This is Meditation Moments. Know how I pray God’s blessing upon each one listening in, and we always pray that He will use something from the program to help you. Let’s have just a word of prayer about it.

Father God, there’s so many problems, and these who have written in, Lord, are looking to Thee for help. They are calling in their day of trouble and Thou hast promised to deliver them. We add our faith to theirs and ask Thee, Lord, that Thou wilt help. We pray, Lord, that thou wilt reveal Thyself in a very special way to these that are seeking Thee. We do ask thee for the salvation of souls. Oh God, quicken faith. We ask it all for Thy glory, in Jesus’ precious name. Amen.

You know, the other Sunday it was a beautiful Sunday morning, and some friends took me to a little white chapel at Knott's Berry Farm for the Sunday morning service. They sang the old hymns and the preacher gave a good plain Gospel message. It was all very good and helpful, but there wasn’t anything outstanding or striking about that part of the service.

But there was something very striking that happened there, and very few people noticed it, for only two or three perhaps recognized the slender, humbly quiet man that ushered the people to their seats. Yet he was a very famous man, a multimillionaire and the founder and owner of the famous Knott's Farm, for it was Walter Knott himself.

Just think, there he was, humbly ushering in the people in that tiny little frame church, each one to where they desired to sit. As I sat there through the service, I thought I’d like to know better this man, who with all his wealth and fame, just wants to be a doorkeeper in the house of the Lord! (Psalm 84:10) I had met him and talked with him a couple of times, but that’s not really knowing a person.

It takes time and close association to truly know and understand such a one. Now as I sat in the humble little frame chapel, waiting for the service to begin, I became conscious of the melody the organist was playing at that time. It was “I am Thine, O Lord,” and as the words of the old hymn formed in my mind, I said in my heart, “Lord, I want to know Thee better.”

Some are satisfied with a passing acquaintanceship, but they never know what Christianity is all about until they really know Thee in a closer walk.

Just a closer walk with Thee, dear Lord,
Blessed Jesus, let it be,
I’m satisfied as long as I walk,
Yes, I walk with Thee.

Adapted from “Just a Closer Walk with Thee,” author unknown

“Just a closer walk with thee.” That is what I want to talk to you about for a little while, is this “closer walk.” The secret of drawing closer, to know the Lord better is prayer and communion. It is getting in touch with the Lord through meditating on His Word.

We’ve said much in the past about prayer, but I want to give you a little secret about meditation that will surely bring you closer to the heart of God, if you want a closer walk with Him: When you take up your Bible, even before you open its pages, just humbly, sincerely—and it must be sincerely—ask God for help.

The words of your prayer can be very simple, such as, “Holy Spirit, reveal the things of Christ to me,” or “Holy Spirit, help me to get in touch with God right now. Illumine Thy Word, Lord.” It can all be very simple, but it has, as I say, to be sincere. It must be a cry from the heart, not listlessly, not half-heartedly, but a real hungering and thirsting.

So many people just pick up their Bibles and begin to read thoughtlessly. They never get much out of it because they haven’t asked the Lord to illumine His Word, asked the Holy Spirit to reveal the things of Christ.

Maybe you don’t feel any hunger for the Word or to have a closer walk, or for God to open to you His rich treasure. Well, if that’s the case, there ought to be a heart-searching, for at the root of this loss of spiritual appetite there is generally sin, or some failure or habitual weakness.

This must be faced and dragged out into the open and be repented of before God can open to you of His rich treasure in the Word of God. This is just repentance, and it is a foundation stone to blessing in meditation.

How can one commune with God with an evil heart? The Holy Spirit is waiting to bless and to comfort, and to reveal the things of Christ to you. But, oh, you have to ask with a sincere heart, and repent of any known sin.

That is why we’re asking that before you even open the Word, you bow your head and pray earnestly, sincerely, for God to reveal anything in your heart that will stand in the way of your having truth revealed to you from that Word.

This is why so many Christians read their Bibles and are no further along spiritually, or closer to the heart of God than when they began to read. You know, one of our great teachers made this statement: “I’m sure that the failure of many Christians to gain much from meditation arises far more often from their opening the Bibles too quickly than from shutting them too quickly.”

Yes, I think you can open your Bible too quickly. I think you have to set your heart right before God! And it’s the Holy Spirit that reveals the things of Christ to you, so you ask Him by His Holy Spirit to reveal that which you’re going to read, to reveal its deep riches to you.

So many try to exist spiritually on a few sips of the milk of the Word on a Sunday morning, and in some instances this is skim milk. But they never grow any morally or spiritually, any great spiritual sinew, because they don’t masticate and assimilate the meat of the Word. (Hebrews 5:12–14)

In order to get the meat of the Word, this is what you have to do: this that I’ve been talking to you about. But maybe you’re satisfied with your present passing acquaintanceship with the Lord Jesus Christ? And you have no great desire to draw nearer, to have the closer walk? If so, it’s because you don’t realize what’s in store for you in Christ Jesus.

Oh, you don’t know the joys, the benefits, the comforts, the peace and rest, or you’d want to know Him better; you’d want the closer walk. Words can’t describe the riches to be found in Jesus, and the closer the walk with Him, the greater the revelations of His power and glory and inheritance that you will have as a Christian!

While we were sitting in this little chapel, and I first went in while we were waiting for the service to begin, the organist was playing,

I am Thine, O Lord, I’ve heard Thy voice,
And it told Thy love for me;
But I long to rise in the arms of faith
And be closer drawn to Thee.

Draw me nearer, nearer, blessed Lord,
To the cross where Thou hast died,
Draw me nearer, nearer, nearer blessed Lord,
To Thy precious, bleeding side.

These are Fanny Crosby’s words, and you’ll notice that she has the secret of the very thing that I’m talking about: to know Him better. You rise on the arms of faith to be drawn closer. Then she says,

Consecrate me now to Thy service, Lord,
By the power of grace divine;
Let my soul look up with a steadfast hope,
And my will be drawn to Thine.

Oh, the pure delight of a single hour
That before Thy throne I spend,
When I kneel in prayer, and I with Thee, my God,
Commune as friend with friend!

Adapted from “Draw Me Nearer,” by Fanny Crosby, 1875

Beloved, I wish I had some new way of telling you what it would mean to come closer to the Lord Jesus Christ. He is come that ye might have life and have it more abundantly. (John 10:10) And so He wants you to draw closer. He wants you to have the things that He has to give. He wants to give you His best, and He longs that you shall have this peace and rest and joy.

He’s not holding it back from you; you’re holding back from coming closer to Him. He says, “My peace I give,” and He says, “Ask and receive, that your joy may be full.” (John 14:27, 16:24) He wants you to have all this fullness. He wants you closer.

He even desires that you may prosper. You read the first Psalm and you’ll find that. It tells of the righteous man, says all that he doeth shall prosper. (Psalm 1:3) He wants to give you a goodly supply of all these things.

Of course, the conditions have to be met. But not that you might satisfy the cravings of the human flesh, but that it may prove His love for you, He wants His children to have all this.

The rain and the sun fall upon the just and the unjust, manifesting God’s love even for the sinner. (Matthew 5:45) But as we’ve said to you so often, don’t you think He’ll save the best in all things for His very own? Don’t you think for His own children He’d have the best?

He wants you to draw closer to Him, then you’ll know the abundant life that He has offered, that He comes to give.—This life above the common, a life above the mediocre, a life above the ordinary. You’ll never know it by just a passing acquaintanceship with Him, never! As I say, you have to draw closer. “Draw me closer, closer, just a closer walk with Thee, dear Lord.”

He came to make all these promises real, and He wants to show you the reliability of every promise. If you’ve got a need today, He wants to supply that need; He says so. (Philippians 4:19) He promised to give you the desires of your heart if you delight yourself in Him. (Psalm 37:4)

Are you delighting yourself in Him? Or are you just satisfied with a couple of little verses from the Word just before you jump into bed at night? And you’re not really interested in getting the meat of the Word and truly drawing closer?

Well, “All things are possible to him that believes!” (Mark 9:23) That’s limitless, isn’t it? Don’t you believe He came for you also? That you’re included in this offer that He makes? Can’t your faith at this time become strong to take hold of this promise, for this closer walk, for the abundance that He promises?

Or is faith weak and wavering because you’re neglecting to draw closer, neglecting to read His Word as you should? His command is “Learn of Me”. That’s the way the faith grows strong. (Matthew 11:29)

He says in His Word, “They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength.” (Isaiah 40:31) Oh, beloved, in these strange and dangerous times in which we live, no other life is worthwhile but the abundant life that the Lord Jesus Christ is offering to you!

That’s what you’re hungering for. That’s all that will ever satisfy you! There’s a verse of scripture that says that He is the “satisfying portion.” Draw closer to Him, read your Word, meditate upon it.

God bless you and keep you through this day for His name’s sake. Amen.

This was a transcript of a Meditation Moments #46 broadcast. Read or listen to the next episode called Humility.