Take A Walk With God

Take a Walk with 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

How close are you to God? Are you as close as you want to be? For know that God is willing to get close to you if you are willing to get close to Him. When you take one step closer to God, you actually get two steps closer to God. James 4:8, "Draw near to God and He will draw near to you." That verse is both a precept and a promise. The precept is, you draw near to God; the promise is, God will draw near to you.

But we must understand why it is, in that order? Why doesn't God draw near to us so that we will then draw near to Him? Why must we draw near to God first? Jeremiah 29:13 says, "And you will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart." Why do we have to initiate the process? Why do we have to draw near to Him before He will draw near to us? 2 Chronicles 15:2b, “If you seek Him, He will be found by you; but if you forsake Him, He will forsake you.” And 1 Chronicles 28:9, “If you seek Him, He will be found by you; but if you forsake Him, He will cast you off forever.”

The answer can be found in an old story about a farmer and his wife who were driving to town in their pickup truck. The farmer was sitting behind the steering wheel in silence, and his wife was sitting on the other side of the car against the door. After several miles the wife said, "Joel, when we first got married we didn't sit this far apart." The old farmer replied, "I wasn’t the one that moved."

You see, because of our human nature and worldly desires, many of us have moved away from the glory of God. Today I would like to meditate on how we can develop a devotional life and connect with God through every moment of our life. He wants all of us to have "just a closer walk" with Him.

We can take a closer walk with God through a devotional life. Our lives have become tremendously busy. We wake up, drop our kids at school, work the entire day, and then take care of our kids the entire evening. We barely have time to ourselves. Many of us may forget to spend those quiet times with God each day. God is waiting on you to draw near to Him, and when you do, He will draw near to you. Genesis 5:24 says, “And Enoch walked with God; and he was not, for God took him”. But do not worry, for the way to walk closer to God is very simple.

I. Take Time for a Walk:

Look at the text again, "Draw near to God and He will draw near to you." This is not something you can do once in a lifetime. This is something you must be able to do every day. Don't assume that just because you belong to a Bible-believing church, that you are automatically near to God. We ought to consciously and constantly be drawing near to God on a daily basis. Many Christians are like a little boy who returned home from his very first day of kindergarten. His mother said, "Son, how did you like school today?" The little boy thought for a moment and said, "It was fine, but it's not something you want to do every day."

As we meditate on our lesson today, I hope all of you are motivated to take one step higher, and go one step closer in our walk with God. If not now, I hope sometime in the future, spending time with God will be something you do everyday. If you are going to walk with God, you must make time for God. I want to warn you that there is nothing that the devil hates more than to see you make time for God. There was once a motto framed on a wall saying:

Dear Christian,

When you're faced with a busy day, save precious time by skipping your devotions.

Sincerely,

Satan

God said Satan is a liar and a thief. He will lie to you and tell you that you don't have time for God; then he'll try to steal time away from you. One of his greatest weapons is television and social media. The satire poem hilariously expressed how TV can steal away time you could give to God. It is entitled "The Twenty-third Channel."

“The TV set is my shepherd, my spiritual growth shall want. It makes me sit down and do nothing for His name sake, because it requires all my spare time. It keeps me from doing my duty as a Christian, because it presents so many good shows that I must see.”