Problems? Draw Closer To God!

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)

 

We say we trust God but often fear that He won’t come through for us when we need Him most.  So, we falsely assume that if we keep thinking about the problem and worrying about it enough, somehow we can take care of it on our own - just in case God doesn’t show up and do something according to our timetable.  This brings us closer to our problems, but not to the One who can solve them!

 

But when we choose to believe that God is in control of our lives and is going to handle whatever situation we are in, we move closer to Him and our problems don’t seem so worrisome at all.  It works like this: the closer you get to the problem, the smaller God seems, and the closer you get to God, the smaller your problem seems.  The Bible says:  ⁵ Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding; ⁶ In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct your paths. (Proverbs 3:5-6).  Trusting God will keep you from reasoning and trying to figure out things you don’t have answers for yet.

 

Instead of listening to that nagging voice inside that says:  “What are you going to do?” draw closer to God and say “I’m going to trust God to show me what to do.  David declared:  ²⁶ My flesh and my heart fail; but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever. ²⁷ For indeed, those who are far from You shall perish; you have destroyed all those who desert You for harlotry. ²⁸ But it is good for me to draw near to God; I have put my trust in the Lord God, that I may declare all Your works. (Psalm 73:26-28).  Where is God when you need Him most?  Right beside you!

 

Read James 4 (entire chapter)

 

Pride Promotes Strife

 

¹ Where do wars and fights come from among you?  Do they not come from your desires for pleasure that war in your members? ² You lust and do not have.  You murder and covet and cannot obtain.  You fight and war.  Yet you do not have because you do not ask. ³ You ask and do not receive, because you ask amiss, that you may spend it on your pleasures. ⁴ Adulterers and adulteresses! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God?  Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. ⁵ Or do you think that the Scripture says in vain, “The Spirit who dwells in us yearns jealously”? ⁶ But He gives more grace.  Therefore He says: “God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble.”

 

Humility Cures Worldliness

 

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.

 

Do Not Judge a Brother

 

¹¹ Do not speak evil of one another, brethren.  He who speaks evil of a brother and judges his brother, speaks evil of the law and judges the law.  But if you judge the law, you are not a doer of the law but a judge. ¹² There is one Lawgiver, who is able to save and to destroy.  Who are you to judge another?

 

Do Not Boast About Tomorrow

 

¹³ Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city, spend a year there, buy and sell, and make a profit”; ¹⁴ whereas you do not know what will happen tomorrow.  For what is your life?  It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away. ¹⁵ Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we shall live and do this or that.” ¹⁶ But now you boast in your arrogance.  All such boasting is evil.  ¹⁷ Therefore, to him who knows to do good and does not do it, to him it is sin.