35 Bible Verses about drawing near to God

Come close to God [with a contrite heart] and He will come close to you. Wash your hands, you sinners; and purify your [unfaithful] hearts, you double-minded [people].

Then God said to Moses, “Come up to the Lord, you and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu (Aaron’s older sons), and seventy of Israel’s elders, and you shall worship at a [safe] distance. Moses alone shall approach the Lord, but the others shall not come near, nor shall the people come up with him.”

The Lord came down on Mount Sinai, to the top of the mountain; and the Lord called Moses to the top of the mountain, and he went up. Then the Lord spoke to Moses, “Go down, warn the people, so that they do not break through [the barriers around the mountain] to the Lord to see [Me], and many of them perish [as a result]. Also have the priests who approach the Lord consecrate (sanctify, set apart) themselves [for My sacred purpose], or else the Lord will break forth [in judgment] against them [and destroy them].” read more.
Moses said to the Lord, “The people cannot come up to Mount Sinai, because You warned us, saying, ‘Set barriers around the mountain and consecrate it.’” Then the Lord said to him, “Go down and come up again, you and Aaron with you; but do not let the priests and the people break through [the barriers] to come up to the Lord, or He will break forth [in judgment] against them [and destroy them].”

Now all the people witnessed the thunder and the flashes of lightning and the sound of the trumpet and the smoking mountain; and as they looked, the people were afraid, and they trembled [and moved backward] and stood at a [safe] distance. Then they said to Moses, “You speak to us and we will listen, but do not let God speak to us or we will die.”

“Everyone who thirsts, come to the waters;
And you who have no money come, buy grain and eat.
Come, buy wine and milk
Without money and without cost [simply accept it as a gift from God].

“Why do you spend money for that which is not bread,
And your earnings for what does not satisfy?
Listen carefully to Me, and eat what is good,
And let your soul delight in abundance.

“Incline your ear [to listen] and come to Me;
Hear, so that your soul may live;
And I will make an everlasting covenant with you,
According to the faithful mercies [promised and] shown to David.

No man among the descendants of Aaron the priest who has a [physical] defect and is disfigured or deformed is to approach [the altar] to present the offerings of the Lord by fire. He has a defect; he shall not approach [the altar] to present the food of his God.

Seek the Lord while He may be found;
Call on Him [for salvation] while He is near.

Let the wicked leave (behind) his way
And the unrighteous man his thoughts;
And let him return to the Lord,
And He will have compassion (mercy) on him,
And to our God,
For He will abundantly pardon.

“The Lord spoke these words with a great voice to all your assembly at the mountain out of the midst of the fire, the cloud, and the thick darkness, and He added no more. He wrote these commandments on two tablets of stone and gave them to me. And when you heard the voice from the midst of the darkness, while the mountain was burning with fire, you approached me, all the leaders (heads) of your tribes and your elders; and you said, ‘Behold, the Lord our God has shown us His glory and His greatness, and we have heard His voice from the midst of the fire; we have seen today that God speaks with man, yet he [still] lives. read more.
Now then why should we die? For this great fire will consume us; if we hear the voice of the Lord our God any longer, then we will die. For who is there of all flesh (mankind) who has heard the voice of the living God speaking from the midst of the fire, as we have, and lived? You, Moses, go near and listen to everything that the Lord our God says; then speak to us everything that the Lord our God speaks to you, and we will listen and do it.’

Blessed is the one whom You choose and bring near
To dwell in Your courts.
We will be filled with the goodness of Your house,
Your holy temple.

She did not listen and heed the voice [of God];
She accepted no correction.
She did not trust in the Lord [but trusted her own power];
She did not draw near to her God [but to the pagan gods of Baal or Molech].

“But the Levitical priests, the sons of Zadok, who performed the duty of My sanctuary when the children (descendants) of Israel went astray from Me, shall come near to Me to minister to Me; and they shall stand before Me to offer to Me the fat and the blood,” declares the Lord God.

“In vain I have punished your people [with the consequences of their disobedience];
They received no insight from correction [and refused to change].
Your [own] sword has devoured your prophets
Like a destroying lion.

“O generation [that you are], consider and regard carefully the word of the Lord.
Have I been a wilderness to Israel [like a land without food],
A land of thick and deep darkness [like a path without light]?
Why do My people say, ‘We [have broken loose and we] are free to roam [at will];
We will no longer come to You’?

Now Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, took their respective [ceremonial] censers, put fire in them, placed incense on it and offered strange (unauthorized, unacceptable) fire before the Lord, [an act] which He had not commanded them to do. And fire came out from the presence of the Lord and devoured them, and they died before the Lord. Then Moses said to Aaron, “This is what the Lord said:

‘I will be treated as holy by those who approach Me,
And before all the people I will be honored.’”

So Aaron, therefore, said nothing.

“For there will be a day when the watchmen
On the hills of Ephraim cry out,
‘Arise, and let us go up to Zion,
To the Lord our God.’”

but the chamber which faces toward the north is for the priests who have the responsibility and take care of the altar. These are the sons of Zadok, who [alone] from the sons of Levi come near to the Lord to minister to Him.”

‘Their prince will be one of them,
And their ruler will come forward from among them.
I will bring him near and he shall approach Me,
For who is he who would have the boldness and would dare [on his own initiative] to risk his life to approach Me?’ says the Lord.

‘Then you shall be My people,
And I will be your God.’”

Then he (the angel) said to me, “The north chambers and the south chambers, which are opposite the separate area, are the holy chambers where the priests who are close to the Lord shall eat the most holy offerings. There they shall place the most holy things—the grain offering, the sin offering, and the guilt offering—for the place is holy.

For the sons of Israel will remain for many days without king or prince, without sacrifice or [idolatrous] pillar, and without ephod or teraphim (household idols). Afterward the sons of Israel will return [in deep repentance] and seek the Lord their God and [seek from the line of] David their king [the King of kings—the Messiah]; and they will come trembling to the Lord and to His goodness and blessing in the last days.

You shall give to the priests, the Levites who are from the descendants of Zadok, who are close to Me to minister to Me,’ says the Lord God, ‘a young bull for a sin offering [as a memorial to Christ’s sacrifice].

“For just as the new heavens and the new earth
Which I make will remain and endure before Me,” declares the Lord,
“So your offspring and your name will remain and endure.

“And it shall be that from New Moon to New Moon
And from Sabbath to Sabbath,
All mankind will come to bow down and worship before Me,” says the Lord.

It shall be the holy portion of the land; it shall be for the priests, the ministers of the sanctuary, who come near to minister to the Lord, and it shall be a place for their houses and a holy place for the sanctuary.

‘When the man with the discharge becomes cleansed from his discharge, he shall count off seven days for his purification; he shall then wash his clothes and bathe his body in running water and will become clean. On the eighth day he shall take two turtledoves or two young pigeons and come before the Lord to the doorway of the Tent of Meeting, and give them to the priest; and the priest shall offer them, one as a sin offering and the other as a burnt offering. So the priest shall make atonement for the man before the Lord because of his discharge.

The Lord is near to all who call on Him,
To all who call on Him in truth (without guile).

And it happened on the eighth day that Moses called Aaron and his sons and the elders of Israel; and he said to Aaron, “Take a bull calf as a sin offering and a ram as a burnt offering, [each] without blemish, and offer both before the Lord. Then say to the Israelites, ‘Take a male goat as a sin offering, and a calf and a lamb, both one year old, without blemish, as a burnt offering, read more.
and a bull and a ram as peace offerings to sacrifice before the Lord, and a grain offering mixed with [olive] oil, for today the Lord will appear to you.’” So they took what Moses had commanded to the front of the Tent of Meeting, and all the congregation approached and stood before the Lord.

“Return, O faithless sons,” [says the Lord],
“I will heal your unfaithfulness.”
[They answer] “Behold, we come to You,
For You are the Lord our God.

Ascribe to the Lord the glory of His name;
Bring an offering and come into His courts.

Therefore say to the Jews, ‘Thus says the Lord of hosts (armies), “Return to Me,” declares the Lord of hosts, “and I shall return to you.

Serve the Lord with gladness and delight;
Come before His presence with joyful singing.

Know and fully recognize with gratitude that the Lord Himself is God;
It is He who has made us, not we ourselves [and we are His].
We are His people and the sheep of His pasture.
Enter His gates with a song of thanksgiving
And His courts with praise.
Be thankful to Him, bless and praise His name.

“Yet from the days of your fathers you have turned away from My statutes and ordinances and have not kept them. Return to Me, and I will return to you,” says the Lord of hosts. “But you say, ‘How shall we return?’

With what shall I come before the Lord [to honor Him]
And bow myself before God on high?
Shall I come before Him with burnt offerings,
With yearling calves?

Will the Lord be delighted with thousands of rams,
Or with ten thousand rivers of oil?
Shall I present my firstborn for my acts of rebellion,
The fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?

He has told you, O man, what is good;
And what does the Lord require of you
Except to be just, and to love [and to diligently practice] kindness (compassion),
And to walk humbly with your God [setting aside any overblown sense of importance or self-righteousness]?

Therefore, believers, since we have confidence and full freedom to enter the Holy Place [the place where God dwells] by [means of] the blood of Jesus, by this new and living way which He initiated and opened for us through the veil [as in the Holy of Holies], that is, through His flesh, and since we have a great and wonderful Priest [Who rules] over the house of God, read more.
let us approach [God] with a true and sincere heart in unqualified assurance of faith, having had our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.

(for the Law never made anything perfect); while on the other hand a better hope is introduced through which we now continually draw near to God.

Now food will not commend us to God nor bring us close to Him; we are no worse off if we do not eat, nor are we better if we do eat.

Now if perfection [a perfect fellowship between God and the worshiper] had been attained through the Levitical priesthood (for under it the people were given the Law) what further need was there for another and different kind of priest to arise, one in the manner of Melchizedek, rather than one appointed to the order of Aaron? For when there is a change in the priesthood, there is of necessity a change of the law [concerning the priesthood] as well. For the One of whom these things are said belonged [not to the priestly line of Levi but] to another tribe, from which no one has officiated or served at the altar. read more.
For it is evident that our Lord descended from [the tribe of] Judah, and Moses mentioned nothing about priests in connection with that tribe. And this becomes even more evident if another priest arises in the likeness of Melchizedek, who has become a priest, not on the basis of a physical and legal requirement in the Law [concerning his ancestry as a descendant of Levi], but on the basis of the power of an indestructible and endless life. For it is attested [by God] of Him,

“You (Christ) are a Priest forever
According to the order of Melchizedek.” For, on the one hand, a former commandment is cancelled because of its weakness and uselessness [because of its inability to justify the sinner before God] (for the Law never made anything perfect); while on the other hand a better hope is introduced through which we now continually draw near to God.

For since the Law has only a shadow [just a pale representation] of the good things to come—not the very image of those things—it can never, by offering the same sacrifices continually year after year, make perfect those who approach [its altars]. For if it were otherwise, would not these sacrifices have stopped being offered? For the worshipers, having once [for all time] been cleansed, would no longer have a consciousness of sin. But [as it is] these [continual] sacrifices bring a fresh reminder of sins [to be atoned for] year after year, read more.
for it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins. Therefore, when Christ enters into the world, He says,

“Sacrifice and offering You have not desired,
But [instead] You have prepared a body for Me [to offer];

In burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin You have taken no delight.

“Then I said, ‘Behold, I have come
To do Your will, O God—
[To fulfill] what is written of Me in the scroll of the book.’” After saying [in the citation] above, “You have neither desired, nor have You taken delight in sacrifices and offerings and whole burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin” (which are offered according to the Law) then He said, “Behold, I have come to do Your will.” [And so] He does away with the first [covenant as a means of atoning for sin based on animal sacrifices] so that He may inaugurate and establish the second [covenant by means of obedience]. And in accordance with this will [of God] we [who believe in the message of salvation] have been sanctified [that is, set apart as holy for God and His purposes] through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ (the Messiah, the Anointed) once for all.