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TITLE: Draw Near to God and He Will Draw Near to You
By Durelle Rutledge
09/02/06
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Read James 4:1-8

Focus James 4:8

What exactly does it mean to "draw near to God?" When we think of drawing near to God, we often times think of reading the bible, saying our prayers and even thanking and praising Him. But, in all this do we consider opening ourselves and letting Him fill us up with Him?! That is what drawing near to Him means, allowing Him to permeate every crevice of our being, giving Him complete control and access to every part of our lives. It may be a little difficult at first, but the more we try, the more He will do it! And Him drawing near to us is evident. He is always around us. But Him "drawing near" to us is like taking medicine. You can have the medicine in your hand ready to take it but until you actually get it down inside of you, it can't do its work. God wants to draw near to us, to bless us with the big blessings He has waiting for us. Those bad habits that we just can't seem to break, those self changes that we can't make on our own, those family problems that we have tried hard to fix - but just won't go away, and so many other things in our lives can be healed by Him when we allow Him to draw near.

To cleanse our hands is a figurative phrase referring to the biblical ritual "washing of the hands" to clean them before and after certain actions are taken. Mostly the priests were required to perform this ritual before and after sacrifices. But for us today, it refers to those things in our life that we can stop doing that's wrong and start doing that's right. There are some things that we need God's help with to remove and some things we need His help with to start - but not everything is within these catagories. There are certain things that we have control over and we choose to do or not to do (as the case may be); that we can decide and act to make changes on our own. A few examples may be: removing someone from our life that we know shouldn't be there; or going to the club with friends; or witnessing to someone we know needs to hear a word from God; and there may be numerous other circumstances and situations that qualify in our lives. But only we know what those things are; on second thought - only we and God know what those things are. To "cleanse" our hands we need to "fix" the things we can and give the rest to the Lord.

Ok next, purifying our hearts because of being double-minded. Now notice, how our mind can affect our heart and vice versa. When we are double-minded, we cannot have a pure heart and when we have a pure heart, we cannot be double-minded. Now, some may wonder what is being double-minded? Well, let's use a previous example; say for instance you are still going to the club with your friends, or acting unsaved at work; both because of fear of persecution or being treated differently. But behind "closed doors" you pray, praise, study the Word and all kinds of righteous and godly things. This is called being a "Closet Christian". A Closet Christian is a perfect example of double-mindedness. When we are double-minded we cannot expect God to move in our life as He (and we) would like. Most of the time the things that cause us to be double-minded are things we need God's help with to change, those things we just can't seem to get right on our own. So in order to "purify our hearts", we need to lay before the Lord on them, rebuke them out of our lives, speak victory over them as though they are already done and then praise God for victory - even before we can see it! God bless and keep you in His perfect peace and may blessings abound in your life!
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