James 4:8 Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded.
Today’s verse is better understood if you read it in the context in which it was written. Go back a few verses and get a feel for what is going on and what we are being told. You will see that this verse comes in a series of verses on repenting from the worldly desires and pursuits we may be engaging in and surrendering our will to God so that we are made right and can be in fellowship with Him.
We covered James 4:7 earlier in the month, as well as James 4:10, so you have already gotten a little bit of the message contained in this section of James. Today’s verse shows us how we enter into fellowship with God after submitting to His will and resisting the enemy.
James tells us to come near to God. We actively pursue Him and seek His face. How do we do that? We first of all surrender to Him, as we discussed when covering James 4:7. But James also gives us some more insights into how to do that in this verse. Wash your hands and purify your hearts. We need to recognize that we are sinners and need to be cleansed of those things that separate us from God. We cannot be double minded in our approach, though. We can’t live for God and still live a worldly lifestyle. We are in the world, but make every effort to not be OF the world. We must focus on Him first and foremost, denying ourselves of those earthly desires and practices, and seek Him and His ways. And this is best done through a series of actions – repentance, turning away from sin and choosing to live a righteous and holy life, surrounding ourselves with like-minded believers so that we can support one another, and being in the Word and communicating with God daily.
The result of our actions will be that God draws near to us in response. As we make efforts to draw near to Him, He draws near to us. He wants that relationship with us, but sin drives a wedge between us. Remove that wedge and seek Him and He will be found. He is there, waiting, ready to draw near to you. Choose to surrender those sins, those struggles, those things holding you back from entering into deeper fellowship with Him.
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