{"product_id":"thirtyone-days-of-drawing-near-to-god-isbn-9780307729446","title":"Thirty-One Days of Drawing Near to God","description":"\u003cb\u003eDraw near…\u003cbr\u003eHe’ll answer your deepest longings. \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eDo you enjoy the soul-satisfying intimacy with God you were created for? In this heartfelt devotional, beloved author Ruth Myers invites you to a personal, daily encounter with your first, last, and best love.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eEach brief but deeply satisfying reading explores the riches of God’s passion for you and your true identity as one in whom He delights. As you engage your heart with His, you’ll discover anew the joy of hearing Him speak to you individually, tenderly, in life-changing ways that will root you firmly in relationship with Him.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eExperience lavish love, astounding mercy—and an intimacy more satisfying than you’d ever imagined possible. Draw near to God, and He’ll draw near to you. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003eRuth Myers served alongside her husband, Warren, with The Navigators in Asia for nearly fifty years, teaching men and women how to experience God and His Word. Together they coauthored several books and devotionals, including the popular \u003ci\u003e31 Days of Praise\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003e31 Days of Prayer\u003c\/i\u003e.\u003c\/p\u003eWhen I was ten, God (and my mother) used a famous verse about His love to give me my first conscious experience of it. Four years earlier I had gone forward in an evangelistic meeting. The pastor had talked with me about the gospel and I prayed. Soon I was baptized and became a church member. But later on, all I could remember was my baptism.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI knew about the cross of Christ and about His resurrection, but I remembered no personal contact with God.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnd I didn’t know where I would go if I died. This worried me. So whenever our pastor began preaching on hell, I’d slip out of the service, pretending I needed to go to the rest room.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOne night my mother, sensing that something was troubling me, asked me about it. I didn’t really want to tell her about the struggle in my heart, for she thought I was a real Christian. But I admitted my fear concerning my eternal destiny.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn reply Mother did something so simple. She quoted a verse I’d known for as long as I could remember. But as she\u003cbr\u003espoke, the truth dawned in my heart and I believed: “God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that\u003cbr\u003ewhosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” That night I believed in Christ as my Savior,\u003cbr\u003eand my fear and guilt rolled away. That night, for the first time I remember, I felt God’s love. All this happened in an\u003cbr\u003einstant as Mother quoted John 3:16 (KJV). When she finished, I bowed my head and thanked the Lord that He had\u003cbr\u003egiven me eternal life.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“I ’LL DO ANYTHING”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhen I entered my teenage years, I didn’t know any Christian young people who, as far as I could tell, were really living the Christian life. I had one friend a few years older who loved the Lord, but she seemed rather old-maidish and I didn’t want to be like her. So I decided I wouldn’t follow the Lord closely.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBehind this decision were wrong ideas about God. I didn’t believe He wanted what was best for me. I was afraid that if I gave Him the controls, He would make me do things I didn’t want to do and I’d miss the best in life. In this time of rebellion I tried everything I dared, though sometimes the Holy Spirit blocked me. And I became more and more miserable.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFinally at age sixteen I agreed to attend a Christian conference. There I saw young people on fire for the Lord, and I received a lot of solid Bible teaching. One night I went outside under the trees and prayed, “Lord, I’ll do anything You want me to—even be a missionary,” which was the very worst thing I could think of.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eDuring the next few years God began to deepen my appreciation for His love through “The Love of God,” a song made famous by George Beverly Shea. This song describes God’s love as “greater far than tongue or pen can ever tell.” If the skies were a scroll and the oceans filled with ink, the song says, and if every stalk on earth were a writing quill, we still could never write in full this love God has for us. The skies could not contain it. The oceans of ink would run dry.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSinging those words I truly felt the love of God. I knew that He understands, that He cares, that He is compassionate. I needed this knowledge then, and I still need it every day. But I had not yet learned to let my roots go down deep into His love so that it was a constant influence in my life. I felt His love primarily when I was singing about it with others, but not when I was alone or when things went wrong.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAs the Lord worked within me, my desires for the future gradually made a U-turn. I found I wanted to become a missionary after all, and I began preparing for this. A favorite verse became Psalm 84:11: “No good thing will He withhold from those who walk uprightly” (NKJV). As I followed God, I was discovering He knew better than I did how to\u003cbr\u003esatisfy me. Life was getting better, though not necessarily easier.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMAJOR PURSUIT\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAfter I was graduated from high school, I set out for Northwestern Bible School and College in Minneapolis. There\u003cbr\u003ethe Lord did more new things in my heart. I’d been having daily devotions since I was sixteen. Often it was the last\u003cbr\u003ething I did at night, and I could hardly hold my eyes open. Nevertheless, I congratulated myself for being such a good\u003cbr\u003eChristian.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThen the Lord began speaking: “Ruth, that’s not the point at all. I want you to come to My Word because you\u003cbr\u003ewant to know Me.” The lesson was reinforced for me by the hymn “Break Thou the Bread of Life” in the lines that say,\u003cbr\u003e“Beyond the sacred page I seek thee, Lord; my spirit pants for thee, O Living Word.” I still wanted Him to teach me the principles I should know from the Bible, but I began going to Him more often with the prayer, “Lord, most of all I want to know You.” Since that request is in line with God’s will for His children, He answered it just as He promised in\u003cbr\u003e1 John 5:14-15.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThere was one fellow in school who, more than anyone else, seemed set upon knowing the Lord, and I greatly admired him. Stan had plenty of work and study responsibilities, and between those and his pursuit of the Lord, he didn’t have time for dating. Being a little beyond my reach made him all the more desirable. I learned that one of Stan’s favorite Scripture passages was from Philippians 3. I began to pray over it—and to cry over it, for I was learning that I had to get my heart needs met in my relationship with Jesus Christ and not anywhere else. The passage soon became a favorite of mine as well. Verses 8 and 10 in the Amplified Bible (condensed a bit) read,\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eI count everything as loss compared to the priceless\u003cbr\u003eprivilege—the surpassing worth and supreme advantage—\u003cbr\u003eof knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.… For His\u003cbr\u003esake I have lost everything and consider it all to be\u003cbr\u003emere rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ.…\u003cbr\u003e[For my determined purpose is] that I may know\u003cbr\u003eHim—that I may progressively become more deeply\u003cbr\u003eand intimately acquainted with Him, perceiving and\u003cbr\u003erecognizing and understanding [the wonders of His\u003cbr\u003ePerson] more strongly and more clearly.\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNothing else meant anything to Paul compared to the priceless privilege of knowing this vastly wonderful Person he had met. Back then I didn’t have the Amplified version but I did have Philippians 3:10 in the King James: “That I\u003cbr\u003emay know him.” I began to hear God say, “Ruth, this must be your major pursuit.” He used circumstances to drive me\u003cbr\u003eto my knees and to begin praying along this line. And, as a young single woman, I discovered that the Lord could and\u003cbr\u003edid meet my deepest longing if I let Him be my first love.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMy younger sister Mary eventually joined me at Northwestern, and we found a poem, the source of which is unknown,\u003cbr\u003ethat we often reflected on and used in prayer:\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003ePurge me, Lord, of my follies; an empty cup let me be,\u003cbr\u003eWaiting only Thy blessing, hungry only for Thee.\u003cbr\u003eCan even the Lord pour blessing into a cup that is full?\u003cbr\u003ePut treasure into a locked hand, be He ever so bountiful?\u003cbr\u003eEmpty me, Lord, and make me hungry only for Thee.\u003cbr\u003eOnly Thy bread once tasted can ever satisfy me.\u003c\/i\u003e","brand":"Multnomah","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46305291174117,"sku":"NP9780307729446","price":14.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780307729446.jpg?v=1767742461","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/products\/thirtyone-days-of-drawing-near-to-god-isbn-9780307729446","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}