Getting Closer to God

James 4:8

Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you. Cleanse your hands, ye sinners; and purify your hearts, ye double minded.

The statement, Draw nigh to God, is not a suggestion, but a command. God commands the believer to draw nigh to Him. What does it mean to draw a nigh of God? It means we are to get closer to Him. This drawing nigh to God is not a one-time thing, but it is a daily life that we live trying to get closer to Him each day. Nobody will ever be as close to God as they should be because we are still sinners; however, we can get closer to God each day if we follow what His Word tells us to do to get closer to Him. Let me share several things this verse teaches on how to get closer to God.

First, you must have a desire to get closer to God. You will never get closer to God if there is no desire for it. What a sad commentary it would be for a believer that they did not want to get closer to God. God has done so much for us that the desire to get closer to Him should be our ultimate desire. I am afraid too many people have gotten their eyes on the world, which has diminished the desire to get closer to God. You will never get close to God until your greatest desire is to be close to Him.

Second, you will never get close to God until you take actions to get close to Him. Drawing nigh to God is an action. You can’t get close to God by sitting; you only get close to Him by doing the actions that bring you closer to Him. One reason so many believers are not close to God is because they do nothing in their walk with God. A walk with God is not inactive; it is an active one. In other words, if you are sitting and doing nothing, you cannot get close to God. You must ask yourself, what are you doing to truly get close to God? There must be some actions in your life that would bring you closer to Him if you are getting closer to God daily. You must become active in service to God if you are to get close to God.

Third, you must clean up your actions in your life to get close to God. The verse above says, Cleanse your hands… This is simply telling us to clean up our lives. Your hands are active; therefore, you must clean up your wrong actions. If you will get closer to God, you must stop doing the things that would pull you away from Him, and the moment you stop doing those things, that is the moment you start drawing closer to God.

Fourth, you must clean up your heart to get closer to God. Your heart does matter because out of it are the issues of life. Therefore, when you clean up your wrong actions, your heart will naturally grow closer to God. You clean up your heart by reading God's Word and praying daily. God's Word and prayer will always get the heart focused back on God, which will draw you closer to Him.

Fifth, you must get your mind focused solely on God. The way to have a mind focused on God is to get involved in reaching the lost for Christ. You cannot have a double mind that lives in the world and reaches the lost at the same time. When your mind is focused on serving God, reaching the lost will be a natural part of your life, drawing you closer to God. Always remember this: when you start going soul winning, you join Christ in his yoke, which brings you closer to Him and fulfills that initial desire you had to draw closer to God.