Emphasis Preaching Journal

Sometimes when I hear people speak of their faith and their relationship to God, I get the idea that they think that the more they distance themselves from the world, the closer they are to God. It is as if they think that God wants them to be pure and untainted from his world in order to come into his presence. I am reminded of a phrase from the great black preacher, Howard Thurman, when he spoke of a man who came into the presence of God with the smell of life on him.