised;)”
Once you draw near, you are told to hold fast. Grip it. Stay with it.
There will be days you do not feel like praying. Days you do not feel like going to church. Days where the world looks more solid than heaven does.
On those days, you do not hang on because everything makes sense. You hang on because God is faithful.
1 Corinthians 1:9, “God is faithful, by whom ye were called unto the fellowship of his Son Jesus Christ our Lord.”
2 Timothy 2:13, “If we believe not, yet he abideth faithful: he cannot deny himself.”
I can look back over my life and see plenty of times I have wavered. Times I doubted, times I complained, times I made dumb choices. I cannot find one time where God broke a promise. Not one.
Your feelings will move. His word will not. Holding fast is not you being a hero, it is you refusing to let your shifting emotions outrank His steady character.
6. Consider and assemble with others
Hebrews 10 does not leave this as a private thing. Drawing near to God shows up in how you treat the people in your church.
Hebrews 10:24–25, “And let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works:
Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching.”
If you are close to God, you will start thinking about others. “Let us consider one another.” That means you pay attention. Who is hurting. Who is drifting. Who needs a push toward love and good works.
I have seen this on a normal Sunday. You walk in tired, maybe a little dry. Then you see a bus worker who came straight from a long route, still smiling. You shake hands with a widow who keeps showing up in faith. You hear a simple testimony. Before long, your own heart is stirred. You are provoked to love and good works, just by being around the right people.
That is one reason the idea that a Christian does not need church is nonsense. God commands, “Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together.”
You cannot obey this passage sitting at home on purpose. Yes, there are shut-ins and people who physically cannot come. God knows that. But for most of us, skipping church is not about health, it is about priorities.
The local church is where we exhort one another. Where we warn, encourage, and strengthen each other. I have walked into services feeling half empty and walked out helped because someone preached a Bible message, someone sang a hymn I needed, and someone simply said, “I am praying for you.” That does not happen on the couch with a screen.
The closer we get to the Lord’s return, the more we need this, not less. “So much the more, as ye see the day approaching.”
Drawing near to God is not a mystery.
• A true heart.
• Full assurance of faith.
• A conscience sprinkled clean by the blood.
• A life washed by the Word.
• A grip on His promises.
• A committed place among His people.
You cannot buy your way into His presence or work your way in by yourself. But if you come the way He laid out in Hebrews 10, you can live close to Him in the middle of work, problems, and life. That is where a Christian is meant to live.
