Mon.’s Devo- Draw Near

Read James 4:1-10

James opens up with this question: “Why is there fighting among you?” This is his answer: Your fighting stems from the lust in your flesh. You want and don’t get because your prayers are selfish. Your motives are strictly self-serving. He calls them adulterers and adulteresses because they have given their heart to the world when it belongs to God. To be a friend of the world is to be an enemy with God. You can’t mix them. So what do we do with our lustful hearts? We humble ourselves before God and ask for his grace. If we resist the devil, he has to flee. We forget that GREATER is he that is in us than he that is in the world. (1 John 4:4) We always have access to the throne of God and when we turn our hearts to God, he comes near. That is an incredible thing to ponder: God draws near to us when we draw near to him. We can have an audience with the king whenever we want. But there is a way we do this. We come with a pure heart and clean hands. In other words, we obtain his presence when we have repented of our sins and purified our hearts. We can’t come with our own opinion or with sin in our hearts. We are approaching a holy God so we must approach him humbly. I have noticed that the prayers that I have seen such miraculous answers in are ones that I prayed in complete humility, knowing that I could not not answer them. Only God could do it.

Lord, we humble ourselves in your presence and believe that you will lift us up and come to our rescue.