Drawin close to God

James 4:7–10 NKJV

7 Therefore submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. 8 Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded. 9 Lament and mourn and weep! Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. 10 Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and He will lift you up.

Discipleship is a life style not a class.

I feel like I spend a lot of time as a pastor talking about discipleship.

one of the reasons is the ease at which we can used to doing spiritual things without being engaged spiritually.

I’ts easy to loose sight of Jesus.

we get involved in doing activities and loose heart in what we are doing.

most commonly we start looking at others, we start running the inventory of others with an out of wack idea of how we got here and a minimal idea of the severity of our own sin.

Isaiah 29:13 NKJV

13 Therefore the Lord said: “Inasmuch as these people draw near with their mouths And honor Me with their lips, But have removed their hearts far from Me, And their fear toward Me is taught by the commandment of men,

1. Discipleship is submitting to God.

James 4:7 NKJV

7 Therefore submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you.

as followers of Christ, we are to submit to God.

James 4:7 is often quoted in the B clause, in other words; Resist the devil and he will flee from you.

the power to flee doesn't come from resisting, rather it comes from a submission to both God’s will and way in our life.

2. Drawing near to God, cleanse your hands, purify your hearts you double minded.

James 4:8 NKJV

8 Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded.

Most of us try to kind of get ourselves together, then come near to God.

How do we draw near?

in our hearts and minds.

he will draw near to you.

then we can cleanse our hands

3. let us be repentant!

James 4:9 NKJV

9 Lament and mourn and weep! Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom.

We need to repent.

sometimes it takes time. ‘

to turn from the flesh to the spirit takes time.

when we come to the Lord in salvation. We do so for various reasons. some people feel an overwhelming love, others feel a sense of urgency, others feel as if their lives are out of control.

Matthew 3:8 NKJV

8 Therefore bear fruits worthy of repentance,

4. Promotion comes through Humility.

James 4:10 NKJV

10 Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and He will lift you up.

when we talk Humility, its important to mention that when we say humility we mean true humility.

this is humility that comes from right relationship with God, Not just because we know that humility in the religious world is the opposite of pride. By default we know that we should be humble.

HUMILITY comes from spending time from God.

this means that I am gifted for what I am gifted for and knowing fully that you are gifted for what you are gifted for.

their is room for us both; we are not in competition