God Wants You Close

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Do you know that if you draw near to God, God will draw near to you?

Hello, I'm Clarence, I'm the preacher and I want to tell you more about drawing nearer to God, starting right now.

First, James tells us directly, "Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded.
James 4:8 (NKJV)

So how do we draw near to God? Well there are two answers I want to share with you.

First, we follow the map of the Word (Psalm 119:105).

We do not just magically feel our way to God by trusting our own heart (Prov 28:26 / Jer. 10:23).

We fundamental starting point is by seeking God through His revealed word.

James tells us the second half of the answer when he writes to cleanse our heart.

God is holy, 1 Peter 1:15-16, and He does not draw near to people that wallow in unholiness of drink iniquity like water. People that choose sin over God may claim to have God on their side, but God is not on their side, and they will find out the hard way on the judgment day.

So we all have progress we can still make. Our training did not stop when we became a Christian, that was just the beginning of our training. We start out as babes.

So, if you really want to draw near to God, and that is a question you should ponder first, do you really want to draw near to God, give up your agenda in favor of God's agenda. Are you looking for God to bless your personal agenda or do you really want to be on God's team and work his work?

If you are ready to practice Romans 12:1-2, then you start learning all you can about the spirituality that pleases God, which means 2 Tim 2:15.

Then you will purge out the old leaven. You will deliberately look for things in your life to improve. You will actually ask yourself, "What are some things I'm doing that I could do better?" Or, "What are some things I'm doing wrong, that I need to change?"

Don't think of this as a casual thing. We are talking about drawing near to God, the perfect, the infinite, the absolute holy, we must be serious, deadly serious if we want God to take us seriously. If we are not willing to die to the distractions of this world, then we have just discovered the first roadblock we need to conquer so that we can draw nearer to God.